Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

PGSEM Elective Course

3rd Quarter (2016-2017) Credits: 3

Strategic Management in Media and Entertainment Industry

Prof. S. Raghunath
Professor, Corporate Strategy and Policy

Objective:

The media and entertainment industry is changing fundamentally and fast. This represents a
very real challenge to general managers responsible for planning a strategy and implementing
it successfully. The objective of this course is to provide an overview of the media and
entertainment industry, business models, value drivers and current strategic issues in the
various sectors that together constitute the industry.

Second, it identifies the common themes surfacing in the strategic environment and the
challenges these pose, as well as particular aspects of media and entertainment organizations
that influence the activities of strategic choice and implementation.

It explores the strategic models, concepts and approaches that are particularly relevant to this
strategic context and these types of organizations, seeking to demonstrate their relevance
through application to media and entertainment industry cases.

By joining this class, I assume that you plan to become a key contributor to media and
entertainment industry either as an executive or as a general manager. The course will consist
of two parts:

Analysis of media and entertainment industrys external environment with the

breakdown of various sectors that together make up the industry, discussion of the
common themes in the strategic environment that are influencing strategic activity
and an overview of the concept and status of convergence.
The second part explores a number of strategic levers an organization can employ in
media and entertainment industry to achieve mastery of its environment. These are
drawn from adaptive and interpretative areas of strategic theory, these include types of
responses to technological change, options for organization structure, increasing
levels of creativity and innovation, interpretative elements such as cognition and
culture, and leadership.

Course Content

The course has the following themes:

What is unique about the context of media and entertainment industry

Trends in the environment that are shaping the strategic agenda in the field
 Firm strategy and performance in media and entertainment industry
The impact of technological change
The role of creativity and innovation
Specific requirements and challenges surrounding strategic leadership in media and
entertainment industry.

Pedagogical method:

Your educational experience in this class will consist of three primary areas:

Daily case preparation and class discussion:

Cases will be due for discussion on most days. You may prepare for the case analyses
individually.

With prior intimation a study group will be present their "Position Outline" (PO) in the
class. This may be presented by the group during the session.

Forming a Study Group:

It is required that you form a group of two members to serve as a study group for this course.

It is to your advantage to form your team with people you can work with and who have
complementary skills. For example, if you are strong in finance, you might look for a team
mate who is good with marketing, OB issues, etc.

I strongly urge you to seek diversity on your team. You will learn more and probably
produce better work.

Project Work:

The primary objective of this project is to give you an indepth opportunity to see how the
concepts in this course are applied in practice. You can conduct some interviews with
relevant managers for this project.

Write a consultants brief on how to create and manage successful firms in the entertainment
industry. It would develop a model of successful firms which is graphically presented and
elaborated upon.

Readings:

The readings that I have identified for the course enable you to develop an understanding of
media and entertainment industry advocated by strategy literature. You will have an
opportunity to examine a representative portion of the literature to gain insights relevant to
the cases.

In each session, study groups will be identified to present readings summary to the
class. The reading summary should contain the following.

Highlights from the readings

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 Summary of conclusions/results

The identified study group will make a summary presentation in each class. In sessions
with multiple readings, multiple groups will be intimated for the presentations.

The course grade will be determined by three components:

Class Participation 30%

Readings Summary and Position Outline 30%
Group Project 40%

Faculty Profile:

S Raghunath is a Professor of Corporate Strategy and Policy. He specializes in Strategic

Alliances and Strategic Leadership. He offers the general management programme for Film
and Television Industry Managers based on his field research and case studies. He is also the
Programme Director for International Masters Programme for Practising Managers..

Dr. Raghunath is on the board of directors of several hi-tech companies and is Chairman of
the India Board of Academy of International Business (AIB) and on the board of governors of
the Society of Certified Investment Bankers and the Strategic Management Forum of India.
He is a Registered Consultant with the Office of Project Services, UNDP, and New York.

He has published several papers, case studies and book chapter and has been quoted in
publications such as Economic Times, Business Line and the Computer Today. He was a
Visiting Scholar at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University (1990-1991) where
he engaged in research in strategy making in IT companies. He was also a Visiting Professor
at the University of Buckingham, UK; RMIT School of Business, Melbourne, Australia,
HEC, Paris and INSEAD, France and Toulouse Business School, France.

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