The goal of the course is to offer students the chance to merge the theoretical and the practitioner worlds, dealing with those models that help companies in managing technological innovation.

The course offers the opportunity to learn from an Italian Top Manager that leaded the change in a number of national and international companies, offering the chance to students to see how theoretical models can support managers and stimulate a critical reflection. 

The course fits into the overall program curriculum pursuing some of the defined general learning goals. In particular, the course contributes to the development of the following capabilities:

• Understand context, functions, processes in a business and industrial environment and the impact of those factors on business performance
• Identify trends, technologies and key methodologies in a specific domain
• Interact in a professional, responsible, effective and constructive way in a working environment, also motivating group members

Lectures, activities and team-based projects will allow students:

• To understand how theories and models can support decision making in organizations (lectures)
• To critically analyze real cases and case studies through theoretical lenses (lectures and individual assignment)
• To identify relevant technological trends and critically analyze them (lectures, teamwork and individual assignment)
• To improve collaborative attitudes also in simulated environments (teamwork)
• To communicate effectively the results of their work (teamwork)

Overview of the Course

The disruptive power of digital technologies is day after day clearer and stronger. Entire industries have been challenged by new companies that approached the market leveraging unconventional strategies, without traditional assets and often without a clear regulation frame. Examples like the taxi industry, the hotels and the media are just the beginning. Uber approached the market without owning any taxi, AirBnb offers accommodations all over the world - in big and small cities - without owning any room or apartment and finally, social medias offer any kind of content leveraging crowd generated contents, and these are just the most famous examples.

Behind all these innovations there is a common trait: the enabling role of digital technologies. The chance to have a continuous and obliquus access to the internet and the incredible computational power of smartphones are the two basic characteristics that allows these new born companies to leverage the opportunities of non-owned assets to develop their own business model.

The course is a unique journey in the strategy and innovation landscape, aiming to develop capabilities and skills to handle the challenges and opportunities of the digital technology in its disruption process. 

The course is based on three main unconventional assets:

• A company-based perspective: Ing. Francesco Caio is among the founders and first CEO of Omnitel and had several executive roles in national and international companies (Merloni, Cable and Wirless, Lehman Brothers Europe, Avio, Poste Italian and others), serving also as consultant for the Italian and the English government to design digitalisation strategies.
• A double perspective based on established and new born companies: the course is designed to show both how established companies may use digital technology to foster innovation, to survive and to grow in the competitive scenario, as well as to understand the challenges and opportunities of new born companies that leverage this kind of technology to offer their products or services.
• A learning experience based on doing: the lectures are designed to combine in the same day i) theoretical insights coming from the theories of the leading scholars in the field, ii) empirical insights derived from on-the-edge real cases and iii) insights coming from direct work to propose your own perspective on real challenges through team-work experiences

The course is based on three main areas:

• Basics of Strategy and Technology Innovation: the first area is related to the basic vocabulary of strategy and innovation, referring to the traditional theories and cases that serves as inspiration also in the current competitive environment.
• The strategic dimension of Digital Innovation: the second area is related to how digital technologies are challenging traditional theories and offering new opportunities from an innovation perspective.
• The organisational dimension of Digital Innovation: the last part is related to the organisational impact of digital technology, in terms of organisational culture and leadership.

Faculty

Professor:

• Prof. Francesco Caio – francesco.caio@polimi.it 

Teaching Assistant:

• Ing. Daniel Trabucchi - daniel.trabucchi@polimi.it

Slides / Business Cases / Videos

Slides, tools, business cases and videos will be made available through Course website on BeeP.

Educational Process 

The underlying assumption of the course is that innovation and strategic capabilities cannot be learned through textbooks and lectures, therefore a strong involvement of the students is going to be required, through discussions and team-based experiences.

The activities are going to be based around 4 different formats of lectures:

• Few lectures on the theoretical concepts with several concrete examples
• External guests presenting and discussing their experience
• Workshops to work in teams defining strategies for innovation (2 sessions throughout the course)
• Presentations (of the teamwork) to collectively discuss the work done in teams (3 sessions throughout the course)

Main Topics

• Fundamentals of Technological Innovation and Strategy for Innovation
• The impact of the digital world: challenging traditional theories through digital innovation
• Challenges and opportunities: the role of platforms and ecosystems
• The role of regulations in digital innovation
• The impact of digital technology on the organization: the agile culture

Groups

Each member of the class will be assigned through a collective workshop to self-managed learning team. During one of the first class, students will be asked to participate in a collective workshop to form the groups. The teams will work throughout the course. 

Suggested pre-requisite (for students which are not enrolled in the M.Sc. in Management Engineering) 

Strategy MOOC on the POK platform, this course introduces the key theories, concepts, models and approaches related to Strategy at a Corporate, Business and Functional/Operational level. (Available at: https://www.pok.polimi.it/courses/course-v1:Polimi+STR101+2017_M9/about)

The whole course is designed to propose simulated challenges that students will face in their professional experience, developing a theoretical and practical knowledge that may be give you a new asset. Therefore, the entire course is based on the basic mechanisms used in most of the companies: team working. For this reason, the evaluation is going to be based mainly on the outputs presented during the classes. 

In order to consider the contribution of the single student, the participation during the team works is mandatory (peculiar issues are going to be considered chance by chance) moreover a final individual assignment is going to be required.

During the course, the students will work in teams with the aim to think and to propose a solution or to take decisions on issues inspired by real-world cases. Three team presentations are going to be delivered and evaluated.

Final Grade

The final evaluation will be mainly based on the development of the project, but not only:

• 70% - The 3 team-based presentations developed and delivewred during the course
• 30% - Individual assignment (a brief essay on the critical analysis of a real case to be delivered at the end of the course)

After the end of the course, the forthcoming exam calls are going to be based:

• 30% - A new individual assignment
• 70% - An oral exam

Inspiring book

Inspiring book

Inspiring book