NBAE 6750 - Digital Transformation and Innovation

Spring. 2 credits. Letter grades only (no audit).

S. Dutta.

We are in the midst of a digital tsunami. Digital technologies have progressed exponentially over the last decades and a tipping point has been reached. We are seeing new intelligent programs such as DeepMind and Watson beat the best human experts in complex domains (Go and Jeopardy respectively), a feat that was not thought easily possible before. We are witnessing the emergence of new digital leaders such as Amazon and Alibaba that are dominating multiple business sectors on the strength of their agile digital platforms/services and are threatening to beat traditional leaders (such as Walmart) by significant margins.

Further the pace of progress in digital technologies shows no signs of slowing down. All industries are susceptible to the forces of digital transformation and most executives are or will soon be confronted by the dynamics of digital disruption. There will be significant new opportunities as the underlying forces of digital disruption and value creation are understood and leveraged. Succeeding in this rapidly changing world will require both a solid understanding of digital products, services and business models and an inspirational leadership style to be bold, take risks and lead complex change.

The elective course should be of interest to all executives, especially those working in sectors that are most affected today by the forces of digital disruption.

The goal of this elective course is to provide an effective combination of theory and practice in digital transformation and innovation for executives. Lectures and case studies will provide a rich forum for in-class discussions. Executives will be encouraged to share experiences from their own firms and the class will aggregate key lessons for an organizational digital roadmap along four important dimensions: data platforms, organizational agility, customer customization and ecosystem leverage. Executives will leave the elective better prepared to help their organizations to compete and win in the digital world.

The expected workload for this elective consists of: (a) reading pre-readings and cases (b) participating in class discussions (c) writing two short blog posts on aspects of digital transformation (details will be provided in class) and (d) writing a short note as a group about digital transformation in a chosen firm.