MoTI - Technology Strategy

Technology is a key driver of change in several increasingly inter-connected industries. This module will seek to familiarize the students with basic concepts in strategy and how firms seek to build their competitive advantage on technology. We will focus in particular on the dynamics of technological evolution, and competition in the New Economy. The module will help students understand how firms such as Microsoft, Intel or Kodak are able to develop sustainable competitive advantages based on their technologies, while other, equally innovative firms fail to capitalize on their innovations.

• Please note that thise course is only available to those in the Graduate School of Life Sciences
• Postgraduates in the Graduate School of Life Sciences
• Researchers in the Graduate School of Life Sciences

Number of sessions: 4

#	Date	Time	Venue		Trainer
1	Tue 9 Oct 2012   18:00 - 20:00	18:00 - 20:00	Judge Business School, Lecture Theatre 3	map	S.M. Ansari
2	Tue 16 Oct 2012   18:00 - 20:00	18:00 - 20:00	Judge Business School, Lecture Theatre 1	map	S.M. Ansari
3	Tue 23 Oct 2012   18:00 - 20:00	18:00 - 20:00	Judge Business School, Lecture Theatre 1	map	S.M. Ansari
4	Tue 30 Oct 2012   18:00 - 20:00	18:00 - 20:00	Judge Business School, Lecture Theatre 1	map	S.M. Ansari

Strategy in the New Economy

• Discussion of competitive strategy
• Industry analysis; resource-based view in strategy
• Competitive dynamics in the face of network effects

Suggested reading:

• The Core Competence of the Corporation, C. K. Prahalad and G. Hamel (1990) Harvard Business Review, 68(3): pp. 79-91
• The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy, M. Porter (2008) Harvard Business Review, 86(1): pp. 78-93
• Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, C. Shapiro and H. R. Varian (1999) Boston: Harvard Business School Press: Ch. 9: ‘Waging a standards war’

Designing and Implementing Strategy in a Growing Hi-Tech Company

• Discussion of the Acer case followed by theoretical insights

Case:

• Acer Inc.: Taiwan’s rampaging dragon C. Barlett and A. St George (1998) ECCH # 9-399-010

Questions to assist you in analysing the case:

• As Stan what action would you take on Aspire?
• What accounts for Acer’s outstanding startup? What caused this company to outpace scores of other Taiwanese PC companies?
• After such a strong decade, why did Acer’s growth and profitability tumble in the late 1980s? How do you evaluate Leonard Liu’s performance?
• How effective has Shih been in rebuilding Acer in the early/ mid 1990s? What do you think of his new business concept (fast food model, Uniload, Smiling Curve etc.) and his new organization model (Client-Server, 21 in 21)?

Building Competitive Advantage on Technology

• Strategy in practice!
• Case discussion on Apple’s quandary
• Industry analysis
• Standards wars

Case:

• Apple Computer 2002 D. Yoffie and Y. Wang (2002) ECCH # 9-702-469

Questions to assist you in analyzing the case:

• When did Apple begin to lose the plot in the PC industry?
• Evaluate the responses of various Apple CEOs to Apple’s dilemma?
• Is the iPod the solution to Apple’s problems?

Suggested reading:

• Capturing Value from Technological Innovation: Integration, Strategic Partnering, and Licensing Decisions, D. Teece (1988) In: Guile, B. and Harvey, B. (eds.) Technology and Global Industry: Companies and Nations in the World Economy. Washington: National Academy Press
• Reflections on “Profiting from Innovation, D. Teece (2006) Research Policy, 35(8): pp. 1131–1146
• How to Capture Value from Innovation: Shaping Intellectual Property and Industry Architecture, D. Teece and G. Pisano (2007) California Management Review, 50(1): pp. 278-296
• Strategic Maneuvering and Mass Market Dynamics: The Triumph of VHS over Beta, M. Cusumano, Y. Mylonadis and R. Rosenbloom (1992) Business History Review, 66(1): pp. 51-94
• Managing Strategic Innovation and Change: A Collection of Readings M. L. Tushman and P. Anderson (eds.) (2004) 2nd ed. Oxford: OUP: ‘Innovation Streams, Organization Designs, and Organizational Evolution.” pp. 2-17

Competitive Dynamics in the Face of Technological Discontinuity

• Technology strategy in practice!
• Disruptive innovation
• Surviving radical discontinuities
• Creating standards

Case:

• Kodak (A) G. Gavetti, S. Giorgi and R. Henderson (2003) ECCH # 9-703-503

Questions to assist you in analyzing the case:

• What should Kodak’s strategy be?
• What opportunities does the emerging digital market hold for Fuji/ Sony/ Nokia?

Suggested reading:

• Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Next Wave, J. Bower and C. Christensen (1995) Harvard Business Review 73(1): pp. 43-53
• The Ongoing Process of Building a Theory of Disruption, C. Christensen (2006) Journal of Product Innovation Management 23(1): pp. 39–55
• The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, C. Christensen (1997) Boston: Harvard Business School Press: Introduction
• Disruptive Innovation: In Need of Better Theory, C. Markides (2006) Journal of Product Innovation Management 23(1): pp. 19–25

By the end of this module students should develop a greater understanding of:

• Strategy in hi-tech markets
• The dynamics of the “network economy”, and the strategies needed to succeed in it
• Why some technologies become widely accepted while others do not
• How some firms are able to develop competitive advantage around their technologies
• How some firms are able to ‘lock-in’ markets and what are the public policy implications of this
• Some understanding of the organizational challenges involved in implementing strategy

Presentations

Nobody should book on more than any four of the MoTI courses over the academic year because of length of the courses.

When booking on any of the MoTI courses, you must commit to attending all of the sessions in that course (usually four on consecutive weeks). Failure to do so may result in you being prevented from attending future courses and your department and School may be contacted.

Some of the courses run twice, with parallel streams on different days of the week. You must continue to attend the sessions on the day of the week consistent with the day of the course that you booked on to.

Four sessions of two hours

Yearly