Recommended reading
This section has been moved to this blog entry: Recommended reading for a student of technology strategy.
Electronic material
Some of the material referenced under the invididual classes will be made available in Blackboard, some through the Norwegian School of Management library. Additional material may be found at BRINT, Slashdot or other places on the Net with relevance for the theme of the day. I strongly recommend setting up a Bloglines account or otherwise manage a collection of RSS feeds to keep up to date on what is going on in the techno/bloggo/academic sphere. (And if you are looking for something to read, there is always my favorite books page or recommendations from my blog.
Class preparation
Each class will have reading (cases, articles and/or book chapters) associated with it. You are expected to prepare for each class by reading the assigned material (the study questions may help you find a perspective on the reading). Individual time required to analyze material, especially cases, varies significantly. Some students may be unfamiliar with the use of cases and discussion-based teaching. Experience suggests that students should plan to spend at the very least two hours (more, if lacking in English language skills, business or technical experience) on reading and analyzing each case (exclusive of articles and other course reading), and prepare extensive notes of their analysis to guide them in their discussion. The cases will be accompanied by study questions, which provide guidance in analyzing the case. The articles or book chapters may also help in analyzing a case, as well as discussions with your peers.
Classroom discussion
This is a course at the Master level, meaning that there is a joint responsibility between the instructor and the student for the learning reached. Classroom discussion is the main interaction between teacher and students in this course. It is crucial both for the students' understanding and the quality of the discussion that the students are intimately familiar with the contents of the material before the lecture begins. When the assigned material contains a case, every student will be expected to be able to give a short (3-5 minute) presentation of the case company, as well as discuss strategic and technological issues of importance, at each class.
Grading
Grades are determined as follows:
The individual written assignments should have a maximum length of 600 words (or two A4 pages including illustrations, if any), be written in English, have the student number in the top right corner, and be handed in before class on the day of the assignment both as a
- Term paper (50%): Term papers are to be handed in in Blackboard, as well as one - 1 - paper copy (just stapled, no plastic binders please) to Eli Steller, no later than [time to be announces]. Done in groups of 2-3 students. Topics will be discussed in class - but, of course, technology and strategy should be prominent.
- Class participation (25%): Determined by course instructor based on quantity and quality of discussion and preparation during classes. All students should use name tags (if you lose yours, there is a template to create one in Blackboard) and sit at the same place in the classroom during all course sessions.
- Individual written assignments (25%): For topics and formalia, see below. You are to deliver three assignments - the best two count towards the grade. For more details, see for under the individual classes or in Blackboard under Assignments.
and
- paper copy, printed on both sides (maximum 1 sheet of paper)
The term paper should be written in self-selected groups of up to three students. The main content of the paper should be an analysis of a (real) company that is developing, using, or being challenged strategically by an evolving technology. The structure should be as follows: A description of the company, a description of the industry, a description of the technological changes they are experiencing, and how this poses a strategic challenge or opportunity for them, and what you think they should do about it. Theory from the course should be used when relevant. Pay attention to correct referencing and citation techniques, and under no circumstances write more than 4500 words of text, not including tables, figures and appendices. Make the analysis practical enough to be read by executives, and theoretical enough to show that you have read and understood relevant literature, interesting enough to show to your significant non-business-student other (if applicable), and deep enough to interest the professor. Deadline December 12, hand it in to the administration in the regular fashion, and also submit it on Blackboard (under Assignments).
- file (Word, PDF, RTF or plain text) in the Safeassignment dropbox on Blackboard. (see instructions).
Detailed seminar plan
The right to make changes at any time is most explicitly reserved....
1 Introduction: What is technology, how to study it, why is it important?
August 20, Espen Andersen
Introduction, course overview, work processes, administrivia, course objectives. What difference does technology make? How can we keep up-to-date about technology?Read and be prepared to discuss:
- The introductory chapter from Utterback.
- Chapter 1 (The Information Economy) in S&V. Available here for those who haven't yet bought it (but who should).
- Malone, T. W. and J. F. Rockart (1991). "Computers, Networks and the Corporation." Scientific American (September): 128-136.
- Sherman, S. P. (1984). "Microsoft's drive to dominate software." Fortune (January 23): 82-90.
- Fjeldstad, Ø. and E. Andersen (2003). "Casting off the chains: Value shops and value networks." European Business Forum (14): 47-53.
