London – 1 February 2010 – Hitachi Consulting UK today announced the successful migration and consolidation of the corporate Management Information Systems (MIS) for Whitbread PLC. Hitachi Consulting created a 1.5 terabyte Data Warehouse using Oracle Warehouse Builder, transforming analysis and reporting capabilities across its hotel and restaurant businesses by providing better business insight, sales and margin analysis and strategic planning, which delivered a six-figure return on investment over 12 months.

Whitbread is the UK's largest hotel and restaurant company operating market-leading businesses in the budget hotels and restaurant sectors. Its brands include Premier Inn, Beefeater, Table Table, Brewers Fayre, Taybarns and Costa Coffee. The group employs more than 33,000 people and serves 9 million customers every month in its 1,800 outlets across the UK.

The Data Warehouse delivers a single customer view of business performance of key data across its hotel and restaurant businesses, which accounts for 90 percent of group revenue. As a result of the successful rollout, Hitachi Consulting is currently embarking on a similar project for Costa Coffee, the largest and fastest growing coffee shop chain in the UK.

“In my opinion, Hitachi Consulting is one of the few organisations I met that had what I could see as true experts in the MIS arena, which is why we selected them to design, migrate, implement and manage our MIS consolidation,” said Andrew Brothers, Information Systems and Change Director for Whitbread. ”Hitachi Consulting absolutely gets it. They’re very business focused first and foremost, and provided us with pragmatic solutions within our budget constraints. They’re extremely skilled and know a lot about Oracle, in particular. They have a very good way of recruiting people who seem to be the best at what they do, which is why we’re continuing to work with them on additional engagements in other areas of our business.”

Hitachi Consulting created a 1.5 terabyte Data Warehouse, comprising more than 1.5 billion rows of data across the company’s hotel business, restaurant business, its Commercial Division, as well as its Labour and HR Division. The system was built using Oracle Warehouse Builder, Oracle 10g database, and Oracle Business Intelligence. The solution enables Whitbread to analyse data and KPIs in multiple ways by manipulating data more effectively and providing better reporting at the executive level across the group.

More than 600 reports are now generated every week and remotely accessed by more than 400 users, providing more accurate data and better insight into business performance. In addition to planning and implementing the data consolidation, Hitachi Consulting is also providing ongoing service management for Whitbread. The scoping exercise to transform the MIS systems for Costa Coffee is currently in its initial stages and is expected to rollout in 2010.

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About Hitachi Consulting Corporation
As Hitachi, Ltd.'s (NYSE: HIT) global consulting company, with operations in the United States, Europe and Asia, Hitachi Consulting is a recognized leader in delivering proven business and IT strategies and solutions to Global 2000 companies across many industries. With a balanced view of strategy, people, process and technology, we work with companies to understand their unique business needs, and to develop and implement practical business strategies and technology solutions. From business strategy development through application deployment, our consultants are committed to helping clients quickly realize measurable business value and achieve sustainable ROI.
Hitachi Consulting's client base includes 25 percent of the Global 100 as well as many leading mid-market companies. We offer a client-focused, collaborative approach and transfer knowledge throughout each engagement.
For more information visit www.hitachiconsulting.com
 
About Hitachi, Ltd.
Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 400,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2008 (ended March 31, 2009) consolidated revenues totaled 10,000 billion yen ($102.0 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials, logistics and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com

About Whitbread PLC
Whitbread PLC is the UK's largest hotel and restaurant group operating market-leading businesses in the budget hotels and restaurant sectors. Its well-loved brands are Premier Inn, Beefeater, Table Table, Brewers Fayre, Taybarns and Costa Coffee.
Whitbread PLC employs over 33,000 people and serves 9 million customers every month in its 1,800 outlets across the UK.
In the financial year ended 26th February 2009, Whitbread PLC reported a 9.7% increase in Group Revenue to £1334.6 million and 12% increase in Underlying Pre-tax Profit to £228.2 million.
Whitbread PLC is listed on the London Stock Exchange. It is also a member of the FTSE4Good Index.

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For further information, please contact:
Vanessa Land
Devonshire Marketing
Tel: 0870 242 7469
Email: vanessa[at]devonshiremarketing[dot]com

Distributed on behalf of Hitachi Consulting by NeonDrum (http://www.neondrum.com)
Nicky Denovan
Tel: +44 7747 017654
nicky[at]neondrum[dot]com