As president of Responsible Media, an independent media and marketing company, Stephanie Coughlan is responsible for developing marketing strategies for advertising clients throughout New England. To expand her knowledge of the digital landscape, she attended the Driving Digital Strategy program at Harvard Business School Executive Education. She shares some highlights from her experience.
The overview of the program provided a detailed description of how the course would build our knowledge of current digital challenges in the market and how best-in-class companies are dealing with these challenges. This was very appealing to me. More important, Harvard Business School's case study method is such a compelling and interesting way to learn in-depth, real-time lessons. Knowing that the professors have first-hand experience with many of these cases gave me great confidence that I would learn the most up-to-date strategies to help my clients develop first-to-market digital ideas.
The program provided an incredibly thorough overview of the marketing challenges that global brands will face in the future and the digital themes that are most important to understand. As I go forward, the importance of complementary product and network effects will be critical in any brand planning strategy I undertake, and that's something I didn’t focus on before this program.
The living group helped to connect us so we could learn more from each other—not only about the cases, but also about how the material could help our companies.
As the digital era continues to transform our global economy, Driving Digital Strategy provides invaluable lessons and knowledge on how businesses can navigate and thrive. From the case study method to the engaging and thoughtful faculty, Harvard Business School professors provided such a high level of in-depth analysis and first-hand experience.
The enthusiasm each professor demonstrated was the most delightful surprise of the course. The faculty approached each day as if it were the first day of their teaching career. They were so excited to teach the material and engage the class.