Digital Transformation Coursera Quiz Answers – All Modules Quiz Answers
Table of Contents
Digital Transformation Module 01 Quiz Answers
Practice Quiz: Technology Laws of Business Disruption Quiz Answers
Q1. Which of these best describes the implication of humans’ ability to understand digital technology?
Correct Answer: Humans tend to have difficulty understanding exponential growth, which causes companies to underestimate digital trends.
Explanation: Humans often struggle with perceiving exponential changes, leading to underestimations of how rapidly digital technology evolves and impacts businesses.
Q2. How has competition changed with the business architecture shift from vertically integrated value chains to a stack-based structure?
Correct Answer: Innovation competition occurs at the bottom of the stack structure.
Explanation: In a stack-based structure, innovation often begins in the foundational layers, where technological advancements enable new players to disrupt established models.
Q3. A member of your team asks you to explain the impact of the deconstruction of the value chain. How would you best summarize its impact on business strategy?
Correct Answer: Businesses need to find their own economies and strengths in the emerging stacks in their industry.
Explanation: The deconstruction of the value chain requires companies to identify where they can uniquely contribute and leverage strengths within new stack-based ecosystems.
Q4. How could you best describe the economic impact of technology over the past four decades?
Correct Answer: It is a paradox that productivity growth has not kept pace with the growth in information technology spending.
Explanation: Despite significant investments in IT, productivity growth has lagged behind, creating a paradox often referred to as the “productivity paradox” in economic discussions.
Week 01 Quiz: Technology Laws of Business Disruption Graded Quiz Answers
Q1. Your company is undergoing a major review of its use of digital technology. How would Moore’s Law be most likely to impact your review?
Correct Answer: The processing power of computers doubles every year and a half.
Explanation: Moore’s Law states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles approximately every 18 months, leading to increased processing power and reduced costs, which significantly impacts technological strategies.
Q2. Imagine you work for a large and established incumbent in the banking industry. How might you most successfully compete in an increasingly stack-based industry?
Correct Answer: Consider dominating the bottom layer infrastructure, which depends on economies of scale.
Explanation: In a stack-based industry, dominating foundational infrastructure layers offers cost advantages and establishes a strong competitive position due to economies of scale.
Q3. Which of these best describes the experience of a company that produces content and relies on consumers in a stack-based industry?
Correct Answer: Consumers and producers need a platform on which they can find one another and interact.
Explanation: In a stack-based industry, platforms play a critical role by enabling content producers and consumers to connect and transact, which drives the overall ecosystem’s functionality.
Q4. Your company’s board of directors is questioning your IT department’s increased budget while noting that the company has failed to see increased productivity. Which of these theoretical explanations is most likely to help the board understand this paradox?
Correct Answer: The company’s increasing complexity could be having a negative and neutralizing impact on productivity.
Explanation: Increased digital investments often lead to greater organizational complexity, which can offset productivity gains, creating the so-called “productivity paradox.”
Digital Transformation Module 02 Quiz Answers
Practice Quiz: Understanding the Context Quiz Answers
Q1. A company has created a website to help owners rent their recreational vehicles. Which type of marketplace disruption is most likely to occur?
Correct Answer: Business model innovation
Explanation: The company is using technology to create a platform that enables peer-to-peer transactions, disrupting traditional rental businesses with a new business model.
Q2. How might a company strategically use social media to drive a digital transformation?
Correct Answer: Create an app that leverages data from information customers share via social media.
Explanation: Leveraging social media data enables businesses to understand customer preferences, improve services, and create personalized experiences, which are essential for digital transformation.
Q3. As more companies begin producing apps and other software that work on a new mobile operating system, how does the maker of the operating system gain more advantage in the digital economy?
Correct Answer: The company benefits from increased network externalities.
Explanation: Network externalities occur when the value of a product increases as more people use it, such as when a growing number of apps increases the attractiveness of an operating system.
Q4. Your company is the market incumbent and has just introduced a new product. How would you best describe its current life cycle phase?
Correct Answer: Emergent phase
Explanation: A new product introduced by an incumbent is in the emergent phase, as it is just beginning its market life cycle and adoption curve.
Q5. A few companies introduced virtual reality headsets and are experimenting with the style and features of the headsets to see what is most popular with consumers. What is most likely to happen next?
Correct Answer: A dominant design of the virtual reality headsets is likely to form.