- Andersen, E. (2002). "Nowhere to Hide" ACM Ubiquity 3 (28).
- Check out these web sites and figure out what they do: BoingBoing, Bloglines, Slashdot. What, if any, implications do they have for how you access and use information?
Study questions:
Further reading:
1. What are Malone & Rockart's key arguments? To what extent were they right about how information technology would influence corporations? What did they get wrong?
2. Which parts of Microsoft's strategy worked -- and which didn't? Imagine you were an interested technology investor in january 1984: Would you have invested in Microsoft based on this article and the company's strategy?
3. Why is technology understanding important for general managers? Why is it not? How much do you need to know about technology to manage a technology-based organization?
4. What does it mean when we use the term "an information economy"?In your spare time:
- Fjeldstad, Ø. and K. Haanæs (2001). "Strategy Tradeoffs in the Knowledge and Network Economy." Business Strategy Review 12(1): 1-10.
- Stabell, C. B. and Ø. D. Fjeldstad (1998). "Configuring Value for Competitive Advantage: On Chains, Shops and Networks." Strategic Management Journal 19: 413-437.
- Cringely, R. X. (1992). Accidental Empires: How the boys of Silicon Valley make their millions, battle foreign competition, and still can't get a date. Harmonsworth, Middlesex, England, Penguin Books. Fun about the microcomputer industry, provides the background to understanding how and why Microsoft won..
2 Technology in Value Chains, Shops and Networks, with special focus on the value chain
- Neal Stephenson's (1999) Cryptonomicon is a highly entertaining tome about technology, history, adventure and just about everything else - and the chapters on the creation of the Epiphyte corporation rings a bell with anyone involved in a startup - including a disillusioned take on what a business plan should contain.
August 28, Espen Andersen
Understanding the role of IT in value chain companies -- value chain integration, parameterization, customer interface.
In this class, we will study the role of technology in value chains, shops and networks, using Dell Computer Corporation as the focal case.
Study questions:
1. What is the role of information technology at Dell Computer? What competitive advantages does the Dell Direct model give compared to traditional retail distribution models?
2. According to Porter & Millar, what can IT do for the competitive power of a value chain?
3. Porter and Millar's article is 18 years old--what parts are it still applicable, what doesn't work anymore?
4. What does the Christensen article say about Dell Computers? What has happened in that industry since the time of the Pearlson case?Read and be prepared to discuss:
Further reading (for the specially interested):
- Porter, M. E., & Millar, V. E. (1985). How information gives you competitive advantage. Harvard Business Review (July-August), 149-160.
- Keri Pearlson and Raymond Yeh (1999): Dell Computer Corporation: A Zero-Time Organization. UTexas Austin.
- Christensen, C. M., M. Raynor, et al. (2001). "Skate to Where the Money Will Be." Harvard Business Review (November): 73-81.
- Check out Dell Corporation's home page and anything else you can find on Dell and its competitors.
3 Technology and the Value Network: The case of Telenor
- Venkatraman, N. (1994). "IT-enabled Business Transformation: From Automation to Business Scope Definition." Sloan Management Review (Winter): 73-86. Integration of the value chain - five stages of change as a result of IT.
September 3, Espen Andersen
In this session we will look at technology in a Value Network, exemplified by the case of the Telenor and the Nordic Mobile Telecommunications industry.
Study questions:
1. How does Telenor make money? How is Telenor different from other telephone companies, if at all? Which parts of their business are likely to grow in the future? To shrink?
2. What is ARPU and how can Telenor increase it?
3. Why does it make sense for a telecommunications company to price calls within their network lower than between their network and other telecommunications companies networks? Are there circumstances when this does not make sense?
4. What is VoIP? How is this technology significant to Telenor?
5. How many subscribers does Telenor have?
6. What is Grameenphone? How is Telenor involved in this company? Why has this collaboration been successful?
7. How can Telenor and Grameenphone develop their business in the future?
Read and be prepared to discuss:
For the specially interested:
- The Concours Group (2001): Doing business in a mobile world, Re.Sults report
- Chapter 7 (Networks and Positive Feedback) in Shapiro and Varian
- Andersen, E. and Ø. Fjeldstad (2003). "Understanding inter-firm relations in mediation industries with special reference to the Nordic Mobile Communication Industry." Industrial Marketing Management 32: 397-408.
