Business Model Innovation in the Digital age

COVID-19 has accelerated the need for innovation and digitization in numerous industries as the pandemic has revealed vulnerabilities and gaps in the business models of numerous companies. In the past few months, business survival has hinged on how quickly a company could pivot and adapt, no matter their size, finances or prior track record. But the cost of innovating, especially during a pandemic, is significant in terms of money, time, and risk. To achieve sustainable results, companies will need to deploy a systematic framework for creating and implementing profit-generating ideas that leverage existing products, markets, and infrastructure.

Less risky and less costly than other forms of innovation, retooling an existing business model can also yield powerful competitive advantages. Success, though, requires a structured process that eliminates guesswork and subjectivity and can be duplicated across all areas of the organization. Business Model Innovation in the Digital Age enables business leaders to learn and adopt this process — and uncover potential innovations that range from simple but highly effective adjustments to industry-disrupting changes that are difficult or even impossible to copy.

Program Experience

Highlights and Key Outcomes

In Business Model Innovation in the Digital Age, you will:

• Uncover within your organization currently unidentified ways to dramatically improve profitability and productivity
• Improve your ability to get organizational buy-in and execute on new business models
• Learn how to conduct an audit of your current business model and generate ideas for innovations
• Learn a systematic framework for evaluating, experimenting with, and prototyping your ideas
• Develop defense mechanisms beyond intellectual property protection
• Master a framework for driving and managing innovative change in your firm

Experience & Impact

In the pre-COVID-19 business environment, most organizations systematically and rigorously maintained and monitored key metrics such as quarterly financial statements, productivity levels, and market position. But the global pandemic has upended business as usual, and the resulting economic fallout has given companies an opportunity to thoroughly reexamine and even transform their business models. To make the path ahead clearer, Business Model Innovation in the Digital Age helps participants unlock this potential by developing a process for innovation that can be managed and turned into a driver of growth.

Unlike innovation that involves the creation of new products, services, or technologies, this brand of business model innovation can come from anywhere in the company. It requires fewer resources and less time to implement, and can result in innovations that are far more profitable and transformative than product- or technology-driven ones.

Business Model Innovation in the Digital Age provides a systematic framework that relies on practical management rather than startup agility or luck. You will begin applying this framework to your own business during the program, conducting an audit of your current models and identifying areas for potential innovations. You will also learn a process for experimentation that addresses weaknesses in proposed business models and experiment with those models to quantify their value and viability. Working in small groups, you will apply class learnings to a real company.

Because the critical last step in the process is implementation, you will be immersed in a half-day simulation on change leadership, strengthening your ability to get buy-in and drive change in your organization. You and your team will act as consultants to a company going through a change effort, working to successfully sell that effort to those in the organization. This powerful learning experience, a highlight of the program, allows you to apply new approaches, learn from real-time feedback, and hone your skills.

Led by Professor Serguei Netessine, a global thought leader in business model innovation, the program also leverages the expertise of other Wharton faculty who specialize in big data, artificial intelligence, business ecosystems, and digital disruption. In addition, successful business model innovators will share their experience and insights with participants in two highly interactive sessions. By the end of the program, you will have the tools and skills needed to create value in your organization and to better position it in your market and industry.

Session topics include:

• The Imperative of Business Model Innovation in the Age of Digital Disruption
• The Language of Business Models
• The Risk Driven Business Model Approach
• Opportunities & Challenges of Digital Transformation
• Navigating Digital Disruption
• Creating a Culture of Innovation through Agile
• Competitive Advantage in the Age of Digital Transformation
• Artificial Intelligence in People Management
• Leading and Managing Innovative Change
• Platform Ecosystems: Strategies that Leverage Networks
• Lean Development and Discovery-Driven Planning
• Business Model Innovation in Large Organizations