Course Outline

KEY CHALLENGES TO EFFECTIVE DIGITALISATION:

• Collaboration and information sharing – lack of efficiency
• Insufficient/developing infrastructure
• Rapidly expanding/growing global market in scale and scope
• Undefined strategy/poor tactical implementation and planning
• Slow decision making – negative impact on working capital management
• Poor data handling/streamlining
• The Total Cost of Ownership
• Wide range of terms utilized in payments and receivables
• Varying levels of institutional creditworthiness
• Oligopolistic market controlled by banks and financial institutions with specialist knowledge
• Impact of developing markets
• Impact of domestic markets (reducing cross-border transaction volumes (trade flows))

BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY

• What is ‘Blockchain?’
• Some key issues with digital assets – proof or authenticity and the ‘double-spend’(cryptocurrency)
• Key features of Blockchain
• Permissioned Blockchain applications – Consortium blockchains and fully private blockchains
• Case study – the ‘TradeLens’ platform

SMART CONTRACTS

• What is a ‘Smart Contract?’
• Key differences between a ‘smart’ contract and a ‘normal’ contract
• The ‘Self-Executing’ protocol
• Creating Mr. X – The Trusted 3rd Party who doesn’t actually exist
• Could Mr. X be the ultimate mediator?
• The mechanics of Smart Contracts- immutability; distribution; transparency
• Smart contract planning – creating and managing the interface – clarity and ease of use key issues
• ‘Alignment and Capture’ – two necessities to make it all work
• Advantages of Smart Contracts – streamlining – removal of ‘data silo’s;’ enhanced security protocols (less exposure to loss and fraud; backup copies); removal of intermediaries; automatic enforcement of contract terms; precision (less human interaction – less scope for mistakes)
• Disadvantages – hacking; changes in the ‘real world’ (i.e. a material event that would void a traditional transaction); regulation issues
• Negotiating smart contracts – a new horizon?
• The question of anonymity
• Jurisdictional challenges

DIGITALISATION AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

• Operating within the digital environment
• Assessing the organisation’s capabilities
• Class exercise
• Removing fragmentation from the SC
• Streamlining and optimisation strategies
• The role of negative feedback loops
• The role of positive, self-amplifying feedback loops
• Model: Creating a Sustainable Competitive Advantage.

DISRUPTIVE STRATEGY: CREATING THE ‘TOMORROW ORGANISATION’

• Harnessing Emergence- identification; quantification; adoption
• The potential problem of implementation and integration
• Innovation – the key driver for managing disruptive technology
• Information distribution – the key enabler
• Innovation and operating on the ‘Edge of Criticality’
• The issue of standardisation – what will this mean for interoperability?
• Level of ‘tech integration’ (reluctance to change)
• The fundamental problem of the rate of change
• Model: The Competitive Cycle
• Class exercise

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT IN A DIGITAL WORLD

• Ghost in the Machine – ‘Spectral’ stakeholders in the digital medium
• What do stakeholders want?
• The Stakeholder Trilogy – Power; Influence and Impact
• Stakeholder Power – interventionalist; opportunistic; developed/developing; inherent or random
• Stakeholder operational considerations within the digital medium
• Class Exercise
• 3 key strategies for stakeholder engagement
• Model: The Stakeholder Assessment System
• Best practices in stakeholder analysis
• Model: The Stakeholder Hexagon Analysis