- Mujtava Chodbury: Telenor in developing nations (PDF file), Masters Thesis, Norwegian School of Economics and Administration. (Focus on page 35 onwards, the story of Telenor in Bangla Desh.)
- Stephenson, N. (1996). Mother Earth Mother Board. Wired. 4.12. Incredible article on the wiring of the world.
4 How the Internet and the WWW was born: Evidence from someone who was there
September 18, 1700-1900, at Rosenkranz gate 7 (Håndverkeren conference rooms), hosted by Espen Andersen
In this session, we will meet two pioneers of Internet and WWW technology, hear about how the Internet and the WWW was started, and participate in a discussion with a Norwegian technial pioneer. The meeting is held in conjunction with the Norwegian Polytechnic Society, the IT group.
About the participants:
(This is a regular PFIT meeting, and I suspect a very good turnout, which should give you the chance to meet a number of interesting people from Norway's IT industry.)
- Dave Walden, is a former manager with Bolt Beranek and Newman (the company that built the technology which became the Internet) and the first programmer on the Internet. For instance, it was one of BBN's employees (Ray Tomlinson) who decided that the commercial "a" (@) was a good symbol to use for email addresses, since it was pronounced "at" and was not much used in other text.
- Robert Cailliau, co-developer (with Tim Berners-Lee) of the WWW standard. WWW was first developed for organizing scientific papers at CERN.
- Håkon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera Software and developer of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), a standard for descibing the layout of web pages separately from the content.
- Terje Mikalsen, Norwegian IT investor and one of the founders of Norsk Data (Terje will chair the discussion)
Literature:
Study questions:
- Wikipedia's entry on the History of the Internet: Poke around the referenced articles as well.
- Bush, V. (1945). "As We May Think." Atlantic Monthly (July).
- (This one is hard if you are not into computer science): Watch this video, then answer: What is the difference between using the HTML tag <B> (for bold) and <strong> (which normally also produces bold text). Why is this difference important?
- What is the difference between an open standard and a proprietary standard? Which comes first in a technology's development?
- While you are at it, check out this video about RSS as well. Good to know about.
5 The Economics of Technology: What do you spend and what do you get?
0800-1045, Sept. 24. Espen Andersen
The economics of investing in and using information technology
One of the hardest problems of managing technology - especially information technology - is deciding on how much to spend and understanding what the economic effect of the investment is. We will look at this topic both from the viewpoint of a single company and by examining data from many companies.Individual assignment 1, to be handed in on paper before class starts, and in Blackboard, see instructions:
Study questions:
Imagine you are a CEO worrying about whether you are spending too much or not enough on information technology. How would the InformationWEEK 500 study help you? For help with the analysis, here's an Excel worksheet with the numbers (also in Blackboard). Download the file to your own computer, then analyze it there using Excel or other software.
1. What are Hitt & Brynjolfsson's three measures of information technology profitability -- and their conclusions about them?
2. How do you justify spending money on upgrading desktop computers and Internet bandwidth?
Consider:
Who was Doug Engelbart? And what is "bootstrapping". Read and be prepared to discuss:Further reading for the specially interested:
- Hitt, L., & Brynjolfsson, E. (1996). Productivity, Business Profitability, and Consumer Surplus: Three Different Measures of Information Technology Value. MIS Quarterly, 20(2), 121-142.
- Here is a spanking new article on the subject from NY Times.
- The InformationWEEK 500, InformationWEEK, September 1995.
- Case: The missing Gigabyte
6 Technology and value chain optimization: The case of Glamox
- Gerlach, J., B. Neumann, et al. (2002). "Determining the Cost of IT Services." Communications of the ACM 45 (9): 61-67.
- Weill, P. and M. Broadbent (1998). Leveraging the New Infrastructure: How market leaders capitalize on information technology. Boston, MA, Harvard Business School Press. Excellent book on management of technology as an evolving set of capability for large, international corporations.
October 1, 0800-1045, Espen Andersen
In this class we will study the transformation, using IT, of a traditional value chain company, the Norwegian industrial light producer Glamox.
Read and be prepared to discuss:
Study questions
- e-Business from within: The organizational transformation of Glamox (A)
- Venkatraman, N. (1994). IT-enabled Business Transformation: From Automation to Business Scope Redefinition. Sloan Management Review (Winter), 73-86.
