Introduction to Business roles and ideas

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From the course by EIT Digital

The Impact of Technology

45 ratings

EIT Digital

The Impact of Technology

45 ratings

Course 1 of 5 in the Specialization Value Creation Through Innovation

In this course you will learn how to use theories and methods to make predictions of the potential impact of new technology – in general, as well as for a specific application. This will prepare you for the changes that we are facing in society, and also help you take advantage of transformations which are driven by technology. The course takes a broad approach, including social and economic factors. You will study historical examples and learn to recognize recurring patterns and cycles. The curriculum includes general innovation theories, foresight methodology, value chain disruption and strategy. The general process is as follows. First you to learn how to draw a map of the potential future business landscape. After that, you get to identify interesting future business roles in emerging value networks. Finally, we find a path from where we are today to a desired end state. You will analyze how an industry or market may change if the technology which is available today is fully implemented in a 10 to 20 year perspective. In addition, you will identify barriers to such a development and make estimates regarding the timing. The course includes a number of assignments to facilitate your learning – some of them compulsory. The largest assignment is about the introduction of self-driving cars (hence the course icon; source and credit to Google). We all know that the future can’t be fully predicted in detail. However, the methods presented in this course will help you identify potential consequences. In this way, you will get a toolbox for decision making in the areas of technology, investments, career path, research & development or portfolio management.

From the lesson

Business roles and ideas

Roles within value networks are further studied in this module. The role, its relationships and dependencies are analyzed. You will learn how to assess, chose and develop a, for you, interesting value network role.

Introduction to Business roles and ideas4:44

Meet the Instructors

Martin Vendel
Dr
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Industrial Economics and Management

[SOUND] In this module, we will take a closer look at the different

possible destinations on the map of the future business landscape.

Doing sequential backcasting and predicting value networks,

a number of business roles has been identified.

If you look for opportunities, these roles are what you will target.

Either being an investor or entrepreneur or an existing organization preparing for

a major transformation.

But also for you as an individual,

to find out where your specific competence may create a significant value.

In essence, we hear talk about opportunity of recognition, but

where a lot of the analysis has already been made beforehand, we already zoom

in on the specific business roles that we already have identified.

Later, we will link those to potential business ideas.

What may be regarded as an opportunity, there's no

general answer to that question but it rather depends on the specific conditions.

Your specific conditions based on you and

your organization's specific capabilities and aim.

The role to supply the entertainment system for self-driving cars or

to be the marketplace for 3D printing design and

objects may be very attractive roles for some but not for others.

It depends on their capabilities, the specific conditions in that case.

One way to assess roles are to map them

in terms of potential capabilities like we see in this graph here.

With potential we mean here, the business potential in terms of value creation and

with capabilities, we refer to the capabilities of the specific organization.

What is then the business potential in terms of value creation for

a specific organization?

The potential is not the same as the overall potential for that

business role globally, but rather the potential for that specific organization.

That is, if they reach their full potential,

depending on what part of the market they target.

That then depends on their scope.

Their scope in terms of geographical coverage and targeted segments and

to estimate the potential, we can make rather rough calculations.

We can base that on one typical deal and the turnover and profit for

one typical deal.

That's enough to make a rough calculation,

if we know how many customers there are in that part of the market that they target.

Here we see an example of a mapping.

The obvious choice is to target the role in the upper right-hand corner.

But we'll also need to consider if capabilities can be built, moving a role

horizontally, or if the potential can be improved moving a role vertically.

To move a role from the lower left-hand corner may be too much of a struggle,

and can't really be recommended.

Please remember though that having a specific role today is not the same thing

as that you have the capabilities to keep it.

That is due to that the capabilities needed for

success in a role may change dramatically as the landscape evolves.

For instance,

for the bookseller role in the eBook example that we looked at before.

When we look at the potential and

the capabilities, there are a number of things that we should include.

What's building up the potential, then?

We have things like competitive advantage, how big is the addressable market,

different dependencies, differentiation possibilities,

the overall growth of the market, etc.

When it comes to the capabilities,

do we have the capabilities to handle external barriers, internal barriers?

Do we have the financial strength in the company?

Do we have some unfair advantage that we could utilize?

The timing, can we get that right?

Change management, leadership, etc.

We will cover a number of those, not all,

but a number of those in the coming videos.

But prior to the next videos, you will do an assignment.

You will look at the roles that we identified for the self-driving car case,

and you will map those in terms of potential and capabilities.

But you will do that from the perspective of an existing car manufacturer.

Let's take Volvo as an example.

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