TJTS5701 Advanced Software Business (5 cr)
Description
Content
The academic goal of the course is to prepare students for utilising research and applying the theories and models available in the area of software business. The practical goal is to utilise them to practical cases and developing skills to analyse cases from the business perspective. Another goal of the course is to prepare students for using results of software business research to practice when operating in non-technical positions in an established software-intensive organisation. That is, working for a software company or company that uses software technology extensively as a senior manager, developer, or product/program manager. This course contains following themes related to work of a development director or a non-technical project manager in a software enterprise: Economics and organisation of project business, service business and product firms; Management structures and internal operation in a software enterprise in general and in software development (including traditional, lean and kanban); Business models in software firms; Processes of a software firm (e.g. product roadmapping and product strategies, licensing, IPR and legal issues, international operations); and Strategy and positioning themes (e.g. platforms, components, multi-sided market theories, modularity of software offering, positioning firm value creation in networks/ecosystems).
Completion methods
Lectures and visiting lectures. Group exercises, where articles and case are analyzed and the results presented and discussed.
Assessment details
Exam and group assignments.
Learning outcomes
After the course students understand the current research issues and themes in software business literature, and in the seminal works in the field. Students can apply the theoretical concepts in practice in order to solve the practical problems of software business.
Additional information
Lectures and visiting lectures. Group exercises, where articles and cases are analyzed and the results presented and discussed. There is no exam in the course.
Description of prerequisites
This course assumes that you have already completed your bachelor’s studies and you are currently doing your master’s or doctoral studies.
Literature
- Popp, Karl. "Software industry business models." IEEE software 28.4 (2011): 26.
- Ojala, Arto, and Pasi Tyrväinen. "Business models and market entry mode choice of small software firms." Journal of International Entrepreneurship 4.2-3 (2006): 69-81.
- Cusumano, Michael A. The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know in Good Times and Bad. New York, NY: Free Press, 2004. ISBN: 074321580X.
- Tyrväinen, Pasi, Juhani Warsta, and Veikko Seppänen. "Evolution of secondary software businesses: understanding industry dynamics." IFIP Working Conference on Open IT-Based Innovation: Moving Towards Cooperative IT Transfer and Knowledge Diffusion. Springer US, 2008.
- Manikas, Konstantinos and Klaus Marius Hansen. "Software ecosystems–a systematic literature review." Journal of Systems and Software 86.5 (2013): 1294-1306.
- Tyrväinen, Pasi, and Joona Selin. "How to sell SaaS: a model for main factors of marketing and selling software-as-a-service." International Conference of Software Business. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2011.
- Moore, Geoffrey. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers. Revised ed. New York, NY: HarperBusiness, 1999. ISBN: 0887307175.
- Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business model generation: a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers. John Wiley & Sons.
- Killing, Peter, Thomas Malnight, and Tracey Keys. Must-win battles: How to win them, again and again. Pearson Education, 2006.
- Croll, A., & Yoskovitz, B. (2013). Lean analytics: Use data to build a better startup faster, O'Reilly Media, Inc.