COURSE OUTLINE

Course Name Business Strategy in the Digital Era Course Start 18th Sept
Course Code BMGT 631 2023
Credit Hours 3
Course Prereq. Name Nil
Course Prereq. Code Nil Course End
Course Type □ Core Course □ Elective
Program □ MS-BA
Program
Semester Fall 2023

Course Short Description

Socio-political settings, macroeconomic environment and business activities are inseparably linked.
Executives and managers need to understand their larger economic context besides having mastery over
the internal strengths and vulnerabilities of their business firms. This course familiarizes its participants
with the basic tools and acumen to explore the ways business leaders devise their strategy and then try
to retain their competitiveness in a sustainable manner. It provides concepts and frameworks to help
understand the interaction among firm strategies, technologies, and markets. To this end, the course
employs real-world case studies, in-class games & simulations to highlight the importance of devising
optimal strategies under different business scenarios e.g. market entry and exit, price competition and
cooperation, retaliation and deterrence, firm capacity choices and strategic pre-commitment and
competitive dynamics in general.

The course begins with an introduction of Industry Analysis and covers Competitive
Positioning, Competitive Dynamics, Disruptive Innovations and describes examples of situations
of strategic interdependence in business, economics, politics and our daily lives. Topics covered in
the course include firm entry and exit decisions, retaliation and accommodation decisions, signaling
through pre-commitment, entry deterrence strategies, judo strategies, prisoners’ dilemma, oligopoly
theory & competitive pricing and price wars. Students act in the roles of key decision-makers or
their consultants and solve problems related to the development or preservation of the competitive
advantage of the firm in a given market.

CLOs - Course Learning Outcomes

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Upon having completed this course, the students will be able to:

1. understand the external environment of a firm in its entirety, strategists begin with an
industry analysis. The complexity of that external competitive environment requires
strategists to assess a wide variety of factors and their mutual interaction e.g. customers,
rivals, and suppliers in an industry as well as potential entrants, providers

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 of substitute and complementary goods, government regulators, and other important
players.

2. learn how strategic positioning enables companies to achieve sustainable competitive

advantage by carrying out unique activities in unique ways. Furthermore, to appreciate
the need to look beyond a company's competitors to four other competitive forces
those affect company and industry profitability.

3. learn the types of business strategies and how those must be compatible with the
capabilities of a firm as well as both its market and nonmarket environments.

4. learn how to examine the structural determinants of industry attractiveness (using the
Five Forces framework) and the implications of industry structure for strategy. Also to
understand that how an economic downturn can quickly expose the shortcomings of a
business strategy. But can one identify its weak points in good times as well?
5. examines the industry structure and competitive strategy of Coca-Cola and Pepsi over
100 years of rivalry.

6. learn how firms create and sustain their competitive advantage as well as the concepts
of customer demand and willingness to pay -- tools needed to determine whether or not
a firm has a competitive advantage.
7. learn the concept of sustainable competitive advantages in a changing market
environment.

8. enhance their understanding to manage innovation and disrupt one’s competitors

through creating a new market; and how to strike a balance for simultaneously
investing in core business and innovation?

9. be able to identify business situations where Network Economies of Scale are

applicable, especially for digital businesses

10. familiarity with conditions in platform-mediated businesses where Network Economies

of Scale lead to Winner-Take-All markets

11. understand how factors allowing technologically scalable businesses also lower
barriers to entry for competitors and increase rivalry and possible scalable cures.

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 Week-wise Course Outline

Suggested Activities
Session Topics (case studies, roleplays, movie clips,
exercises, presentations, homework)

Module 1 Industry Analysis

1 Activities:
Setting the Scene
1. Class discussion
The Five Competitive Forces that
Reading
Shape Strategy
i) The Five Competitive Forces that Shape
Strategy (HBS note – 19 Pages)
ii) What is Strategy? (HBS article – 21
pages)

2 Types of Strategy
Activities
1. Class discussion
Reading
i) Integrated Strategy: Market and Non-
Market Components (CMR - 21 pages)
ii) Types of Strategy: Which Fits Your
Business? (Book Chapter – 22 pages)
iii) Stress -Test Your Strategy: The seven
Questions to Ask. (HBR article – 9 pages)

4
 3 Cola Wars Continue: Coke and Pepsi
in 2010
Activities
Quiz and Class discussion
Reading
i) HBS Case – 28 pages
ii) Understanding Industry Structure
(HBS note – 16 pages)

Module 2 Competitive Positioning

Activities
Class discussion
4 Wal-Mart Stores in 2003 Reading
i) Wal-Mart Stores in 2003 (HBS Case – 25
pages)

ii) Creating Competitive Advantage (HBS

note – 21 pages)
Activities
Class discussion
Video Learning
Confusing the competition with
5
Strategy

Module 3 Competitive Dynamics

Activities

Reading
6
Kodak and the Digital Revolution HBS Case: Kodak and the Digital
Revolution – A (18 Pages)
ii) HBS Note: Strategy Formulation and
Inertia (14 Pages)

Activities
7 Technological Change and Firm Class discussion
Strategy Reading

5
 INSEAD Case : Racing into the 5G Era:
Generational Technological Change and
Firm Strategy in Mobile
Telecommunications – (21 Pages)

Module 4 Creating blue Ocean

8 • What is Innovation and why it is Activities

needed? 1. Lecture
• Blue Ocean Strategy - Wikipedia 2. Class discussion
•
3. Blue Ocean Strategy – Video learning

Module 5 Disruptive Innovation

9 • Case: Rise and Fall of

Activities
BlackBerry (2017) Quiz & Class discussion +video learning

Module 6 Digital Platform Strategy

10 Platform-mediated Businesses and Case: Didi, Kuaidi and Uber in China

Network Economies of Scale (I) Reading
(aka Network Effects)
Strategies for Two-Sided Markets

11 Platform-mediated Businesses and

Network Economies of Scale (II) Case: foursquare
Reading
Winner-Take-All in Networked Markets (I)

12 Scalability Dilemma for Network- Case: Amazon’s KiranaNow

Driven Platforms
Reading
Winner-Take-All in Networked Markets (II)

13 Application of concepts Presentation based assignment

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Module 7 Strategic Innovation Simulation

Activities
1. Preparatory round
14 COMPETITIVE DYNAMICS AND 2. Final round
WINTEL 3. Debrief (1 Hour)
Reading
i) Simulation foreground reading

Teaching & Learning Methodology

1. Class/group discussions
2. Case Studies
3. Simulation
4. Video Case
5. Pod Case

Textbook(s)

A course pack consisting of all the reading material will be provided to the participants, i.e.
organized mainly from Harvard Business School Cases & Harvard Business Press Chapters.

Reference Book(s) & Reading Material

Grading Policy
Assessment Instruments Percentage
Class Participation 20%
Quizzes/Assignments 20%
Mid Term Exam 20%
Simulation (Group Activity) 10%
Final Exam 30%