7 Technology in the value network: The US airline industry:
- What were the processes of ordering from Glamox before the redesign of the value chain? How did they change, and what effect did the changes have on the role of the salesperson?
- What is a SPOC? What are the responsibilities of the SPOC? What technologies and information is required to run a SPOC?
- What are the differences between the “standard” way of producing lamp fixtures, and the new, componentized process in terms of
- Lot size (how many units it is economically feasible to produce)
- Reset time (how long time it takes from switching from one product to another)
- Design (where is design and product innovation applied)
- Management (what are the salient management parameters to consider)
- Long-term market position?
- In terms of Venkatraman’s article, which stage is the company at? Are all the parts of the company at the same stage? Which parts are leading and which are lagging,and why?
- At the end of the case, what should Christian Thommessen do?
October 3, 1100-1345, Espen Andersen
The US (and, eventually, international) airline industry is interesting both to technologists and economists because it was one of the first true network industries to be deregulated, and use of information technology has been a crucial factor in determining competitive positioning and industry structure.
Read and be prepared to discuss:
Further reading (for the especially interested):
- Hopper, M. D. (1990). Rattling SABRE--New Ways to Compete on Information. Harvard Business Review (May-June), 118-125.
- Copeland, D. G., & McKenney, J. L. (1988). Airline Reservations Systems: Lessons from History. MIS Quarterly (September), 353-370. (We will talk about the competitive benefits of SABRE, as outlined here.)
- Davis, Paul (1994) Airline Ties Profitability Yield to Management SIAM News, Vol. 27, No. 5 (if the link is unreliable, try the PDF version in Blackboard.)
- Hormer, Peter (2000): The SABRE Story: The making of OR magic at AMR, OR/MS Today.
- Here is a good newspaper article on the more recent airline situation: Flight into the red, St.Petersburg Times, 2003.
In your spare time:
- Smith, B. C., J. F. Leimkuhler, et al. (1992). "Yield Management at American Airlines." Interfaces 22(1): 8-31. Excellent article on how yield management works - and the impact it had on American Airlines.
- Andersen, E. and Ø. Fjeldstad (2003). "Understanding inter-firm relations in mediation industries with special reference to the Nordic Mobile Communication Industry." Industrial Marketing Management 32: 397-408.
- McKenney, J. L. (1995). Waves of Change: Business Evolution through Information Technology. Boston, MA, Harvard Business School Press. The "big cases" of IT as competitive weapon (Bank of America, American Airlines, Frito-Lay, USAA and American Hospital Supply).
- Petzinger, T. (1996). Hard Landing. New York, Times Business Books. The play-by-play of the US (and trans-Atlantic) airline industry since it was deregulated in 1980. Great fun, gunslingers at OK Corral style.
8 Entrepreneurship: Starting and growing a web-based company
- Gladwell, M. (2000). The Tipping Point. London, Abacus. A lighthearted book on how fashions and epidemics get started and spread - and with lots of examples that help you understand network economics without using economics or (too many) sociology terms.
Trond Hantveit, CEO kursguiden.no and masterstudies.com
October 8, 0800-1045
In this class, we will meet Trond Hantveit, CEO of masterstudies.com, a small startup which aims to become a portal for people wishing to take a Master degree somewhere in the world. Trond will discuss the company and its strategy, from its inception to its future. He is very interested in hearing feedback from the students about the web site and its potential, so there is a web page at the course wiki that you are urged to fill in.
Read and be prepared to discuss:
Assignment:
- Greiner, L. E. (1972). "Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow." Harvard Business Review (July-August): 37-46.
- Chapter 12 from Cringely, R. X. (1992). Accidental Empires: How the boys of Silicon Valley make their millions, battle foreign competition, and still can't get a date. Harmonsworth, Middlesex, England, Penguin Books.
- Stephenson, Neal (1999) "Epiphyte's business plan", excerpt from Cryptonomicon (pp. 234ff.)
- Chapter 3, "What products will customers buy", from Christensen, C. M. and M. Raynor (2003). The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth. Boston, MA, Harvard Business School Press.
9 Social production: The world of social software
- Go into masterstudies.com's web site, use it as if you were a student looking for a master's program, and give your comments into the course wiki. The idea is that this should be made available to Trond before he shows up in class, giving him some feedback and you a chance to familiarize yourself with the company.
