In week 2 you will get ‘techie’ by exploring a number of technologies that are often seen as potentially ‘disruptive’. Additionally, you will discuss how these technologies are currently used by organisations globally. More importantly, you will explore ways to stay up-to-date with technological advances. You will also explore technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT).

This week you will focus on viability and specifically look at business models. You will begin by looking at the four (4) main elements of a business model: value proposition, resources, processes, and the profit formula. You will look at the business model journey, and how organisations move from creating a business model, through sustaining innovation, up to efficiency. You will explore the importance of developing new business models with a framework (the 4I's framework) to help you come up with these new business models. Finally, you will look at business model patterns, as recombining, adapting, and refining business model patterns is an efficient way to do business model innovation.

This week you will learn about platforms, what they are, how they’re different from other business models, the different types of platforms, and how to create successful platforms. You will also learn how to decide if you should create your own platform.

This week, you will take a more in-depth look at viability, desirability, and feasibility through the human-centred approach to creative problem solving – design thinking. You will explore the different stages of design thinking, with close attention paid to empathy maps, brainstorming and prototyping – a taster to inspire you to learn more about this method.

Now that you have a good foundation for ‘being disruptive’, you will now explore where to innovate next through a framework that looks for gaps that need to be filled. The faultline framework contains five areas to be considered when looking for these gaps: customer needs, performance metrics, business model, talent, and industry position. You will also investigate how to protect your organisation from disruption and consider different views on what is at the heart of disruption.