Competitive Strategy & Innovation Online Certificate Course London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Leverage organisational resources to set your company apart and drive innovation for business performance.

In today’s dynamic and uncertain business landscape, organisations that are able to leverage innovation strategically have an edge over their competitors and are best positioned to improve performance and profitability. Whether responding to pandemics such as COVID-19, technological change or customers' growing concerns for the environment, systematic innovation management proves invaluable.

The Competitive Strategy and Innovation online certificate course from LSE explores how harnessing your internal resources and identifying what makes your company unique can be used to win and sustain competitive advantage. Guided by an expert from LSE, you’ll learn to use innovation as a strategic tool to set yourself apart in a competitive market.

You’ll explore a range of practical techniques and frameworks that can be used to identify opportunities for innovation in the face of disruption, assess the viability of your ideas, and build a competitive strategy for real-world implementation. On completion, you’ll walk away with an action plan to sustain long-term performance in your organisation.

An Online Education That Sets You Apart

This LSE online certificate course is delivered in collaboration with online education provider GetSmarter. Join a growing community of global professionals who've already had the opportunity to:

• Gain verifiable and relevant competencies and earn invaluable recognition from a world-leading social science university, entirely online and in your own time.
• Enjoy a personalised, people-mediated online learning experience created to make you feel supported at every step.
• Experience a flexible but structured approach to online education as you plan your learning around your life to meet weekly milestones.

This course is presented entirely online, in collaboration with the leader in online education GetSmarter. View the Competitive Strategy & Innovation online certificate course to find out about upcoming course dates, the course price, and more.

Download your prospectus to find out more about this online certificate course.

Why choose GetSmarter?

GetSmarter, powered by 2U, is an online learning expert with over 10 years of experience in developing premium online short courses from the world’s leading universities and institutions. We are powered by 2U to support you in unlocking your potential through life-changing learning with an immersive and high-touch experience.

We deliver market-led courses that equip working professionals with the expertise required to upskill, reskill or kickstart a completely new career. Through a data-driven approach, we analyze future skills requirements and ensure all courses address this need. We ensure that leading universities and institutions are your expert guides and our people, technology, and resources are your engine – together we power more than just education, we power your potential.

Is this course for you?

This course is designed for anyone in a decision-making role who is interested in learning how to use innovation as a tool to respond to disruption and an increasingly competitive landscape. Business leaders who want to build strategies for competitive advantage, as well as middle managers who are responsible for implementing these strategies within their organisation, will find the content beneficial. This course also provides key insights to consultants or entrepreneurs who are looking to apply cutting-edge innovation practices in their work in order to help their company or client stand out in the market.

You'll walk away with:

• The ability to benchmark your business against competitors and the confidence to respond to disruption and competition strategically.
• A strategic assessment of what makes your business unique and current organisational resources that could be used for competitive advantage.
• The skills to drive innovation through the strategic application of design thinking, customer journey mapping, and blue ocean strategy.
• A practical, comprehensive toolkit to foster consistent innovation in your organisation for improved business performance.

Over the duration of this online short course, you’ll work through the following modules:

• Module 1: The resource-based view of the firm
  Learn about the key concepts that define a resource-based perspective of competitive strategy and innovation.
• Module 2: The trade-off between value creation and value capture
  Learn more about coopetition, value creation, and the trade-off between value creation and value capture.
• Module 3: Value proposition and strategic resources
  Learn how to leverage strategic resources to protect a unique value proposition.
• Module 4: Cumulative resources and internal organisation
  Learn about leveraging cumulative resources to bolster your organisation’s unique value position.
• Module 5: Innovation, competition, and blue ocean strategy
  Use the concept of the blue ocean strategy to suggest changes in competitive positioning.
• Module 6: Disruption and competence destruction
  Discover how agile organisations can resource the right innovations.
• Module 7: Design thinking for an innovation system
  Learn about the design thinking process, and how it applies to an organisational context.
• Module 8: Customer journey mapping and innovation in practice
  Reflect on how you might be able to apply innovation systems in your organisational context.

Download prospectus

Will I have the time?

GetSmarter's learning model is designed to help you, as a working professional, improve your skills without compromising on work and family responsibilities. The course is broken up into weekly, manageable modules, with incremental deadlines, devised to help you pace yourself over the duration of the course and allow you the flexibility to work when it suits you best. You also have access to your Success Manager, who will help you set goals, track key milestones, manage your time, and field any administrative enquiries you might have.

Seek employer assistance

By improving your skills and industry knowledge, you'll have an influence on the success of your organization. Why wouldn't you ask your boss to help you fund your studies if it's going to have an impact on the way you do business?

Of our past students, 37 percent have received financial assistance from their employers. You can ask for help, too.

If you are a Learning & Development (L&D) manager, or involved in training and upskilling for an organization, you can request information regarding our corporate offering on our GetSmarter for business page.