Dear Board of Directors,

         Our past meeting with the IT consultants has been a pleasant enrichment experience; as our company looks forward to continue in growing and expanding our clientele.

         Unfortunately, I won’t be able to participate in our next meeting this coming Tuesday. As our company approaches one of our biggest challenges to retain our customer market share and continue expanding. For this reason, I am committed to contribute my personal view of our company and what I believe we should focus and learn from our IT consultants.

        Our IT consultants clearly understand our challenges and our advantages against our competitors. We have learned and disrupted our business model by using closed loop marketing. As we continue to grow we might face new challenges to retain our customers. New threats for competition may arise as businesses learn from our business model that infrastructure investments are not as profitable as closed loop marketing investments and IT software investments.

         Our IT consultants have recommended a suitable re-designed website that connects our card rewards programs to our customers. Here customers will be able to manage and choose their best deals as we continue to learn from them what they like to continue inducing them to play more with us. Our IT consultants clearly understand our objectives which are increasing revenues by giving customers more reasons to play at Harrah’s.

         In addition, the IT consultants have recommended us to opt for the Online Gambling industry. They have shown us that although online-gambling is not allowed in the U.S. it is one of the fastest and growing business in the world. As this approach is new to our company some questions have aroused from this recommendation. As Harrah’s wouldn’t be able to benefit our U.S. stockholder’s from online-gambling due to illegalness in the U.S., Will Harrah’s operate internationally under another entity? Questions of maintaining Harrah’s culture and reputation have also been brought up in our last meeting. Our separate entities will allow us to gain new international market and use projected profits for future infrastructure investments.

         In conclusion, although our competitors possess with larger amounts of capital investments. Harrah’s has a main competitive advantage among our major competitors; the advantage of experience on what customers like/prefer. This advantage will enable us to continue improving our home-base customer retention by enhancing our IT software with newer investments. While also continuing disrupting our business model internationally by looking new industries such as online-gambling.

Harrah's Reflection

Dear Board of Directors,

                Our past meeting with the IT consultants have been a pleasant enrichment experience; as our company looks forward to continue in growing and expanding our clientele.

                Unfortunately, I won’t be able to participate in our next meeting this coming Tuesday. As our company approaches one of our biggest challenges to retain our customer market share and continue expanding. For this reason, I am committed to contribute my personal view of our company and what I believe we should focus and learn from our IT consultants.

                Our IT consultants clearly understand our challenges and our advantages against our competitors. We have learned and disrupted our business model by using closed loop marketing. As we continue to grow we might face new challenges to retain our customers. New threats for competition may arise as businesses learn from our business model that infrastructure investments are not as profitable as closed loop marketing investments and IT software investments. 

Our IT consultants have recommended a suitable re-designed website that connects our card rewards programs to our customers. Here customers will be able to manage and choose their best deals as we continue to learn from them what they like to continue inducing them to play more with us. Our IT consultants clearly understand our objectives which are increasing revenues by giving customers more reasons to play at Harrah’s.

In addition, the IT consultants have recommended us to opt for the Online Gambling industry. They have shown us that although online-gambling is not allowed in the U.S. it is one of the fastest and growing business in the world. As this approach is new to our company some questions have aroused from this recommendation. As Harrah’s wouldn’t be able to benefit our U.S. stockholder’s from online-gambling due to illegalness in the U.S. Will Harrah’s operate internationally under another entity? Questions of maintaining Harrah’s culture and reputation have also been brought up in our last meeting. Our separate entities will allow us to gain new international market and use projected profits for future infrastructure investments.

In conclusion, although our competitors possess with larger amounts of capital investments.   Harrah’s has a main competitive advantage among our major competitors; the advantage of experience on what customers like/prefer. This advantage will enable us to continue improving our home-base customer retention by enhancing our IT software with newer investments. While also continuing disrupting our business model internationally by looking new industries such as online-gambling. 

Harrah's preparation case

Lessons learned:

In order to execute their business strategy Harrah’s needed to invest in Information Technology that was required to integrate data from a variety of sources

o   Patron database

o   Marketing workbench

· Harrah needed to understand critical concepts such as understanding and managing relationships with their customers

o   Where customer gambled

o   How often customer gambled

o   How much customers gambled

o   What games customers played

·         Understand other business strategies investments and costs experiences

o   Analyze Las Vegas hotels and casinos that invested a lot of money and resulted on great costs that cut their investments returns in half

o   Obtain a more cost-effective route to attract, maintain, and enhance customer relationships.

·         Building stronger customer experience by using marketing and business strategies

o   Loyalty cards or reward credits

§  Tracking of expenditure

§  Customer behavior and preference

o   Data warehouse

o   Closed loop marketing  

Actionable items in future project in reference to lessons learned

Executing learned business strategy to continue expanding.

Having learned customer’s behaviors and likes Harrah’s won’t need to spend much in investments in order to learn customer’s preferences. This will allow Harrah to focus on other types of investments such as enhancing software and technology infrastructure in their business. This action will allow them to focus much more on their retention level while achieving a strong growth expansion.

·         Harrah’s experience on rewards card should bring it to the next level and find out better ways to attract new customers in different areas to continue their expansion.

·         Harrah has gained a lot of experience from reducing costs and increasing profitability for the company. Harrah can use this knowledge to enhance their data warehouse and loop marketing strategy.

Recommendation

·         Harrah should invest more money on IT finding new ways of interacting with clients. Ex: implement mobile apps to see rewards points, redemption offers, or special targeted offers for those who can be high potential customer. Features in apps could include:

o   Variety of visual options for hotel rooms, shows or entertainment options for them

o   Could easily access through their app and hit accept offer

o   Develop new technology that links apps with games inside the casinos

§  Devices could easily scan the machines where they would play and avoid carrying cards

Harrah should maintain their competitive advantage on customer retention and fast expansion. They would be to accomplish this goal by investing in new ways to interact with customer and continue building stronger relationships.