Digital Innovation and Transformation
Course Number 2134
28 Sessions
Paper/Project
Qualifies for Management Science Track Credit
Career Focus
Digital Innovation and Transformation is designed to equip students to confidently help conceive, lead, and execute digital innovation initiatives and develop new business models for existing and insurgent organizations. The digital revolution is rapidly transforming the fundamental nature of many companies in various industries. Executives, entrepreneurs, and general managers must understand the economics, technology paradigms, and management practices of innovating in digital-centric businesses to ensure corporate and personal success. The course is intended for students pursuing business careers in which digital technologies will be critical to developing new products and services, e.g., entrepreneurial start-ups, consulting and venture capital, and senior positions in marketing, R&D, and strategy. Visits by case protagonists and industry experts will enable students to understand the career options in this rapidly evolving space.
Educational Objectives
Today firms are establishing market leadership by mastering digital innovation. The principal objective of the course is to expose students to various frontier business processes exploiting big data, AI, platforms, and the basic tools of digital technology. For example, traditional dentistry has begun to change the diagnostics of x-rays by adopting AI-enabled tools. What business processes and architectural features must change to use AI at scale? How does an entrepreneurial effort to automate diagnostics scale its processes for AI? Related, large data can support and encourage testing and experiments at a massive scale to support novel organizational initiatives. There are examples of digitally-enabled experiments in far-flung areas of the economy, such as entertainment, travel, and biotechnology. What must firms do? How do they build infrastructure to enable fast deployment, archive lessons, and coordinate employees? Many new businesses realize their future by using platform models that facilitate partnerships. What can management do to encourage trust among participants in a platform? How do platform designers create and support processes that automate the personalization for a large community of manufacturers and graphic designers? Fremium models first grow large communities of users and generate revenue later. What about a fremium model for AI services? With most of it substantially aimed at business usage? In practice? These are some of the issues we confront and discuss.
The course introduces you to the critical elements of designing and developing digital products and services, how these can be configured and led, and how the results are managed. These elements include economic and technological principles underlying digital transformation, identifying and integrating diverse user needs, organizing and leading product and service innovation initiatives, and harnessing crowdsourcing and distributed innovation networks. Why does one size of strategic approach not fit all settings, and where do leading firms experiment most?
Course Content
The course materials intentionally cut across functional boundaries, focusing squarely on the managerial skills and capabilities needed for effective practice. So while many situations you encounter emphasize the role of (new) technology, you will approach these as a manager rather than a technologist. However, the managerial perspective will be enriching if you are a technologist! But it's important to note that this managerial perspective is not undifferentiated. Depending on the situation, you will be assuming the role of team manager, project manager, marketing executive, CTO and CIO, general manager, or CEO. This array of roles suggests how fundamental digital innovation is to firms at every level and how excellence in its management is critical to competitiveness.
Specifically, the course will help you learn:
- The economic and technological factors that are at the heart of the digital revolution taking place in the economy;
- The clash between existing business models and new digitally enhanced and led business models emphasizing platforms and ecosystems;
- The competitive interactions among firms with different digital business platforms;
- How to best organize and lead product and service innovation initiatives in the digital space;
- The principles and practices of leveraging AI for innovation and how various AI technologies are executed.
Grading
Grading will be based on class participation and blog posts. Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.