Course Preview | Platform Strategy: Build, Grow, Monetize, and Lead Digital Platforms from Wharton Executive Education
2:25 min
15
Hi, welcome to the platform strategy program. My name is Pinar Yildirim, I will be one of the instructors of this program. This program is designed to help you learn the fundamentals of platform business strategy and master its principles so that you can make better decisions and take your organization to the next level. To that end, we are going to start first by talking about platform businesses, the characteristics that make this business model unique, successful, defendable, and scalable.
Then, we will dive into platform architecture. We will think about how to price, how to set governance principles, and how to decide on how many sides to take on, and which features to embrace. We will talk about the ideas to kickstart a platform. We will introduce network effects as an important feature of platforms and will see that not all network effects are the same. Then, we are going to dig even deeper, talk about how to grow and monetize the platform. We will introduce the concept of winner-take-all. We are going to think about what makes a platform business defendable, and what makes it almost infinitely scalable. We will discuss prime concepts like freemium and digital currencies as part of this discussion. In the last two modules of the program, we will discuss issues such as privacy, automation and AI, and the metaverse, as the contemporary innovations that stand to transform the practice of business platforms that everyone should be aware of.
We designed this program such that every module is a combination of knowledge and practice. Along the way, we will give many examples from the past and existing platforms. We will learn from those past mistakes, current best practices, and will present ideas which will be useful to prepare for what is coming next. These lectures and exercises will allow you to think about how you can apply platform businesses and platform principles to your current organization. To sum up, our goal in this program is to give you the theory and practice that will allow you to make better decisions for your organization and continuously improve decision making over time.
Then, we will dive into platform architecture. We will think about how to price, how to set governance principles, and how to decide on how many sides to take on, and which features to embrace. We will talk about the ideas to kickstart a platform. We will introduce network effects as an important feature of platforms and will see that not all network effects are the same. Then, we are going to dig even deeper, talk about how to grow and monetize the platform. We will introduce the concept of winner-take-all. We are going to think about what makes a platform business defendable, and what makes it almost infinitely scalable. We will discuss prime concepts like freemium and digital currencies as part of this discussion. In the last two modules of the program, we will discuss issues such as privacy, automation and AI, and the metaverse, as the contemporary innovations that stand to transform the practice of business platforms that everyone should be aware of.
We designed this program such that every module is a combination of knowledge and practice. Along the way, we will give many examples from the past and existing platforms. We will learn from those past mistakes, current best practices, and will present ideas which will be useful to prepare for what is coming next. These lectures and exercises will allow you to think about how you can apply platform businesses and platform principles to your current organization. To sum up, our goal in this program is to give you the theory and practice that will allow you to make better decisions for your organization and continuously improve decision making over time.
