Defining Opportunities

The trend is toward solving business problems with more discipline “upstream” at the problem finding and problem framing stages. Discipline includes structured observation, boiling down to core issues, and “meta cognition” – the ability to deliberately move among systems thinking/critical thinking/design thinking, etc., to uncover new solutions. Curriculum extensions include structured observation (Marketing, Operations, and PFPS—Problem Finding and Problem Solving), recognizing implicit assumptions (throughout), and understanding systems‐level interactions (Strategy, Leading People, Macro, Ethics).   

The trend is toward new methods for recognizing business opportunities and how to approach them. One example is open innovation – ideas need not come from inside the organization to be implemented internally and internally sourced ideas need not be implemented internally to be monetized.  Another is opportunities that arise out of shifting an industry ecosystem (e.g., the iPod). Curriculum extensions include bundling for differentiation (Micro, Strategy), open innovation (Strategy, Managing Innovation, New Product Development), and corporate responsibility (Ethics, Strategy, Leading People)

The trend is toward testing new business ideas with cost‐effective experimentation, versus traditional planning. This supports sound decision‐making in the world’s rapidly evolving business environments. Curriculum extensions include experimental design (Data and Decisions, Leading People, Marketing), demand uncertainty (Micro), the value of information (Micro), and real options (Finance, Micro). 

The trend is toward increasing choice in revenue models. Established organizations have to think in new ways about where ultimate sources of value lie. Includes advertising‐based trends, data‐commercialization trends, and sometimes pricing at zero. Curriculum extensions include the role of aligning complementary players in an industry (Strategy, Operations), pricing (Micro, Marketing), growth strategy (Marketing, Strategy, Finance), and open business models (Entrepreneurship, Managing Innovation). 

The trend is toward new ideas and their implementation as the engine of economic value. Many good ideas do not represent good businesses however. And early‐stage ideas are often not sufficiently refined to warrant capital budgeting analysis. Still, ideas need structure and process to be generated; they need to be winnowed, combined, and selected; and they need a path to execution. Curriculum extensions include the value of information (Micro), innovation in management practices (Leading People), and distributed sourcing of information (PFPS, Data and Decisions).

The trend is toward more disciplined selection of the firm’s biggest risks. From finance we know to invest whenever net present value is greater than zero. At the level of firm strategy, however, investment decisions are often mutually exclusive and are typically dependent on judgments that are harder to quantify (eg, market entry or public policy shifts). At the same time, the greatest market value is often created from these high‐level business decisions. Curriculum extensions include real options (Finance, Micro), choosing among alternative proposals (Data and Decisions, Operations), capital budgeting for strategy (Strategy, Macro), and decision‐making under unknown probabilities (Micro, Leading People). 

The trend is toward flatter organizations and distributed authority, with less reliance on command and control, particularly given demographic shifting toward millennials. Includes meaning‐making (showing how people’s efforts translate into larger results that matter), effective feedback and coaching, and leading organizational change. Curriculum extensions include motivating performance (Leading People, Operations, Micro), leading change through social networks (Leading People, Power & Politics), building alignment inside and outside of the organization (Strategy, Leadership Communication), and links between influencing and problem framing (PFPS, Leadership Comm.).    

The trend is toward more fluid boundaries of the organization and greater weight on stakeholders with conflicting interests. Successful leaders understand other people’s perspectives and recognize the implicit assumptions underlying those perspectives. They are clarifiers and conflict managers. Curriculum extensions include managing social dilemmas (Leading People, Ethics), misalignment of goals (Micro, Operations), and segmentation (Marketing, Micro).

The trend is toward organizing work in highly interdependent teams. Results are driven by increasingly disciplined approaches to managing attendant costs and benefits. Creative solutions require careful attention to team design, methods, and norms that encourage fresh thinking. Curriculum extensions include diversity and innovation (Leading People), integrated and self‐reinforcing processes (Operations), and the Haas Team Performance Model (all courses with group work).    

The trend is toward transparency in decision‐making, while maintaining flexibility over time in organizational structure and decision rights. Governance is used broadly here to mean the set of methods that enable organizations to be effective. This includes empowering the discretion of managers to capture evolving opportunities. Curriculum extensions include vertical relationships and firm boundaries (Micro, Operations), organizing for innovation (Leading People, Strategy), and measuring change (Accounting, Marketing).