Explanation: During the early stages of a new technology, companies experiment with designs until one becomes the standard (dominant design), which typically precedes mass adoption.
Q6. Which of the following would you classify as a demand pull?
Correct Answer: Noticing that a new competitor has launched a vacuum cleaner with features and a new functionality that consumers seem to like, industry incumbents hurry to design a product with similar features.
Explanation: Demand pull occurs when consumer demand drives companies to innovate or adapt their products to meet market needs.
Q7. Which of the following firms is most likely to experience success during the era of ferment?
Correct Answer: A small start-up of engineering students who have a design for a new type of crutch.
Explanation: The era of ferment is characterized by innovation and experimentation, where small, agile firms are often better positioned to succeed with novel designs than established firms focused on stability or efficiency.
Practice Quiz: Winning in the Digital Age Quiz Answers
Q1. You are working for an established industry firm. A small entrepreneurial firm has just launched a technology that appears to appeal to consumers in your market. Which of the following is the biggest indicator that your company may be able to withstand this disruption?
Correct Answer: Your company quickly recognized a need to change and has pivoted its extensive resources to researching and developing a similar technology.
Explanation: A quick and proactive response to market disruptions, leveraging the company’s resources to innovate and adapt, is a strong indicator of resilience and the ability to compete effectively against emerging threats.
Q2. Which of the following companies is most likely in the strongest position to win a digital transition?
Correct Answer: A company innovated a new way to automate its service.
Explanation: Automation demonstrates a practical application of innovation, improving efficiency and customer experience, which positions a company strongly in a digital transformation. Incremental improvements or patent defense alone are less impactful without leveraging digital opportunities effectively.
Q3. What important overall question should companies ask themselves when considering whether to launch a new product?
Correct Answer: Is this market a winner-take-all or duopoly?
Explanation: Understanding the market dynamics, such as whether it is a winner-take-all scenario or a duopoly, helps companies assess the potential rewards and risks of launching a new product, shaping their strategy for gaining competitive advantage.
Week 02 Quiz on Foundations of Digital Transformation Graded Quiz Answers
Q1. A company created a simple software tool that lets users identify and track project tasks. The free software has become very popular and widely used on agile software development teams. Which type of marketplace disruption is most likely occurring?
Correct Answer: New market disruption
Explanation: New market disruption happens when a product or service creates a new market segment by attracting previously underserved or non-customers, as this software tool has done by becoming popular among agile development teams.
Q2. A retail store has expanded its loyalty rewards program to better understand the best discounts, sales, and products to offer its customers so that they’ll make more purchases. How might you best describe the impact digital transformation has had in this scenario?
Correct Answer: The company is leveraging data to create a better shopping experience for customers.
Explanation: Using loyalty program data to tailor customer experiences and offerings exemplifies how companies can use digital transformation to enhance customer satisfaction and drive revenue growth.
Q3. Which of these companies has the most competitive advantage in digital economies?
Correct Answer: A company has leveraged its platform technology and network externalities to become the best at creating value for its customers through its exemplary customer service.
Explanation: Leveraging platform technology and network externalities provides a strong competitive edge in digital economies, as it enhances the value proposition and scalability.
Q4. Your company is the incumbent in your industry and was able to survive a disruption to maintain its place as one of the three dominant market players. While growth has declined, your sales are still stable. How would you best describe your company’s current life cycle phase?
Correct Answer: Mature phase
Explanation: In the mature phase, growth slows or plateaus, but sales remain stable, indicating the company has established a dominant position in the market.
Q5. Your company is one of many software firms that has developed a new way to track data in online auctions. The industry has experienced explosive growth as a dominant design has emerged and auction companies are racing to implement new software solutions. What is most likely to happen to these software firms next?
Correct Answer: Due to over competition, firms will go out of business or go through mergers and acquisitions.
Explanation: Over-competition during rapid growth phases often leads to market consolidation, where only the most competitive firms survive through mergers, acquisitions, or exits.
Q6. Which of the following would you classify as a demand pull?
Correct Answer: Noticing large demand for vintage game consoles, a video game company has released a handheld player that features its original, 1980s-era video games.
Explanation: Demand pull occurs when market demand drives innovation and product development, as seen with the release of a handheld player to meet consumer interest in vintage consoles.
Q7. How would you best describe firms that are likely to experience success during the era of ferment?
Correct Answer: Small entrepreneurial firms
Explanation: Small entrepreneurial firms are more agile and experimental, making them well-suited to thrive during the era of ferment when market dynamics are uncertain.
