Platform Strategy for Business Free Online Course by Boston University
Boston University is offering free online course on Platform Strategy for Business. This course teaches you how to convert products to platforms and how to generate platform innovation.
Applicants will learn how to design, launch, monetize and compete in a networked platform market. The course will start on September 18, 2017.
Course At A Glance
Length: 6 weeks
Effort: 4-8 hours pw
Subject: Business & Management
Institution: Boston University and edx
Languages: English
Price: Free
Certificate Available: Yes, Add a Verified Certificate for $200
Session: Course Starts on September 18, 2017
Providers’ Details
Boston University’s impact extends far beyond our campus in the heart of Boston. Our students, faculty, and alumni travel around the globe to study, teach, and become immersed in the communities in which they live. As one of the world’s leading research universities, Boston University is currently engaged in more than 340 separate research, service, and educational programs and projects. Today, BU is the fourth-largest private university in the country and a member of the American Association of Universities, a nonprofit association of 62 of North America’s leading research-intensive institutions.
About This Course
Firms such as Apple, Alibaba, Facebook, SalesForce, Uber and Yelp operate as platform ecosystems that match buyers and sellers, gain value and market share from network effects, and harness their users to innovate.
This course teaches you how to convert products to platforms and how to generate platform innovation. You will learn how to negotiate platform startup, convert existing businesses, and make vital decisions on issues of openness, cannibalization, and competition.
This course is taught by the instructor who literally wrote the book on this topic, “Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy—and How to Make Them Work for You.” This course is part of both the Digital Leadership and Product Management MicroMasters programs.
Why Take This Course?
You will discover how to apply concepts from two sided networks, information asymmetry, pricing, intellectual property, and game theory to real problems.
Learning Outcomes
- How to successfully launch and design a business platform
- Why platform firms beat product firms and how the structure of platform firms is fundamentally different
- Why traditional platform pricing models fail and how to choose a successful pricing model
- How to compete in winner-take-all network markets
Instructors
Marshall Van Alstyne
Professor and Chair of Information Systems, Boston University
Requirements
- Secondary school (high school) algebra; basic mathematics concepts
- A willingness to explore economics
How To Join This Course
- Go to the course website link
- Create an edX account to SignUp
- Choose “Register Now” to get started.
- EdX offers honor code certificates of achievement, verified certificates of achievement, and XSeries certificates of achievement. Currently, verified certificates are only available in some courses.
- Once applicant sign up for a course and activate their account, click on the Log In button on the edx.org homepage and type in their email address and edX password. This will take them to the dashboard, with access to each of their active courses. (Before a course begins, it will be listed on their dashboard but will not yet have a “view course” option.)