Managing Networked Businesses: Course Overview for Educators

Thomas R. Eisenmann

Course Overview Note | December 2006 (Revised October 2007)

Managing Networked Businesses: Course Overview for Educators

Abstract

Provides an overview for educators of concepts covered in the MBA elective course, "Managing Networked Businesses," (MNB). MNB focuses on management challenges in businesses that exhibit network effects. Such businesses comprise a large and growing share of the global economy and confront distinctive management challenges. Due to the unusual microeconomic attributes of networked businesses, designing optimal business models is difficult, and managers often must cope with "Winner-take-all" (WTA) competitive dynamics. WTA outcomes have profound implications not only for strategy decisions, but also for choices about capital structure, organizational design, and government relations.

Keywords: Networks; Business Organization;

Format: Print

68 pages

Citation:

Eisenmann, Thomas R. "Managing Networked Businesses: Course Overview for Educators." Harvard Business School Course Overview Note 807-104, December 2006. (Revised October 2007.)

eSig, an early-stage startup, offers an electronic signature application as a "freemium" product, i.e., users can upgrade from a free basic version to a premium version by paying a subscription fee. Using 9 months of data from 50,000 user activations (available as a case supplement), students are asked to project the number of new users eSig will acquire in Q1 2016 and recommend how much they should spend during the quarter on each major marketing channel (e.g., Facebook ads, Google ads, content marketing, etc.). Note: the name and functionality of the actual freemium application upon which the case is based have been disguised.

eSig, an early-stage startup, offers an electronic signature application as a "freemium" product, i.e., users can upgrade from a free basic version to a premium version by paying a subscription fee. Using 9 months of data from 50,000 user activations, available as a case supplement, students are asked to project the number of new users eSig will acquire in Q1 2016, and recommend how much they should spend during the quarter on each major marketing channel (e.g., Facebook ads, Google ads, content marketing, etc.). Note: the name and functionality of the actual freemium application upon which the case is based have been disguised.

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Managing Networked Businesses: Course Overview for Educators

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