Q8. You are reviewing a case study of an industry’s firms. Which of the following describes an industry incumbent that is most likely to fail to survive a disruption?
Correct Answer: Executives of one company don’t think they should make such a dramatic shift from the products that have been so successful for them in the past.
Explanation: Incumbents that are resistant to change and unwilling to adapt to disruptions are more likely to fail, as they risk becoming obsolete.
Q9. Which of the following would be most likely to strengthen a company’s ability to compete in a digital transformation?
Correct Answer: A company has tightly held complementary assets in distribution channels and in its ability to use a related technology to create a new product.
Explanation: Owning complementary assets such as distribution channels and related technologies provides strategic advantages in adapting and succeeding in digital transformations.
Q10. When analyzing the competitive life cycle, what is the most important question companies should ask themselves during a market shakeout?
Correct Answer: Is this market winner-take-all, duopoly, or contested?
Explanation: Understanding the market structure helps companies determine the intensity of competition and strategize accordingly to maximize their chances of survival and success.
Digital Transformation Module 03 Quiz Answers
Practice Quiz: Drivers of Digital Transformation Quiz Answers
Q1. An international donut company uses data to plan when to perform routine service on machines in each of its factories so that parts are available and staff is allocated for the tasks. How would you best describe the potential value creation and impact on their business by using data in this way?
Correct Answer: The company is performing predictive maintenance.
Explanation: Predictive maintenance involves using data to anticipate when equipment will require servicing, minimizing downtime, and improving operational efficiency.
Q2. Your team is reviewing options for using the data your company has collected on customer behaviors and preferences. Which of the following would be most likely to risk a breach of trust with customers?
Correct Answer: Minimize potential negative reactions and publicity by making changes quietly, without directly notifying customers.
Explanation: Failing to notify customers about changes in how their data is used can breach trust and lead to negative publicity. Transparency and communication are critical in maintaining customer trust.
Q3. How might a company best leverage cloud services?
Correct Answer: Plan for necessary upgrades or downgrades and shifts between different types of devices.
Explanation: Cloud services offer flexibility and scalability. Planning for upgrades, downgrades, and shifting device needs allows companies to maximize the benefits of cloud technology without overcommitting resources.
Practice Quiz: Opportunities and Challenges Quiz Answers
Q1. Your team is responsible for determining a use case scenario for the Internet of Things. Which of these elements would be of greatest concern/the biggest problem as you prepare to select a platform provider?
Correct Answer: The platform uses a technology that is not compatible with the company’s current system but is technologically advanced.
Explanation: Compatibility with existing systems is critical when selecting a platform provider for IoT. If the platform is incompatible, it can lead to costly integration efforts or limit the system’s functionality, regardless of its technological advancement.
Q2. In what type of situation would additive manufacturing be least likely to add immediate value for a company?
Correct Answer: An industry that is heavily regulated.
Explanation: Heavily regulated industries often require extensive testing and compliance certification for new production methods, which can delay the adoption of additive manufacturing and reduce its immediate value.
Q3. Your IT department is assessing your company’s risk of a cyber breach. Which of these is most likely to be a conclusion of the study?
Correct Answer: Attacks are often fragmented and occur over time.
Explanation: Cyber attacks frequently involve multiple stages and may unfold over a prolonged period. These fragmented approaches are harder to detect and are a significant concern for IT security teams.
Practice Quiz: Emerging Trends and Technologies Quiz Answers
Q1. How can companies best minimize possible ethical and legal implications from the use of artificial intelligence?
Correct Answer: Contribute to policy and regulatory interventions.
Explanation: Companies can minimize ethical and legal risks by actively contributing to the development of policies and regulations. This ensures that AI systems are developed and used responsibly while adhering to ethical standards and legal requirements.
Q2. Which of the following businesses is least likely to benefit from blockchain?
Correct Answer: A technology firm that has the capability to create blockchain applications.
Explanation: While a technology firm creating blockchain applications may benefit from selling its services, it is not using blockchain directly to solve a business-specific problem. Blockchain is most beneficial when solving issues like secure transactions, record maintenance, or asset tracking.
Q3. Which of these companies could most likely use blockchain to solve an asset tracking problem?
Correct Answer: A group of farmers in a community-supported agriculture network wants to share source information and updates on when items will be harvested and where they will be available for purchase.
