MIT603 · Semester III · Official Syllabus

Digital Governance Syllabus

Strategic governance of digital technology — from manifesto and principles through cybersecurity, privacy, compliance, digital transformation, and emerging technologies.

Unit 1: Introduction and Digital Governance Strategy

Foundations of digital governance: the manifesto as constitutional contract, scope beyond traditional IT management, governing body roles and accountability, developing a strategic vision through digital maturity assessment, and the twelve strategic governance principles.

  • A Digital Governance Manifesto
  • The Scope of Digital Governance and Role of the Governing Body
  • Digital Governance Strategy: Agreeing on the Current Situation, Developing a Vision, How Will We Get There?
  • A Pragmatic Approach to Digital Governance: Strategic Principles
  • Achieving Good Governance: Strategic Governance Principles 1–12 and Delivering Strategic Change

Unit 2: Managing Rapid Change in a Digital World

The digital opportunity quantified through augmented production functions and network effects, the exponential pace of technological change, frameworks for managing disruptive technologies, navigating technology risks through environmental scanning and active leadership, and strategic frameworks for successful digital transformation programmes.

  • The Digital Opportunity and Pace of Change
  • Getting Started: Watching Out for Risks, Managing Technology Risks, Understanding Business Environment, Active Leadership
  • Getting Digitisation Right: Right Objectives, Plan for Change, Right Structure, Avoid Short-Termism, Take Account of People, Encourage Innovation, Reach for Excellence, Monitor Success, Projects or Programmes?

Unit 3: Digitising Internal Operations

Technology drivers of internal digitization, legacy system cost escalation, cloud migration strategies and the governance trilemma, the economic case for process digitization through efficiency gains and data as strategic asset, and managing the digital estate through build-versus-buy decisions.

  • Understanding Digitization: Technology Drivers, Digitising Processes, Moving to the Cloud
  • Making the Case: Efficiency and Waste Reduction, Efficiency and Productivity, Data and Information, Advantages Beyond Efficiency and Data
  • Issues with Digitization: When Not to Digitize, Starting from Scratch, Managing the Digital Estate, Owning vs. Renting Assets

Unit 4: Transforming Products and Services

Models of digital transformation: digitally enhanced products, digitised products, and new business models. The economics of informationalisation, deep personalisation, sticky ecosystems with switching costs, the sharing economy, usage-based pricing, freemium models, and customer co-creation.

  • Models of Digital Transformation: Digitally Enhanced Products, Digitised Products, New Business Models
  • Digitally Enhanced Products: Adapting to Digital Services, Customisation, Personalisation, Informationalisation, Sticky Ecosystems
  • New Business Models: The Sharing Economy, Usage-Based Pricing, Limited Free Services, Make the Customers Do the Work

Unit 5: Digital Marketing and Sales

Debunking digital marketing myths around consumer understanding and symmetric dialogue, governance of marketing assets including websites, advertising, and social media, reputation management, the automation fallacy in sales, CRM integration in regulated environments, and talent strategies.

  • Understanding Consumers (Digital Marketing Myth 1) and Talking to Consumers (Digital Marketing Myth 2)
  • Governance of Marketing Assets: Websites, Online Advertising, Social Media, Reputation Management
  • Making the Sale (Digital Marketing Myth 4), Sales Technology (Digital Marketing Myth 5), Finding the Right People

Unit 6: Thinking Digital in Mergers, Acquisitions and Venturing

The paradigm shift from acquiring organizations to acquiring digital services, assessing strategic fit through technological compatibility, cultural alignment, and strategic complementarity, executing digital M&A through due diligence and deal provisions, and corporate venturing as real options.

  • Acquiring Services Rather Than Organisations and Assessing the Fit
  • Making It Happen: Maintaining Focus on Digital, Corporate Venturing, Data Rooms, Due Diligence, Deal Provisions
  • The Deal Is Done So Now What? Cultural Evolution, Technology Strategy, Post-Implementation Review

Unit 7: Assuring Digital Compliance

The strategic, financial, and reputational imperatives of digital compliance, sources of obligations from statutory law to industry standards, becoming compliant through regulatory scanning and engagement, the standards universe and emerging compliance frontiers, and rationalising compliance through audits, KPIs, and RegTech.

  • Why Care About Compliance? Sources of Compliance Obligations
  • Becoming Compliant: Scanning and Tracking, Engagement Not Denial, Obligation or Option
  • The Role of Standards: The Standards Universe, Emerging Compliance Obligations
  • Rationalisation of Compliance: Challenges, KPIs, Assessments, Audits, Assuring the Assurers, Benefits, RegTech

Unit 8: Information and Cyber Security

Foundational concepts including the CIA triad, strategic cyber risk management for APTs, ransomware, and supply chain attacks, the Gordon-Loeb model for optimal security investment, layered protection through the People-Process-Technology framework, and the board's role in cybersecurity governance.

  • What Is All This About? What's in a Name? Looking at the Problem Holistically, Developing a Strategy
  • Cyber Risk Management: Major Cyber Risks, APTs, Ransomware, Risk Assessment, Supply Chain Risks
  • Layered Protection: People, Process and Technology
  • Role of the Board in Security: Realistic Expectations, Working with the CISO, Risk Culture

Unit 9: Delivering Digital Privacy and Digital Resilience

The escalating urgency of digital privacy, GDPR compliance through data subject rights and organizational responsibilities, privacy oversight and lawful processing, embedding privacy through Privacy by Design, the economics of digital resilience and business continuity planning, and building resilience through testing, crisis communication, and lesson learning.

  • Privacy: An Urgent Priority — GDPR Rights and Responsibilities, Increased Penalties, Privacy Authorities
  • Privacy Compliance: Oversight, Processing Data, Subject Access Requests
  • Getting It Right: Ethics and Policy, Cultural Dilemmas, Other Required Processes
  • Employers' Vicarious Liability, Embedding Privacy and Minimising Risk
  • Digital Resilience: Definitions, Foundations, Situational Awareness, Outcome-Driven Planning, Devolved Coordination, Avoid Over-Dependence
  • Resilience Challenges: Testing and Rehearsal, Managing Stress, Crisis Communication, Lesson Learning

Unit 10: Emerging Digital Technologies

Governing Big Data through differential privacy, RPA and autonomous systems, AI accountability and fairness constraints, IoT and inference externalities, distributed ledgers and blockchain governance, and the mixed reality spectrum with brain-computer interfaces.

  • Big Data: Using Big Data, Robotic Process Automation and Autonomous Systems
  • Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Wearables, 3D Printing, Distributed Ledgers and Blockchain
  • Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality: The Mixed Reality Spectrum, Implants and Brain-Computer Interfaces