Competitive Strategy Online Course

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are a revolutionary way to bring education to the masses, and make the collective human knowledge accessible. You might have heard of Coursera, which is a great for-profit MOOC provider, whose courses have been offered for free so far. They charge for certain certificate courses, but if you just like to listen to video lectures or read the notes, it’s only for the price of your time.

I’ve been taking courses from Coursera for a while. The level of engagement is up to you. You can be as involved as a real student actually taking the course, attend study groups on the side, take the exams, and submit the assignments and project. You can also just skim the scripts, and (just like me) watch the video lectures as a passive way of consuming information. They have a broad catalog of courses from top universities around the world, so you’ll definitely find something that interests you.

A few days ago, I came across Competitive Strategy on Coursera. Tobias Kretschmer from a top German university is the instructor of this course, and judging by the first module of the course (out of six), he knows how to keep the audience interested and entertained. The course tries to use a few game-theoretic tools to analyze different strategies businesses can use to their advantage. As someone with a general interest in microeconomics or marketing, I quickly fell in love with it.

The first module introduced a few basic concepts from game theory, so if you already know about them, it may sound a bit boring. However, I’m looking forward to the upcoming modules to see how those abstract tools are employed in business strategy and marketing. If it piqued your interest, feel free to join; it’s free and open to new students at any time.