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24. Whitbread

• Head of IT: Andrew Brothers, IS & Change Director
• Industry: Leisure and entertainment
• Website: www.whitbread.co.uk

Whitbread’s Costa Coffee chain is the second largest global coffee chain in the world and the Whitbread owned Premier Inn hotel chain now has 580 hotels and 40,000 rooms across the UK. Premier Inn is the largest brand in the Whitbread family, which also includes Beefeater, Brewers Fayre and Taybarns outlets. The London Stock Exchange listed company is based in Dunstable, Bedfordshire.

IT Leader: Andrew Brothers, Information systems and change director
In role since: Been with the company six years, two years in current position
Reporting line: Reports to managing director of Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants
Board level seat: Sits on management board of WHR (Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants)  
IT estate and or number of log on accounts under the control of the IT leader: 30,000 plus users
Level of the workforce that relies on technology to carry out their tasks: 100 per cent
IT staff currently employed: 51
IT management team and reporting structure:  Head of customer and applications who looks after front and back of house applications. Head of infrastructure and service delivery that looks after network that keep systems infrastructure running. Head of international systems responsible for systems in the international business, Head of Costa systems, Head of finance and compliance, Head of IS Procurement .
Primary technology platforms at the organisation: Use ERP from Oracle for hotels and restaurants for finance and supply chain.  Microsoft Navision for Costa management of finance and supply chain.
Primary technology suppliers:  CSC, SERCO, Fujitsu, Microsoft, Torex
Significant strategic technology deals been struck in the last 12 months: Fujitsu network contract renewal
Strategic aim of the CIO and IT operations for the next financial year: Key areas:
Deliver stable systems services to outlets and support centres.
Making sure in everything we do we put the customer first
Making sure that team members have the tools to do their job properly
Continue to simplify systems and processes
Technologies considered by the leader to offer their organisation potential:
Increasing use of cloud services; unified communications and data networks.
How do you see technology transforming your organisation in the near future? Improve  the guest journey and interaction with guests using all mobile channels.
Enable team members to access voice and data wherever their location and whatever their chosen device is. That way the member of staff can become device agnostic, and enable them to get information and interact at the point of need.

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