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Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship University Certificate
Enroll by June 24, 2024
Onboarding starts June 17, 2024
5 months
6-10 hours per week
$4,000
Eligible for CPF funding
100% online
+Live session classes.
Unlock your entrepreneurial potential and kickstart your innovation journey
Build leadership skills with HEC Paris
#1 Business School in Europe by the Financial Times for five consecutive years.
Be Job-Ready
Gain career-relevant skills that attract attention from recruiters and hiring managers.
Accelerate your path to a MSc degree from HEC Paris
If you are admitted to the full MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship program, your University Certificate will count towards your degree.
Program description
Develop an entrepreneurial mindset and drive innovation
Overview
This online certificate program equips busy executives and entrepreneurs with the know-how and practical skills they need to find creative solutions to innovation challenges. It will help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset and capitalize on your strengths to create a new business venture or an intrapreneurial project in your current organization.
You’ll learn to seize new opportunities, drive innovation, and design and implement a strategy. You’ll also discover how to develop appropriate social media and marketing approaches.
Program Objectives:
- Project yourself into all the key steps lying ahead for your entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial project
- Focus on business strategy and effective implementation - key success factors, sources of competitive advantage
- Choose the appropriate product development process for your project, by integrating both customer input and supply constraints throughout the process
- Develop an outstanding pitch to present your ideas to investors, partners, and other stakeholders
- Understand "state of the art" social entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship
- Implement an effective social media strategy to reach and engage with your stakeholders
Learning Methods:
The aim of our innovative, action-based learning approach is to strike the right balance between theory and practice. As well as the pre-established online courses, you will also have access to program features such as graded feedback from instructors, live instruction from HEC Paris’ world-renowned faculty, and the opportunity to study with a cohort of high-level peers.
Required background
You should have an undergraduate education or a professional interest in innovation and business development, whether for an entrepreneurial venture or for launching new projects within your current organization.
The language of instruction is 100% English. Thus, fluency in English (CEFR C1 level minimum) is mandatory to succeed in this program.
This program is accessible for people with disabilities. Please contact us if you have any specific requirements or to obtain the Public Accessibility Register.
From University Certificate learner to Master of Science:
Skills you will gain
- Product or services development
- Business strategy formulation
- Business strategy implementation
- Strategic management of a start-up or innovative project
- Business modelling
- Social entrepreneurship
- Pitch development
- Marketing and social media strategy implementation
5 courses in this 5-month program
Course 1 of 5
Entrepreneurship Strategy: From Ideation to Exit
Overview
This course covers in the chronological order each defining step of an entrepreneurial project. It begins with very personal considerations related to getting to better know yourself so as to decide if you are ready for the multiple challenges of entrepreneurship. It then deals with creativity in order to provide the right set of tools to find an idea with the right potential to disrupt an existing business. We then discuss how to gather a founding team, how to raise money to initiate the project, and how to deal with day to day cash management.
Later in the course, we discuss the art of selling, focusing on business to business sales, and how to measure the product launch phase using cohort analysis. Later on, we discuss the challenges of HR in an entrepreneurial environment, and of recruiting at a point where nobody knows your company. We then describe very practical techniques to initiate the international development of a small company. Last, we cover the exit strategy topic.
What you will learn
- How to apply theoretical concepts to real-world business cases
- How to identify gaps in the market
- How to develop actionable recommendations for improvement
- How to identify business ideas that reflect your values
Project(s)
Finding an idea for your company, product or service that corresponds to your values
Learn and apply processes to help you go from the initial step of finding new ideas for a meaningful product or service to the stage of identifying gaps in the market.
This is a staff-graded exercise completed with a peer-graded assessment, allowing you to learn from your fellow students.
Course 2 of 5
Business Strategy
Overview
- Understand your firm's competitive advantage as well as how to maintain and enhance it to stay ahead of the competition.
- Analyze how a firm’s external environment (i.e. its competitors, suppliers, customers) as well as its internal capabilities and resources shape competitive advantage.
- Develop a critical mindset when confronted with complex choices.
What you will learn
- How industry affects the average profitability of a firm
- How to identify key factors that determine the competitive advantage of a business
- How to apply Porter’s Five Forces framework to a real-world business case
Project(s)
How do different industries influence success?
Analyse and describe how different industries influence company success and the key factors that drive company performance. This will help you adapt your project to the realities of the business world.
This is a staff-graded exercise completed with a peer-graded assessment, allowing you to learn from your fellow students.
Course 3 of 5
New Product Development
Overview
- Acquire a broad understanding of how to manage the new product development process.
- Learn how to develop new products quickly enough to respond to new market opportunities or successfully bring new technological breakthroughs to market.