October 15, 0800-1045
In this discussion, we will look at technologies and theories of social production - a wide and imprecise concept that by some has been referred to as Web 2.0. You have some experience with this in this course already, through the course wiki and the Wikipedia assignment. Now is the time to look at the ideas and the practice of which wikis and Wikipedia is an instance.
Read and be prepared to discuss (it is a start, I assume many of you have read this before. Also, recheck Shapiro and Varian, as well as Christensen's discussions of modularity.):
10 Competing on analytics
- Benkler, Y. (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, Yale University Press. (Read chapter 3, 4 and 10 especially, the rest if you feel like it.)
- Tim O'Reilly: What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. The article that definde the somewhat nebulous term "Web 2.0".
- Cory Doctorow: Microsoft Research DRM talk. (This one is available in many different formats if you Google for it, including one in Norwegian.)
- Creative Commons FAQ file. Check out some of the licensing rules from CC and think about how they could apply to your own work.
- Anderson, C. (2004). "The Long Tail." Wired 12(10). Why the future is selling less of more.
October 22, 0800-1045 Guest lecturer Frank Møllerop, CEO SAS Institute, Norway
SAS is a company that develops and sells software that allows companies to analyze their operations and customer interactions. The company now offers CRM and integration services, as well as software for data warehouses, reporting and analysis. Frank Møllerop has led the Norwegian branch of SAS since 2003 and was awarded the prize "IT manager of the year" in 2006.
Read and be prepared to discuss:
11 Building a consulting company on open source
- Davenport, T. H. (2006). "Competing on Analytics." Harvard Business Review (January): 99-107. (If you are interested, Davenport and Jeanne Harris have written a book by the same title.)
- According to my friend and former colleague Tony Diromualdo, SAS is a talent community company. You may want to ask Frank about the practical implications of that approach.
October 29, 0800-1045Guest lecturer Trond Heier, CEO, Linpro AS
Linpro is a consulting and development company based on the Linux operating system and open source code. The company currently has 63 employees and has been involved in a number of interesting developments. Trond Heier has extensive experience from developing growth companies, having been CEO of Intermedia Invest A/S and VP of international markets for Software Innovation ASA. He has a M.Sc. in Engineering from NTH and an MBA fra Insead.
Trond will discuss two issues: How to manage and grow a small, technical consulting company, and how to market open source technology, particularly to larger clients.
Read and be prepared to discuss:
12 Technology and globalization: The connection and the conflict
- Eric Raymond (1998): The Cathedral and the Bazaar, First Monday 3.3 (incidentally, a very interesting journal in its own right. Eric has evolved this article and others into a book, and continues to evolve it.)
November 5, 0800-1045
Technology is one of the major drivers of globalization, if not the one (the others are demographics, regulation and religion, though you could make a case for technological evolution being the main driver behind those as well.)
Read and be prepared to discuss:
Study questions:
- Chapter 10: “Information Policy” in Shapiro & Varian.
- Landes, David S. (1998). The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. New York, Abacus, chapter 14 and 15.
- Klein, N. (2001). No Logo. London, Flamingo, chapter 9, “The Discarded Factory”
- Friedman, T. L. (1999). The Lexus and the Olive Tree. New York, Farrar, Strauss Giroux., chapter 3 and 4
- If you are up for it, read Tom Friedman's The World is Flat - if you are not, here is a summary and here is a critique.
13
- What is Ricardo's theory of competitive advantage and what are its consequences for developed nations? (a little searching would be good here....)
- How does the evolution in technology, particularly information technology, influence life for people in India? China?
- What entrepreneurial opportunities do you see in a world of free communication, processing and information storage?
- Two of Friedman's terms are "the golden straightjacket" and "the electronic herd" - and these two concepts create problems for finance ministers the world over. What are they? (they may not be in this chapter, but you can guess.....)
- The central point in Klein's book is that multinational companies have more power than democratic institutions, and that they exploit that power to their advantage. How powerful is really a company such as Nike? Starbucks? World News Corporation?
- What have questions 1 and 2 really got to do with technology, anyway?
- Imagine an industry that is largely regional in nature but gradually becoming more globalized - for instance food retail stores. What happens to the existing companies? Why?
- Under what circumstances can regulation influence technology? Can you find examples where political interference in technology evolution has worked? Where it hasn't?
- How does the role of politicians change as globalization increases?
November 12, 0800-1045
Presentation of final paper. Comments to Espen Andersen