About this course

Welcome to the Connected Strategy Capstone Project!

This course was designed to bring you the resources and tools you need to envision, plan, and develop a Connected Strategy for your own organization. You will learn how to apply the ideas and concepts you learned in the Connected Strategy course. The Capstone Project course was designed to systematically guide you through creating a connected customer relationship and connected delivery strategies. By applying your ideas in each part of the Capstone Project, you will have an opportunity to think deeply about your own organization and come up with new strategies that you can directly apply in the future.

You will be given a series of worksheets that are tailored to help you walk through the process of creating a Connected Strategy. The capstone project will be a culmination of all the worksheets and your final analysis of the connected strategy that you have created for an organization.

Lecture videos will have Professor Siggelkow and Terwiesch guide you personally through the thought process that goes behind each step of creating a connected strategy. The videos will provide supplementary knowledge and understanding to the worksheets and capstone project.

 

What you’ll learn

  • Create a Connected Customer Relationship and Connected Delivery strategies for an organization of your choice
  • Analyze the process of how a connected strategy is created
  • Envision, plan, and develop a connected strategy that you can directly apply in the future for your own organization.

Prerequisites

Connected Strategy Capstone should only be taken after successfully completing the Connected Strategy course.

Meet Your Instructors

Nicolaj Siggelkow

David M. Knott Professor of Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Nicolaj Siggelkow is the David M. Knott Professor of Management, and a Co-Director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Professor Siggelkow has been the recipient of multiple MBA and Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Awards, and his research has been published in the leading management journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Industrial Economics, Management Science, Organization Science, and Strategic Organization.

Christian Terwiesch

Andrew M. Heller Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Christian Terwiesch is the Andrew M. Heller Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Professor in Wharton’s Operations, Information and Decisions department, co-director of Penn’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management, and also holds a faculty appointment In Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. His research on Operations Management and on Innovation Management appears in many of the leading academic journals ranging from Management Science to The New England Journal of Medicine. He is an award winning teacher with extensive experience in MBA teaching and executive education. Professor Terwiesch is the co-author of Matching Supply with Demand, a widely used text-book in Operations Management that is now in its third edition. Based on this book, Professor Terwiesch has launched the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in business on Coursera. By now, well over 250,000 students enrolled in the course.

About this course

In this course, you’ll learn how technology has enabled firms to fundamentally change how they connect with their customers. Professors Christian Terwiesch and Nicolaj Siggelkow of the Wharton School have designed this course to help you explore the impact of connected strategies and business opportunities associated with those strategies. Through study and analysis of both the innovation framework and value proposition, you’ll learn how Connected Customer Experience and the Connected Delivery Models can be utilized in a myriad of industry and business models. You’ll also explore different types of connected customers/producers and examples of connected strategy and evaluate existing technologies that can inform the design of connected relationships. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to identify different types of connected strategies and opportunities in a variety of business models so you can employ best practices and achieve success within your organization.

 

What you’ll learn

Identify and define connected strategies, their potential and value proposition
Analyze customer experiences to understand the customer journey
Leverage positive feedback loops with customers to create effective customization strategies
Identify connected relationships in your firm to improve your connected strategy
Create connection architecture and implement connected customer relationship strategies

Prerequisites

Familiarity with basic business concepts
This is a graduate level course

Meet Your Instructors

Nicolaj Siggelkow

David M. Knott Professor of Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Nicolaj Siggelkow is the David M. Knott Professor of Management, and a Co-Director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Professor Siggelkow has been the recipient of multiple MBA and Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Awards, and his research has been published in the leading management journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Industrial Economics, Management Science, Organization Science, and Strategic Organization.

Christian Terwiesch

Andrew M. Heller Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Christian Terwiesch is the Andrew M. Heller Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Professor in Wharton’s Operations, Information and Decisions department, co-director of Penn’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management, and also holds a faculty appointment In Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. His research on Operations Management and on Innovation Management appears in many of the leading academic journals ranging from Management Science to The New England Journal of Medicine. He is an award winning teacher with extensive experience in MBA teaching and executive education. Professor Terwiesch is the co-author of Matching Supply with Demand, a widely used text-book in Operations Management that is now in its third edition. Based on this book, Professor Terwiesch has launched the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in business on Coursera. By now, well over 250,000 students enrolled in the course.

