• Identify and explain opportunities and challenges of digitalization for your own organization or a new venture.
• Demonstrate how course concepts, frameworks, and theories can be used for analyzing the opportunities and challenges of digitalization.
• Reflect upon the theoretical and practical implications of the analyses.

Digitalization is changing the conditions for businesses across industries. Based on the enabling capacities of digital technologies, new business models emerge that are no longer simply supported by digital technologies, but have digital components inseparably inscribed into their processes and value proposition. At the heart of this digital transformation rests an increased orientation towards digitally enabled platform-based business models. Platform markets comprise a large and rapidly growing share of the global economy and ranked by market value, 60 of the world’s 100 largest corporations earn at least half of their revenue from platform markets.

During the first two days of the course, we focus on the logic of digital economy and the emergence of platform-based business. We will cover how firms compete with platforms and how to build a platform business. The following two days broadens the perspective to include the business ecosystem, where multiple platforms collaborate and compete with each other. In some cases, firms will even end up in bed with their enemies. We will put these developments into context so that you will understand how and why many start-up and growth companies today engage in digital marketing, app development, social media, online news and information services, crowdsourcing, and online innovation services. In addition, traditional businesses such as publishing, entertainment, and banking are facing an on-going digitalization that drags them into the digital arena – an economic arena with its own economic and competitive principles.