Explanation: Blockchain is highly effective for tracking assets and sharing information across multiple parties. It would enable farmers to securely and transparently update harvest and availability details, enhancing trust and efficiency.
Week 03 Quiz: High-profile Digital Technologies Graded Quiz Answers
Q1. How would you best describe the potential value creation and impact on the jewelry company’s business by using data in this way?
Correct Answer: The company is personalizing its offerings.
Explanation: The company uses customer data to tailor their experience by showing similar items and creating more popular designs, a prime example of personalization.
Q2. Which of the following would be MOST likely to risk a breach of trust with customers?
Correct Answer: Minimize potential negative reactions and publicity by making changes quietly, without directly notifying customers.
Explanation: Not informing customers about changes to how their data is used undermines transparency and trust, which are critical to maintaining customer confidence.
Q3. Which item poses the greatest concern about the hospital group’s ability to migrate to cloud services?
Correct Answer: The architecture of the cloud services plan is intentionally designed with current capacity and other limits in mind.
Explanation: A cloud architecture with limited capacity or scalability might not accommodate the hospital group’s potential growth and expansion needs.
Q4. Which of these elements would be of greatest concern in selecting a platform provider for IoT?
Correct Answer: The platform’s architecture is fixed rather than modular.
Explanation: A fixed architecture limits flexibility, which is essential for IoT platforms to adapt to changing needs and integrate with new technologies.
Q5. Which company would most likely benefit from additive manufacturing?
Correct Answer: A company creating an innovative new product that has never been built before.
Explanation: Additive manufacturing (e.g., 3D printing) excels in creating prototypes and small-batch innovative designs, especially for new products.
Q6. How did your company most likely fail to protect itself from a cyberattack?
Correct Answer: Your company has cybersecurity policies in place but does not audit processes or employee behaviors.
Explanation: Having policies without proper enforcement or regular audits leaves gaps that attackers can exploit, especially through employee errors.
Q7. How can you best establish a competitive edge in Artificial Intelligence?
Correct Answer: Enhance your proprietary training data.
Explanation: Quality and unique data provide a competitive edge because machine learning algorithms rely heavily on data quality for effective training and decision-making.
Q8. In which scenario is blockchain most likely to have a significant impact?
Correct Answer: A platform-based business.
Explanation: Blockchain is well-suited for platform-based businesses by enabling secure, transparent, and decentralized transactions and operations.
Q9. Which company could most likely solve a problem using blockchain smart contracts?
Correct Answer: A Dubai-based company needs to be able to help its customers reach an agreement to purchase shares in an airplane membership service.
Explanation: Blockchain smart contracts are ideal for automating agreements and securely recording transactions, such as share purchases.
Q10. How might companies best analyze and select trends relevant to their business?
Correct Answer: Examine trends for the potential to grow the core business and to find new digital growth opportunities.
Explanation: Evaluating trends based on their potential to enhance the core business or create new opportunities ensures alignment with strategic goals.
Digital Transformation Module 04 Quiz Answers
Practice Quiz on Layer 2: The Fundamental Duality Quiz Answers
Q1. Why is design thinking an appropriate approach to use to digitize the core?
Correct Answer: It helps digital teams redesign the customer journey with the customer at the center.
Explanation: Design thinking emphasizes empathy and places the customer at the core of the process, enabling businesses to create digital solutions that enhance the customer journey.
Q2. What question should every organization ask before digitizing its business?
Correct Answer: Does digitization help us meet our business purpose?
Explanation: Organizations should ensure that digitization aligns with and supports their core purpose and strategic goals, rather than adopting technology for its own sake.
Q3. What are critical dimensions in digitizing the core?
Correct Answer: Excel in both customer experience and digital operational excellence.
Explanation: Successful digitization requires balancing improved customer experience with efficient and innovative operational practices to create a competitive edge.
Q4. What would you recommend to support long-term growth?
Correct Answer: We also need to invest in exploring new digital growth.
Explanation: While maintaining successful products is important, long-term growth requires diversification and investment in new opportunities, particularly in digital innovation.
Q5. How can companies avoid both the success and the perpetual search traps?
Correct Answer: Switch a team from an exploitation stage to exploration.
Explanation: Companies can balance short-term success (exploitation) with long-term innovation (exploration) by periodically shifting their focus and ensuring a dynamic approach to growth.
Practice Quiz on Layer 3: The Core Enablers Quiz Answers
Q1. Which model has proven most effective in increasing speed to market, productivity, and employee engagement?
