1) What is this case all about?
By the mid-1990s competitors had entered the gambling market with better and fleshlier properties. The Mirage in Las Vegas had set a new standard and began to spawn imitators and Harrah’s was facing the formidable task of growing the business in a limited market. Philip Satre joined Harrah’s as CEO realized that the people strategy helped the company initially was no sufficient to grow patronage and play at existing casinos. Harrah’s knew it had to come up with a new strategy to survive. The company, being an old player, could not replicate the kind of highly themed environments that were sprucing up in Las Vegas and other parts of the US. Against this Stare decided that they focused on the customer loyalty and tried to be an industry leader based on that skill. Harrah’s realized early on that sustained competitive advantage will only come from a rigorous customer focus and nothing else.
The principal anomaly around which they organized everything else was that for customers who visited Harrah’s once a year or more, the Harrah’s got 36 cents out of their gaming dollar. This fact was derived from the lack of effective marketing. The company had excellent technology and great operations, but did not have the marketing horsepower. The company had to move from an operations-driven company that viewed each property as a “standalone business” to a marketing –driven company with focus on target customers and what it took to build their loyalty to Harrah’s brand. The main goal was to increase customer loyalty in a variety of ways, and it was supported by a lot of other marketing interventions.
To achieve this goal the company four major initiatives: changing the organization structure, building the Harrah’s brand, delivering extraordinary service, and exploiting relationship marketing opportunities.
The most important initiative was to