A95332 Digital Innovation

This course leverages on the fundamentals of management and computer science to introduce the main issues related to the use of Internet to achieve strategic business results. More in detail, students will learn:
- strategic management methods specifically appropriate to assess the potential impact of Internet-based technologies on the value chain;
- new tools, trends and technologies that may enable enterprises to achieve competitive advantage in next years;
- business models of innovative companies and start-ups;
- key strategic, policy and economic aspects of digital innovation; 
- new economy dynamics and trends, figuring out competitive forces shaping global markets.

The course aims at enabling students to build knowledge on Digital Innovation and become confident with the architecture of the underlying information technology and the models to leverage IT towards business results. During the course we will use a mix of lectures, case study discussions and project work, to accomplish the course objectives and to evaluate our understanding of the concepts and analytical techniques covered.

Course Content

The course is logically divided in three streams respectively dealing with:
- Business: analysis of dynamics and trends of the digital economy, aimed at understanding the main forces shaping global markets and breakthrough strategies to improve companies’ competitiveness; analysis of different business model frameworks; discussion of the opportunities and threats that an Internet start-up shall take into account; the most relevant methodologies for strategic analysis will be introduced and used to discuss case studies of start-up and growth strategies regarding high-tech business located in worldwide technology centers (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Amazon).
- IT as enabling technologies:  understanding of the technologies and IT tools that enable enterprises to achieve competitive advantage through digital innovation, such as cloud computing, social networking platforms, smart computing; 
- IT Trends: discussion of the main IT-dependent phenomena that are considered to have a significant potential and impact on enterprises such as big data, smart enterprises, crowdsourcing.
 

Course Evaluation

The final evaluation will be based mainly on assignments given during the course and in class participation. A possible final written exam will be worth no more than 30% of the final grade. The different parts will weight as follows: 
- in-class participation (at least 25% of the final grade);
- assignments (at least 45% of the final grade): discussions and/or short project works about mini-cases and/or short articles; one final larger assignment to groups of 2-3 students;
- final written exam (no more than 30% of the final grade – optional)