Correct Answer: Agile@scale
Explanation: The Agile@scale model helps businesses scale agile methodologies across teams, leading to faster product development, better productivity, and higher employee engagement by allowing flexibility and faster responses to market demands.
Q2. A CEO has been relying on gut instincts to make decisions and achieve business goals. What should she focus on to build value from data?
Correct Answer: Data ecosystem
Explanation: To build value from data, a CEO should focus on creating a robust data ecosystem, which ensures access to high-quality data, enables effective data analysis, and drives informed decision-making.
Q3. Your company is starting to develop technology-enabled processes to keep up with new customer expectations and fast product delivery cycles of digital innovators. What approach would you recommend?
Correct Answer: Develop a digital speed team
Explanation: A digital speed team is focused on rapidly developing and implementing technology solutions to meet customer expectations and accelerate delivery cycles, ensuring the company stays competitive in the digital age.
Q4. How can an ecosystem provide a competitive advantage in the digital age?
Correct Answer: It leverages the data outside the company
Explanation: By leveraging external data, an ecosystem can offer new insights, improve decision-making, and drive innovation, providing a competitive edge in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Week 04 Quiz: Your Path to Digital Transformation Graded Quiz Answers
Q1. Imagine your company has created an energy-saving and cost-efficient solution for the storage and distribution of electric power that will make current methods obsolete. Which strategy approach would be most appropriate for your firm?
Correct Answer: Visionary
Explanation: A visionary approach is ideal for disruptive innovations that aim to completely replace existing solutions in the market, as it allows a company to shape the future of the industry with a unique and groundbreaking product.
Q2. Your company is developing new digital products. Which approach should they use?
Correct Answer: Design thinking
Explanation: Design thinking is a human-centered approach that encourages creativity and iterative testing to develop products that truly meet customer needs, making it ideal for digital product development.
Q3. Your company wants to increase profits and has focused on improving the customer experience and has seen a slight improvement in profits. What should they do?
Correct Answer: Continue to focus on the customer journey while improving operational efficiency
Explanation: Focusing on the customer journey is crucial for sustained growth, and by improving operational efficiency alongside customer experience efforts, you can drive further profitability.
Q4. You learn that your company’s chief competitor is digitizing a new capability. How should your firm respond?
Correct Answer: Digitize the same capability if it is aligned with a business purpose.
Explanation: If the new capability aligns with the company’s business objectives, it makes sense to digitize it to stay competitive. However, it is important to evaluate how it fits within the business strategy.
Q5. Your company launched a very successful product a few years ago, one that consistently yields significant profits. Your CEO now wants to shift the balance of company resources to new product innovation. What could you say to convince him to dedicate significant resources to also maintaining and improving the existing product?
Correct Answer: We need to avoid the perpetual search trap.
Explanation: The perpetual search trap happens when companies focus too much on new innovations while neglecting their existing profitable products. Balancing both will ensure continued success.
Q6. How can companies who lack internal resources balance exploration and exploitation?
Correct Answer: Orchestrate separate units to serve exploration and exploitation needs
Explanation: Creating separate units for exploration (new ideas) and exploitation (refining and scaling existing products) allows companies to focus on both without one diminishing the other.
Q7. What are the key advantages of agile@scale?
Correct Answer: It helps align interdisciplinary teams toward a common goal and gives them full responsibility to deliver products.
Explanation: Agile@scale fosters collaboration and accountability across teams, helping to align the organization’s efforts toward a unified goal while encouraging ownership of the product delivery process.
Q8. Your company’s IT team has been working for three years to develop an interface to align product development with customer data. Despite a big investment of resources, they are no closer to a solution. What would you recommend your company focus on instead?
Correct Answer: Data ecosystem
Explanation: Focusing on building a strong data ecosystem, which integrates diverse data sources and enables more effective data usage, could help resolve the challenges of aligning product development with customer data.
Q9. Your company has to manage its legacy system and build new digital capabilities. What approach would you recommend?
Correct Answer: Develop a two-speed approach
Explanation: A two-speed approach allows a company to maintain and optimize its legacy systems while simultaneously developing and deploying new digital capabilities at a faster pace.
Q10. What is one way that companies can leverage their ecosystem?
Correct Answer: To decouple different layers of the value chain.
Explanation: Leveraging an ecosystem allows companies to break down and decouple different parts of their value chain, enabling more flexible and scalable operations that can adapt to changing market conditions.
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