About this course

Maintaining a competitive advantage takes more than great timing or a single solution. Sustainable advantage requires a well-designed and well-executed strategy. This course was created to give you the tools and frameworks you need to develop and execute a successful strategy.

You’ll learn how to evaluate your own strategy, as well as how to locate sources of potential competitive advantage from a perspective that encompasses the internal, external, and dynamic fit of your strategy. You’ll also learn how to enhance your ability to assess the strategic impact of the moves of your competitors and how to maintain competitive advantage, understand the general drivers that create and sustain competitive advantage, and how to identify organizational barriers to change.

By the end of this course, you’ll be able to assess and redesign your current strategy and develop plans for effective implementation to give your firm a competitive advantage.

 

What you’ll learn

  • Evaluate your strategic environment in the present and the future
  • Identify the differences between organizational effectiveness and strategic positioning
  • Map core and supporting activities of your firm and how they interact with each other
  • Locate organizational barriers to strategy implementation and organizational change
  • Engage in a strategic planning process that works

Prerequisites

  • Familiarity with basic business concepts
  • This is a graduate level course

Meet Your Instructors

Nicolaj Siggelkow

David M. Knott Professor of Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Nicolaj Siggelkow is the David M. Knott Professor of Management, and a Co-Director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Professor Siggelkow has been the recipient of multiple MBA and Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Awards, and his research has been published in the leading management journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Industrial Economics, Management Science, Organization Science, and Strategic Organization.

Program overview

Accelerate your career by learning how to develop and deploy winning business strategies for your organization with a Professional Certificate in Strategic Management from Wharton. Enhance your leadership capabilities by identifying and defining your business’s competitive advantage, refining your strategy to optimize customer interactions, and driving profits.

Created by world-famous professors at the Wharton School, this certificate program helps you obtain the management skills you need to turn the challenges posed by today’s marketplace into opportunities for your business. Today’s leaders know that providing high-quality offerings at competitive prices is no longer enough to survive; this program was created to give you the knowledge and hands-on application you need to improve customer experience, boost operational efficiencies, and lower costs. By the end of this online program, you’ll have created your own connected strategy to deploy in your own organization to achieve real-world results.

What you will learn

  • How to identify and define the competitive advantages of your business
  • How to refine your strategy to maximize your competitive advantage and drive profits
  • How to leverage the four connected strategies to create continuous relationships with customers
  • How to move beyond traditional modes of customer interaction to create a fundamentally new business model
  • How to create a portfolio of connected strategies to respond to different customer segments
  • How to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in today’s business environment

Program Class List

1
Business Strategy from Wharton: Competitive Advantage

Course Details
Learn how to develop and execute strategies to gain competitive advantage and improve your position in the marketplace.

2
Introduction to Connected Strategy

Course Details
Technology has caused firms to fundamentally change their strategy to connect with their customers in new and different ways. In this course, we explore the impact of connected strategies as well as business opportunities associated with those strategies.

3
Strategic Management Capstone

Course Details
Apply the knowledge you learned from the Connected Strategy course in this comprehensive workshop that will help you create new connected strategies for your organization.

Meet Your Instructors

Nicolaj Siggelkow

David M. Knott Professor of Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Nicolaj Siggelkow is the David M. Knott Professor of Management, and a Co-Director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Professor Siggelkow has been the recipient of multiple MBA and Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Awards, and his research has been published in the leading management journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Industrial Economics, Management Science, Organization Science, and Strategic Organization.

Christian Terwiesch

Andrew M. Heller Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Christian Terwiesch is the Andrew M. Heller Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Professor in Wharton’s Operations, Information and Decisions department, co-director of Penn’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management, and also holds a faculty appointment In Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. His research on Operations Management and on Innovation Management appears in many of the leading academic journals ranging from Management Science to The New England Journal of Medicine. He is an award winning teacher with extensive experience in MBA teaching and executive education. Professor Terwiesch is the co-author of Matching Supply with Demand, a widely used text-book in Operations Management that is now in its third edition. Based on this book, Professor Terwiesch has launched the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in business on Coursera. By now, well over 250,000 students enrolled in the course.