Design­ing Ima­gin­at­ive Busi­ness Mod­els

Course content

The course is CANCELLED in the Autumn 2025.

Motivational letter

This motivational letter is the qualifier and seats will be allocated based on the convincing nature of the motivational letter. This is because the seats are limited and the intensity of the experience challenging. The key point to be addressed in the letter is why should you be given this opportunity? How will you make the best use of this opportunity? Remember to sign up for the course through the online registration at the same time you send in the letter.

Assuming an entrepreneurial intent begins with an aim to take advantage of an opportunity identified by the entrepreneur: he needs to determine the nature of the opportunity and efficacy of his assumptions. How he plans to take advantage of the state of the art in organizing for business, designing for generating value/revenue. He needs to acknowledge his customers are diverse, in their mannerisms and habits, lifestyles, world views, all needing services that fit their current disposition. How should the entrepreneur address this diversity in the opportunity he notices. He needs to be sensitive to not only the physical design of his offering, the making of it and his value proposition for his service. The entrepreneur needs to be contextually embedded to the state of the art and the market for resources and materials. Posing a practical challenge requiring him to develop a customized offering, incorporating the softer aspects of the nature and preferences of his customers? In effect the product is shaped by the nature of its customers, their behavior and lifestyle. How to design novel business models that support products and services that can help create new markets.

The course explores and creates a learning environment in which students can appreciate the importance and role of the business model in customizing and leveraging value. Business models are critical to the success of an innovation, hence learning how to understand and design a business model is critical for the growth of a business. The approach to business model will emerge from the context where the course is being taught, in relation to the Nordic 9. Linking innovative business models in this region to the world at large . The course has two components, the classroom activities in Copenhagen and an experiential part in India, where students will be exposed to real life challenges in developing business models. This will allow the student to embed themselves in a real business for a period of three weeks. India provides a vibrant as well as a challenging context to the task of understanding how business models can be designed for success. The Indian immersion can take place in relative safety and ease as the working language is in English and the context is known. The economic ecosystem is liberal and the business mechanics are internationally aligned in terms of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystems. 

The themes are as follows.

• What is a business model, its purpose and utility during the innovation process
• What is meant by business model design?
• How do innovators deploy business models?
• How to understand theoretical value and apply it in the real world?
• Making a case for a business model.
• Identifying and understanding the components of the business model
•  Aligning the model with innovation theories?
• How to use immersion to reflect about innovation theory in practice?
• When and how to deploy the business model?

Classroom activities

The classroom activities will take place in Copenhagen in an interactive, workshop mode. The activities will consist of lectures, workshops, group work, games. The class will be divided into groups, therefore we encourage students to be mindful and consider attending the classes as regularly as possible. Their participation in class activities will be beneficial to them as well as to their group members. Just reading the prescribed literature may not be sufficient to understand how to build a business model. During this period focus will be given on understanding the components of business models, its contexts, and the notion of value it can bring to the business. Emphasis in the classroom will be given to a theoretical understanding of a business model, focusing on learning how to frame the business model as a deployable artifact.

To capture learnings from both the classroom and later from immersion in India, students will each maintain a personal diary. This diary should be initiated at the beginning of the course and written in after the end of each session. The diary should have the student's reflections and learnings after every class, their doubts, understanding and insights. This diary should be maintained throughout the course of the class.

Students will be requested to volunteer to write the scrum report. The scrum report is a document reflecting the class activities, learnings of the students in class, limitations of the lectures at every stage of the process: some additional multimedia references should be included in the scrum report relevant to the topic helping the class better understand the subject matter of that specific class, hence the scrum report is the students' documentation of their learnings, critiques and additional information, including points not understood during the course of the class.

Further comments:

1. The course can only run if a minimum of 30 students are enrolled. This will be assessed shortly after the deadline for enrolment. 
2. Students are required to draft a motivational letter when enrolling.
3. Students need to cover the costs of flight and accommodation, food, transport etc. during the immersion experience. This is estimated to be around DKK 14,000 in total (for the international air ticket, domestic air tickets, accommodation, food, insurance, vaccinations, and local transport).
4. The immersion experience takes place in India.

4-week immersion experience in India

Part 1

• 5 lectures in Copenhagen before immersion and one summing up lecture in Copenhagen post immersion.

Part 2 Immersion

• Travel to Hyderabad Via Delhi or Mumbai, which ever is cheaper.
• Company introduction. Company dialogue, questions and answers
• Company visits, on location work, including feedback and personalized attention
• Feedback and personalized attention.
• Cultural events
• Reflection sessions

Some useful links from previous immersion experiences

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xly2r0H-QVM&t=147s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rpzLJLRjuk&t=522s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkQwJi2NHV4&t=1s