A working playbook synthesized from Vanderbilt Owen MGT 6572 (Strategic Management of Technology, Mod II 2025, Professor Sruthi Thatchenkery) and the canonical literature of technology strategy: Eisenmann on platforms, Pisano on science-as-business, Christensen on disruption, Gans's alternative theory, the antitrust turn under Lina Khan's FTC, and a curated library of cases (LiveSearch, Nook, Eli Lilly, Amazon, Kroger, Facebook, AI Wars). Plus the team's Flutterwave Strategy Analysis Paper as the integrative deliverable.

Why this masterclass exists

Technology industries change the rules of strategy. The frameworks that work in stable, slow-moving industries — Porter's Five Forces, the BCG matrix, classical positioning — don't translate cleanly. Tech markets exhibit winner-take-all dynamics, network effects, multi-sided economics, exponential adoption curves, cumulative-data feedback loops, and creative destruction on timescales that classical strategy frameworks don't capture. The strategist who applies the wrong framework to a technology market is operating from the wrong map.

MGT 6572 (Vanderbilt Owen, Professor Sruthi Thatchenkery) is the course that teaches the right frameworks for technology markets. Its premise: tech strategy is a distinct discipline with its own theoretical foundations — multi-sided platform theory, ecosystem dynamics, technology adoption curves, disruption theory — plus the integrative judgment to apply them in fast-moving environments. The course covers three thematic blocks (platforms and ecosystems, technology change and disruption, current topics in tech) across 14 class sessions, anchored by a multi-month group Strategy Analysis Paper (SAP) that asks teams to apply every framework to a real technology business of their choice.

This masterclass synthesizes that course's arc. It draws on Thatchenkery's lecture decks, the Course Concepts documents, the seven case studies (LiveSearch, Nook, Eli Lilly, Amazon, Kroger, Facebook, AI Wars), the Case Concept Checks the team submitted throughout the mod, and — most consequentially — the team's Flutterwave SAP, a strategy evaluation of the African fintech that integrates every course concept into a single coherent analysis.

By the end, you should be able to:

The course's defining stance

Thatchenkery teaches tech strategy with a specific theoretical commitment: competitive advantage in technology markets comes from mastering distinct strategic logics that apply at different points in a firm's lifecycle and an industry's evolution. The three logics:

  1. Position Logic — finding and defending a specific position (a moat) through long-term investments. Most useful in established industries with stable competitive structures. Hardest to apply in fast-moving tech markets.
  2. Leverage Logic — assembling and deploying VRIO resources (Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, Organized) to maintain competitive advantage. Most useful in moderately changing environments where capabilities outlast specific market positions.
  3. Opportunity Logic — adapting quickly to capture a flow of short-term opportunities through simple rules. Most useful in fast-moving, unpredictable environments where committing to a fixed position is costly.

The strategist's job is to know which logic applies when, and to integrate them across a firm's portfolio.

A second course-level commitment: technology strategy must explicitly account for ecosystem and platform dynamics. Where classical strategy treats firms as roughly autonomous competitors, technology strategy treats firms as participants in ecosystems of complementors whose collective behavior shapes outcomes. Co-opetition (cooperate to grow the pie; compete to split it), hard power vs. soft power, multi-sided economics, network effects, and standards wars — these are the operational realities tech strategists navigate.