Assignment 3



[Name of the Instructor]

[Date of Submission]

Assignment Three

Casinos of Harrah's hotel and Casino Las Vegas

Answer Question 1

One of the important way in which a company can create switching costs and lock-in its customers is with the help of information technology. In the gaming industry, a leadership position is being held by Harrah with the help of its strategy.

In terms of information technology, as compared to other companies that put their money into display, Harrah chose to put most of the money of the winners who uses its casinos in the information network (WINet), a linkage that is considered as the first national customer database (Levinson, 2001). This system enables Harrah's casinos to claim of having an integrated, coast-to-coast system that serve as a platform for real time communication between all its properties. Below is a diagram that shows the architecture of WINet.

Harrah because of being first mover in the program of point collection make it hard for customers to change their mind towards the competitor because customers do not want to lose the points that are earned by them. Some important aspects in which Harrah has utilized IT to create switching costs are highlighted in the points below:

In all casino branches, card readers in every slot machine have been implemented.

Total reward cards enable the company to collect data about customers.

Software with the name of COGNOS impromptu is used that provide database for analysis and result presentation. In addition to it, with the help of SAS tool-Data mining software, Harrah performs the task of customer market segmentation (Watson & Volonino, 2003).

With the help of the data base, information is tracked by Harrah about the company's customers, including their age, gender, favorite games, playing time, total points etc. (Watson & Volonino, 2003).

According to Levinson ( 2001), before the developmment of WINet, there was no difference between Harrah and other casinos. The establishmnet of a single nationwide databasemake Harrah's casinos all over the country integrated with each other, providing the customer with a play card that will be valid at all casino branches.

Answer Question 2

The customer loyalty program initiated by Harrah in year 1997 is famous with the name of Total Gold loyalty Program. Recognition cards were used by all the gaming players in order to boost customer loyalty. However, a step forward was taken by Harrah by making attempt to not only identify its best and most loyal customers, but to also reward them in a manner that is not adopted by any other casino.

So, the corner stone of the growth strategy of Harrah is its Total Reward Program, which is an IT -powered loyalty program. Through this program, the casino play of the customers is tracked and powerful incentives are then offered to them so as to associate their gambling with Harrah. Cross-market play has been leveraged with the help of Total Rewards Program. At the time a loyalty card is swiped by customer, they become eligible to win number of other benefits too such as appetizers, ...