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Scaling Ventures 2024 Course Outline With Honor Code

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7 views

Scaling Ventures 2024 Course Outline With Honor Code

Uploaded by

Shathika Ananth
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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BITS SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

Term 4, Block 20, 2024 - 25


Course Outline

Course Title: Scaling Ventures: Linking Strategy and Operations

Faculty: Prof. Gad Allon

Dates: July 15 – July 28, 2024

Contact details: [email protected]

Academic Associate: Sayali Korde and Malvika Mishra

Contact details: [email protected]; [email protected]

Office Hours: By Prior Appointment

Course Objectives:

THE GOAL OF THIS COURSE is to make strategic scaling decisions that are grounded in
operational reality. The course adopts the perspective of the CEO and functional leaders in
growing ventures and organizations and explores issues that leaders and managers
encounter after a firm achieves product-market fit.

Key Takeaways:

We will approach the challenge of scaling by taking a holistic view that incorporates
competitive strategy, financial evaluation, and the customer experience. We focus on
decisions and challenges that many firms that try to scale their operations face with the focus
on assessing the readiness of the firm to scale, and the required steps to scale. In particular,
we will discuss whether the firm needs to reformulate its strategy; whether the firm should
build competencies in-house (for example, by investing in a portfolio of assets) or buy them
(for example by developing and implementing a network strategy working with external
suppliers) and the risks associated with scaling these. We will also discuss the
organizational implications of scaling, focusing on designing the organizational structure and
culture for growth, all while managing the challenges within and across the product,
engineering, sales, marketing and sales functions.
Learning Goals:
(1) Understand the notion of scaling and how it that different from growth
(2) Understand the main challenges firms face as they try to scale
(3) Build a framework that will help the students make scaling decisions, linking strategy
and execution.

Course Requirements: no pre-reqs.

Required Readings: Cases

Assessment: Exam

Assessment Criteria: Exam, cases, class contribution.

Assessment Guidelines

Assignment Schedule:

a. Class Participation- 20 marks


b. Assignment - Group case 10 marks
c. Assignment - Individual case 10 marks
d. Take-home Exam-60 marks

POLICY:

Attendance Policy
The attendance policy as laid out by the Programme Office applies. Please refer to your
Student Handbook for details.

Honour Code
BITSoM takes the honour code seriously, and so should you. The student handbook
contains details on the honour code policy at BITSoM. You are expected to abide by an
honour code and follow a culture of honesty. Please ensure that you read the relevant
section(s) in the handbook. Feel free to ask us in case you have any questions.
Coding scheme for all course work

Nature of Course work Discussion Nature of Reference Material


Code General Specific External Case/Problem
Discussions Discussions Material Solutions
AC-I Not Allowed Not Allowed Not Allowed Not Allowed
AC-IIa Allowed Not Allowed Not Allowed Not Allowed
AC-IIb Not Allowed Not Allowed Allowed Not Allowed
AC-IIIa Allowed Allowed Not Allowed Not Allowed
AC-IIIb Allowed Not Allowed Allowed Not Allowed
AC-IIIc Not Allowed Not Allowed Allowed Allowed
AC-IV Allowed Allowed Allowed Not Allowed
AC-V Allowed Allowed Allowed Allowed

Assessment:

Component Honor Code


Class Participation AC-V
Assignment- Group AC-I
Assignment- Individual AC-I
Take-home Exam AC-I

Session Schedule

Session 1 What is scaling: Introduction


Before Class:
In Class:
(i) Why is the course relevant today?
(ii) What is scaling (and how is it different than growth)?
(iii) What are the main challenges and risks firms face as they scale

After Class:
Extra Readings
Session 2: Scalable?
Before Class:
In Class:
(i) Understand that (rapid) growth should not be the goal of every firm
(ii) Explore the main business model drivers that encourage (rapid) growth and how
they are related to the notion of scaling
(iii) Introduce the main framework to test for readiness to scale?

After Class:
Extra Readings

Session 3 Product Market Fit And Efficiency


Before Class: Read the Kitopi case and answer questions.
In Class:
(i) (a) What has enabled the emergence of cloud kitchen players like Kitopi?
(ii) (b) What are the main operational differences between meal preparation in a
traditional restaurant and meal preparation in a Kitopi kitchen?
(iii) (c) How does Kitopi create value for restaurants, customers, and food delivery
platforms?
(iv) (d) Should Kitopi increase its business-to-consumer (B2C) activities? Why? How
should Kitopi think about building a safe growth trajectory vis-a-vis other stakeholders?
(v) (e) What other growth opportunities should Kitopi pursue?

After Class:
Extra Readings

Session 4 Efficiency (Peapod)


Before Class: Read the Peapod case and respond to the questions.

In Class:

(i) Discuss the notion of “Efficiency” and explore the financial and consumer
related aspects of it.
(ii) Develop a framework tying operational and marketing data together with
personal estimates and projections of key resources and process to assess the
readiness of the firm to scale.
(iii) Understand how to identify key scaling metrics

After Class:
Extra Readings

Session 5 Managing Cash Flow


Before Class: Read the REffP case and answer the questions

In Class:

(i) Understand the main risk of cash burn


(ii) Understand the tradeoff between growth and financial return and viability.
(iii) Understand how to build a basic (yet detailed) model for a SaaS business and
test different hypotheses on the scalability.

After Class:
Extra Readings

Session 6 Scaling Operational Resources


Before Class: Read the Network Fleet case and answer the questions.
In Class:
(i) Understand that a critical operational capability is the ability to deal with risk
while remaining agile.
(ii) Understand the need to invest in a portfolio of assets and understand what
makes a portfolio scalable.
(iii) Understand the need to identify and focus on operational constraints.
(iv) What are the main risks of scaling and how should firms plan for them?

After Class:
Extra Readings

Session 7 Scaling Platforms


Before Class: Read the Catalant case

In Class:
(i) Understand the shift from asset ownership to orchestration.
(ii) Understand the unique challenge of choosing the right pace of scaling a platform.
What are the factors that motivate firms to pursue or avoid accelerated growth
strategies in such settings?
(iii) Explore the unique scaling metrics of a platform.

After Class:
Extra Readings

Session 8 Scaling Processes (Cloudflare)


Before Class: Read the CloudFlare case and answer the questions.
In Class:
(i) Discuss the organizational challenges that firms face when they begin to scale
rapidly.
(ii) Discuss the balance between growth, people hiring and process streamlining.
(iii) Understand the implication of growth to the culture of the venture

After Class:
Extra Readings

Session 9 Scaling Culture


Before Class: Read the Pal’s case and answer the questions.
In Class:
(i) We will discuss the organizational challenges that firms face when they aim to
reignite growth in a mature industry.
(ii) We will discuss the role of processes and the interaction between processes and
culture in an operationally driven market.
(iii) Understand the role of the manager as an educator in a scaling organization.

After Class:
Extra Readings

Session 10 Decentralized vs Centralized Scaling (Careem)


Before Class: Read the Careem case and answer the questions.
In Class:

(i) How should firms allocate decision rights as the organization grows with focus on
central versus local decision rights.
(ii) Indicate how scale changes the role of a founder/CEO
(iii) Discuss the need to modify reporting structures and clarify decision rights as the
organization grows with focus on central versus local decision rights. Emphasize the
importance of culture, communications and other soft interventions to mitigate the
effects of structural changes.

After Class:
Extra Readings

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