COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 290T.5

This course is dual-listed with the FTMBA Program.

COURSE TITLE: Strategy for the Information Technology Firm

UNITS OF CREDIT: 2 Units

INSTRUCTOR: Jon Metzler

E-MAIL ADDRESS: jon.metzler@berkeley.edu

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION: http://bcourses.berkeley.edu

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Tuesdays 6:00PM-9:30PM

NOTE: Course will meet 10 times during the 15-week semester for 2 credits. 

• January 16
• January 23
• January 30
• February 6
• February 13
• February 20: no class
• February 27
• March 6
• March 13: no class
• March 20
• March 27: no class (BerkeleyHaas Spring Break)
• April 3
• April 10

PREREQUISITE(S):
Familiarity with microeconomics concepts (e.g. lock-in, network effects, etc.) and managerial accounting will be helpful. Familiarity with marketing concepts such as customer acquisition funnels and costs; virality; customer churn and and customer LTV will also be helpful.  Students in this course will read and interpret investor relations material, MBA cases and industry readings. No a priori IT, telecom or media industry experience is required.

CLASS FORMAT: Interactive discussion on a blend of cases, readings, and instructor material, supplemented by guest speakers.

REQUIRED READINGS: Course lectures will take advantage of case studies showing success and failure. In addition, we will utilize sections of three required books, one from microeconomics, and two recent books on the telecom and media industry:  Information Rules; The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation; and The Master Switch: the Rise and Fall of Information Empires. In addition, we will utilize investor relations material, industry articles and lecturer materials.

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE:

• Attendance & Participation: 50%
• Written Assignments (three individual essays): 30%
• Group Project (final presentation): 20%

CAREER FIELD (WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS COURSE)

• Students wishing to work, or to deepen their work, in the telecom, media and Internet and IT sectors.
• Students working in adjacent sectors, such as consulting, accounting, investment, advertising, software and services
• Students at firms buying from or selling to telecom, media, Internet companies and IT companies.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course has been revamped to focus explicitly on seven sources of competitive advantage. Two are from Michael Porter, and five are added for the purpose of this class:

• Cost advantage (low-cost leader; from Porter)
• Differentiation (providing differentiation sufficient to justify pricing above providers providing competitive products; also from Porter)
• Community / Ecosystem Advantage: for example, having more software developers on your OS or product; or having more providers or distributors of a technology versus other alternatives (think LTE vs WiMAX for 4G)
• Talent Advantage: having the best people in your organization (AT&T Bell Labs, Google)
• Process Advantage: being able to manufacture or distribute your product in some disruptive new way (think Fast Retailing – e.g. Uniqlo -- or Dell and the PC)
• Data Advantage: having the best data set; this can mean having the most users (like Google over Bing) but is not necessarily synonymous
• Channel Advantage: having more / better channel partners that can reach the end customers than your competitors. Cisco’s ongoing success in the IT equipment market is to an extent a function of this. Samsung’s success in smartphones in the US market is another example of channel advantage of competitors selling comparable products.

We will refer to these as we assess individual cases.

In this course, we will look at technology and distribution platforms (such as mobile OS, carriers, social platforms); technology standards, interoperability and network effects; content acquisition costs and business model implications; customer acquisition and retention; and issues such as privacy and security.  In our discussion and reading, we will refer to and apply concepts from microeconomics, cost accounting, marketing, and even law and engineering. We will also look at successes and failures to derive insight and refine strategy for new entrants going forward.

Students in this course will gain industry fluency and frameworks for use in understanding and participating in industry, either directly or indirectly, where indirectly means through consulting, banking or other firms in the services sector. Students completing this course will be able to clearly articulate trends in the industry and project forward; recognize and evaluate company metrics, beyond what’s stated in quarterly earnings releases or press releases; discern strategies and anticipate competitive responses.   

The class schedule is below. This class does not meet all 15 weeks. Week refers to the week of the semester; class

• January 16 (Week 1 / Class 1): Introduction, reading, goals; Idea Factory: the Legacy of Bell Labs; Moonshots; Silicon Valley; Nokia case; innovator’s dilemma
• January 23 (Week 2 / Class 2):  The Mission; network effects, virality and retention; platforms vs products; LinkedIn case; data advantage; diasporas; first paper due
• January 30 (Week 3 / Class 3): Mobile carrier ecosystem; grading network operators; Bharti Airtel case; lock-in and switching costs; AT&T EDO case
• February 6 (Week 4 / Class 4): Porter and Pisano; standards, migrations and disruptions; “7G” selection; Sprint, LTE and WiMAX and ecosystem (dis)advantage; Qualcomm and ecosystem building
• February 13 (Week 5 / Class 5): Content access today; bundling and unbundling; Master Switch and “The Cycle”; government and IT innovation (Apollo, ARPANET, GPS, RFID, ARPA-E)
• February 20 (Week 6):  no class
• February 27 (Week 7 / Class 6):  Content acquisition costs and business model implications; Netflix teardown; app economy, customer touchpoints and franchise-building; Rovio case; second paper due
• March 6 (Week 8 / Class 7): Transformations I & II: GE and the Industrial Internet case; Adobe case; the channel; channel advantage and ecosystem advantage
• March 13 (Week 9): no class
• March 20 (Week 10 / Class 8): Data and the enterprise; P&G case; process advantage; Fast Retailing case; course material review
• March 27: BerkeleyHaas Spring Break
• April 3 (Week 11 / Class 9):  Moonshots and “new normals”; Moonshots of invention and integration; Bell Labs, revisited; software eats…everything?; late-mover advantage; course material review; third paper due
• April 10 (Week 12 / Class 10): final presentations

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
Jon Metzler is a Lecturer at the Haas School of Business. He lectures in the evening MBA and undergraduate programs on IT Strategy and on international business. He is also associated faculty for the UC-Berkeley Center for Japanese Studies. Jon has new venture creation experience in print, digital media, events, location services, edtech, services and more.  He is also founder and president of Blue Field Strategies, a consulting firm serving telecom, media and technology clients, including wireless carriers, device makers, infrastructure providers and content companies, with market assessment, market entry support, corporate venturing and new business creation.  Previously Jon was Business Development and Government Affairs Director at Rosum Corporation, a pioneering location technology company now part of TruePosition (Liberty Media). There he handled business development in the telecom and defense sectors, as well as government advocacy and PR, and represented Rosum in the National Emergency Number Association and Advanced Television Systems Committee.  Jon is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley MBA/MA-Asian Studies program. While at Haas, he co-founded the Berkeley Asia Business Conference and authored a thesis comparing new venture creation in Silicon Valley and Japan.  From 2008-2017 Jon was a research fellow for KDDI Research, the research arm of Japanese telecommunications provider KDDI. Today he is an advisor to various startups.  @jonjmetz