Mitchells & Butlers
"We needed an email system which would work across
all of our brands” Martyn Eddins, IT Service Manager at
Mitchells & Butlers.
Mitchells &
Butlers runs many of the UK’s leading restaurant and pub brands
including Vintage Inns, Toby Carvery, Crown Carveries, Harvester,
Sizzling Pub Co., O’Neill’s, All Bar One and Premium Country Dining
Group, as well as some of the most famous individual pubs in
Britain including the White Horse in Parson’s Green, London and
Deacon Brodie’s Tavern in Edinburgh.
The company has always been pioneers in the pub industry and
grew gradually until it was running 7,000 pubs in the 1980s. The
landmark Beer Orders in 1989 changed everything, but since then
they have evolved rapidly with innovative brands like All Bar One,
Browns and O’Neill’s responding to the mood of the times. Back in
the 1980s beer was by far Mitchells & Butlers’ biggest seller,
but nowadays, 47% of sales come from food. In fact, the company now
serves around 125 million meals a year, as well as some 435 million
drinks.
From timeless London pubs to cutting edge city centre
brasseries, from Liverpool’s grand Philharmonic Dining Rooms to the
Horseshoe Bar in Glasgow, Mitchells & Butlers owns and operates
a rich array of restaurants and pubs that reflect all the diversity
and history you’d expect from a company well into its second
century.
|
1898 |
Two Midlands brewing and pub empires merge to form Mitchells
& Butlers. |
1960s
|
The company merges with Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton Ltd then
Charrington United, before becoming Bass PLC. |
|
1980s |
Bass runs 7,000 pubs all over the UK, with beer by far its
biggest seller. The business splits into separate brewing and
retailing divisions called Bass Brewers and Bass Taverns. |
|
1990s |
As tastes change, food becomes central to the company’s sales.
The first O’Neill’s opens in Aberdeen and the first All Bar One in
Surrey. The Company acquires Harvester, Browns and 550 pubs from
Punch, as Mitchells & Butlers grows dramatically. |
|
2000s |
Bass PLC becomes Six Continents PLC. Three years later, the pub
division lists separately to become Mitchells & Butlers once
again. It pursues a strategy of operating large, food-led
businesses, acquiring 239 pub restaurants from Whitbread PLC and
exchanging 44 pub restaurants for 21 Express by Holiday Inn
lodges. |
|
2010 |
The disposal of 333 Town and Community pubs to Stonegate Pub
Company is announced. This is quickly followed by the purchase of
22 Ha Ha Bar & Grill businesses, which paves the way for more
conversions to the hugely successful All Bar One and Browns brands.
Mitchells & Butlers is now the leading restaurant and pub
company in the UK. |
The Challenge
Mitchells & Butlers identified a requirement to provide all
of their businesses with a guest email system, so that their
customers had an easy way of getting in contact with the relevant
establishment to book tables and enquire about opening times for
example.
There were a number of bespoke requirements that had to be met,
such as changing the user’s interface and limiting access only to
certain locations, as well as a short timeframe of 20 days in which
to get the project completed and delivered.
Due to the complexity of upgrading their current email system
and to have the guest email solution quickly available, Mitchells
& Butlers IT department were given the go-ahead to select a
third party outsourced email provider.
“We considered a number of global leading hosted email
brands, including Cobweb’s Hosted Exchange. Ultimately it was our
feeling that Cobweb was the preferred provider who could deliver
against our technical requirements” said Martyn Eddins, IT
Services Manager at Mitchells & Butlers.
The Solution
Mitchells & Butlers looked at a number of options with
market leading cloud based email hosting companies. After engaging
with the options available to them it was felt that most did not
have the flexibility that was needed to deliver on Mitchells &
Butlers customised requirements. Cobweb Solutions were chosen as
the preferred Cloud Services Provider as there were a number of
suppliers able to deliver the service but Cobweb were more flexible
by customising their solution to match Mitchells & Butlers
specific security and interface configuration requirements.
“Cobweb provided us with a totally flexible and scalable
solution in a timely manner” said Martyn Eddins, IT Service
Manager at Mitchells & Butlers.
Mitchells & Butlers have subscribed to a customised delivery
of Cobweb’s Hosted Exchange service, which fits their individual
business needs perfectly. The service includes MessageLabs
Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus protection, 24/7 UK based support and all
future upgrades included free of charge.
Adopting Cobweb’s Hosted Exchange service allows Mitchells &
Butlers to quickly roll out a reliable and secure guest email
service to all of its future restaurant and pubs, regardless of
location.
“The Cobweb approach has allowed us to deliver a
cost-effective, yet tailored email service to all outlets without
any large upfront expenditure” said Martyn Eddins, IT Service
Manager at Mitchells & Butlers.
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