Study Guide

Objective

This course provides students the essential practical knowledge about digital ecosystems and platform businesses. Particularly, students learn to identify digital ecosystems, their components and architectures. Students understand platform as a new digital business model based on enabling value-creating interactions between external producers and consumers. Furthermore, students know the essentials of platform economics, architectures, and monetization capabilities. Practically, students are able to analyze critically business models of their case company by utilizing concepts of ecosystem and platform. Based on this analysis, students propose business development ideas. After this course, students have an “ecosystem thinking” – understanding the digital environment in which the business activities take place, the specific position and the role of the enterprise in this environment.

Content

Service ecosystems
- Mapping and analysis of service ecosystems
- Digital ecosystem strategy
Platforms
- Platform economics
- Architecture
- Monetization capabilities
- Governance of platforms
- Platform business models and strategies.
The financial world of business ecosystems
Business foresighting.

Qualifications

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Assessment criteria, satisfactory (1)

The assessment criteria are the following:
Grade 0: The student did not submit the course assignments or these assignments are not meeting the minimal quality requirements presented in the class.
Grades 1-2: The student has delivered the assignments, which are prepared generally according to the defined requirements. The student understands mostly correctly the subject matter concepts and is able to apply them. However, there is a room for development in the content of the assignments. Business challenges and recommendations are rather general and are not elaborated in details.

Assessment criteria, good (3)

Grades 3-4: The student has delivered the assignments, which are prepared according to the requirements presented in the class. The student understand very well the subject matter concepts and is able to apply them correctly. The student also understands well the role of service ecosystems and platforms in the digital transformation of businesses. Additionally, the student is able to give useful development recommendations utilizing his/her knowledge and skills.

Assessment criteria, excellent (5)

Grade 5: The student has delivered the course assignments and these are prepared according to the requirements presented in the class. The student understand deeply the subject matter concepts and is able to apply them correctly. The student also understands well and is able to analyze critically different factors in the construction and operation of service ecosystems in the case company. In addition, the student is able to propose ideas for platform transformation of the current business models of the case company. Moreover, the student is able to give useful development recommendations with proper argumentation in different situations.

Materials

Choudary, S.P. 2015. Platform Scale. Platform Thinking Labs.
Evans, D. & Schmalensee, R. 2016. Matchmakers: The New Economy of Multisided Platforms. Harvard Business Review Press.
Hana, N. 2016. Mastering Digital Transformation: Towards a Smarter Society, Economy, City, and Nation. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Parker, G. G., Van Alstyne, M. W., & Choudary, S. P. 2016. Platform Revolution. W.W.Norton & Company.
Rogers, D. 2016. The Digital Transformation Playbook. Columbia Business School.
Sundararajan, A. 2016. The Sharing Economy. The MIT Press.
Materials on Moodle provided by the teachers.