Reflection on Harrah’s Case

Reflection on Harrah’s Case

 

On Tue Apr 15, consultants from “Four Experts” presented their suggestions regarding Harrah’s new Business Strategy and marketing focus. They explained the challenge Harrah’s was facing and what the executive management decided to overcome that challenge.

The consultants did a good job in presenting the current situation, what are available resources, what the target is and how it should be achieved. It was clear from their presentation that Harrah’s main objective is to focus on improving Customer Relations.  In order to do this, they suggested a targeted marketing approach. This approach required development of a new IT system to collect customer information from all locations, combine it and analyze and process it collectively and produce marketing reports.

The “Four Experts” highlighted three-prong business strategy. They suggested Harrah’s should focus on improving Customer Relationships, enhance Closed-loop Marketing and expand Total Rewards. They thoroughly explained each of the three goals. To improve Customer Relationships, they stated that Harrah’s should categorize high worth, VIP customers and provide white-glove services to them. It should also target non-gamer clients as well. Customer data should also be stored centrally so that any of Harrah’s casinos should be able to access it on demand.

Customer Service has always been the focus for Harrah’s ever since its inception and should continue to be the main objective of the company. There are 28 major brands of casinos at the Las Vegas strip alone. Each of them offers somewhat similar games and services. What differentiates Harrah’s from the competition is its customer service. I disagree with consultants’ suggestion that customers should be categorized. It may be deemed ethically wrong to differentiate between the high profile and regular customers. I think each customer should be treated as the most important customer regardless of how many games s/he plays or how much business s/he brings. When each customer gets the best services, s/he will feel special and would always want to return to a Harrah’s casino in future.

The consultants also presented another important marketing tactic and that is to introduce Total Rewards program. In the Total Rewards program, Harrah’s would focus on ‘low-rollers’ and non-gamers and add low-bet slot machines to introduce them to the gambling world. Once they start playing, they will most likely continue enjoying the games and move on to bigger games.

I was mostly impressed with their presentation, however, I think slide 18 had little relevance to the topic and they may have put a better image on slide 21. In short I agree mostly with their suggestions. If I were presenting to C-Level team, I would follow the same agenda except that I would move the Business Strategy after the Target Projects. I would first explain the current situation, what challenges Harrah’s is facing right now, what its goal is and which strategy it should adopt in order to achieve that goal.