- Understand why in spite of huge investments in innovation, many products fail to meet their sales targets
What you will learn
- Understand the impact of overall company organization on business development
- Select the right company organization and the right individuals for your team
- Implement project control mechanisms that enhance your prospects for success
Project(s)
The Project Team
Apply theoretical knowledge about team structure to several business case scenarios. This project will give you a wider perspective on the impact of company organization on business development, help you to select the right team organization and the right individuals for a project, and learn how project control mechanisms can enhance your prospects for success.
This is a staff-graded exercise completed with a peer-graded assessment, allowing you to learn from your fellow students.
Course 4 of 5
Social Entrepreneurship and Changemaking
Overview
- Gain a brief overview of different types of entrepreneurs who create value for society.
- Work on your own entrepreneurial project and gain hands-on experience in transforming an idea into a sustainable business model with measurable positive impact on society and the environment.
- Develop a pitch to sell your idea to a wider public.
- Be inspired, equipped and convinced that you can take positive action to tackle the world’s most pressing problems in an entrepreneurial manner.
What you will learn
- Apply multiple tools for sustainable business development
- Understand how to implement the specificities of sustainable and social entrepreneurial business models
- Learn about the challenges of managing a double bottom-line that balances profit and social impact
Project(s)
The Business Model Canvas: “Your sustainable business model”
Learn how the business model canvas can be applied to sustainable entrepreneurship through real-world case studies. This project will help you to better understand the balance between profit and social impact, develop pitching skills based on the business model canvas, and work on your own social business model.
This is a staff-graded exercise completed with a peer-graded assessment, allowing you to learn from your fellow students.
Course 5 of 5
Marketing Through Social Media
Overview
- Understand the importance of word of mouth and consumer communities as market forces that influence decision-making throughout the purchasing process.
- Learn how social media can be leveraged both in B2C and B2B contexts to better understand, connect with and accompany your customers.
What you will learn
- How to develop social media strategies for either domestic or international markets
- How to formulate strategic marketing actions
- How to identify well-formulated business objectives
- How to choose your target audience
Project(s)
Social media strategy proposal for an existing enterprise
Learn how to use social media for marketing purposes through a real-world case study. It covers steps from creating a marketing idea to formulating strategic actions, identifying business objectives, and choosing your target audience.
This is a staff-graded exercise completed with a peer-graded assessment, allowing you to learn from your fellow students.
Earn credit toward a MSc degree from HEC Paris, offered 100% online.
Take the next step in your education to boost your career. This University Certificate is a building block that offers you a pathway to a degree while also providing job-relevant skills today.
Certificate
Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship University Certificate
Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship University Certificate Certificate Earn credit towards:
HEC MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (100% online)
If you apply and gain admission to HEC Paris’ 100% online MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, credits earned from this program will carry over as you pursue your full degree. If you do not opt to continue learning, you still receive an official certificate for completing this program.
Instructors
Frequently asked questions
Founded in 1881, HEC Paris has built itself on three core values: academic excellence, a strong sense of community, and a commitment to diversity. Thanks to these values, the school has become one of the world’s best business schools, as reflected in international rankings. By training tomorrow's business leaders, academic researchers, and entrepreneurs, we aim to be the architects of a responsible world with positive impacts on business and society. HEC Paris is currently ranked the #1 Business School in Europe by the 2019 Financial Times.
HEC Paris professors and experts will help you acquire the skills and know-how to:
- Obtain a MSc degree from one of the leading business schools in the world without having to leave your home or workplace
- Engage with successful entrepreneurs from across the globe
- Meet and exchange ideas with respected business people
- Work on a challenging team project which commercializes an idea, product, technology, or business proposition
Successful completion of all five courses and associated proctored final exams leads to an HEC Paris Certificate. The credits gained can then be used toward the MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MSIE) if you are subsequently admitted to the program.
Learn more about prerequisites for admission to the online MSIE >>
This program is eligible for the CPF funding. Learn more about CPF and other funding options on HEC Paris website.
The official start date of the University Certificate is scheduled every six months. You will have access to your onboarding course immediately after you enroll and pay. Access to for-credit course materials will be made available based on the program schedule.
Once the first course officially begins, you’ll be able to ask questions to the teaching team, get feedback on your projects, and work with other peers on group assignments.
You will get access to all University Certificate courses.
No. The University Certificate is available only to learners who have paid for the program.
You will have two weeks after the start of the first course session to obtain a refund.
Coursera does not grant academic credit; the decision to grant, accept, or recognize academic credit, and the process for awarding such credit, is at the sole discretion of the academic institutions offering the University Certificate program and/or other institutions that have determined that completion of the program may be worthy of academic credit. Completion of a University Certificate program does not guarantee admission into the full MSc program referenced herein, or any other degree program.
