Harvard Business School Online
Winning with Digital Platforms CourseOnline
DURATION
5 Weeks
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
Request application deadline
EARLIEST START DATE
Request earliest start date
TUITION FEES
USD 1,850
STUDY FORMAT
Distance Learning
Key Summary
Introduction
Winning with Digital Platforms is for those who want to launch, scale, maintain, or work with a successful platform business. You’ll explore platforms’ unique properties, opportunities, and risks and learn how to develop effective strategies that deliver a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Key Concepts
- Define what platforms are and how they create and capture value
- Understand network effects and how to leverage them to achieve growth
- Discover how to launch, scale, and maintain a successful platform business
- Overcome operational challenges associated with developing, overseeing, or interacting with a platform business
- Explore strategies for transitioning a product or service into a platform
- Build offensive and defensive plans to effectively develop or compete against platform companies
Ideal Students
Who Will Benefit
Current and Aspiring Leaders
Explore platforms’ associated opportunities and risks to inform your organization’s strategic planning and new business development.
Early- and Mid-Career Professionals
Understand the platform business landscape to work more effectively with platforms or respond to new opportunities in your industry.
Entrepreneurs
Learn how to launch and scale a successful platform business and compete against others in the same space.
Admissions
Scholarships and Funding
This course is not eligible for scholarships and financial aid, but past participants do receive a 30% discount. For more information, please visit our Payment & Financial Aid page.
Curriculum
Winning with Digital Platforms is an online course for those who want to launch, scale, maintain, or work with a successful platform business.
Participants explore platforms’ unique properties, opportunities, and risks and learn how to develop effective strategies that deliver a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Module 1: Platform Fundamentals
Explore what platforms are, how they create and capture value for users, and the primary mechanisms that allow them to scale.
Module 2: Scaling and Sustaining a Platform (Part 1)
Differentiate types of network effects and apply strategies a platform can use to strengthen them. Recognize and examine the characteristics of multi-homing and network clusters and assess new markets based on network shape.
Module 3: Scaling and Sustaining a Platform (Part 2)
Understand the chicken-or-egg problem and disintermediation and develop strategies for overcoming them, and summarize how network bridging can increase a platform’s value.
Module 4: Transforming into a Platform Firm
Explain the benefits of transitioning a product or service into a platform, determine the business scenarios best suited for the change, and describe common operational challenges traditional firms face when transitioning to a platform model.
Module 5: Working with Platforms
Explain why traditional companies must learn how to work with platform businesses to thrive and the associated benefits and risks. Explore factors that make it more likely for a platform to encroach on your business and defense strategies to combat it and why all organizations must be aware of political trends and public sentiment surrounding competition and fair business practices.
Faculty
Student Testimonials
English Language Requirements
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