Strategy and Disruption

Catalog description

This course covers the fundamentals of business and corporate strategy in the context of disruptive technologies and business models. Students will learn what drives changes in the number of players in a market and/or the identity of the leaders. Value chain analysis illustrates how the returns to innovation are shared among players in the industry, thereby guiding how industry partners can jointly create value. Students learn a common product management technique for value creation and how it can also be adapted to evaluate make or buy decisions, mergers, acquisitions and partnerships. The course also discusses the challenges of managing a multi-business firm, the potential for divestiture and organizational approaches for innovating across multiple markets. Finally, the practicalities of value creation and capture for disruptive technologies are introduced and linked to market outcomes. Cases and examples include technologies such as automation, batteries, carbon fiber, communications, digitization and platforms so as to yield insights for students to evaluate how generative AI or other emerging and future technologies might change different industries.