Guest Speaker from smarter ecommerce GmbH in LIO Master's Program

One module in the LIO Master's program is dedicated to "Understanding the Digital Economy". In this module, students understand the basic structure of the platform economy, digital business models, the logic of crowds and crowdsourcing and platform organizations and their underlying technologies. Today's session was developed together with Oscar Linares, Client Success Manager at smec, one of Linz' digital economy champions located in the city's entrepreneurial hub, the Tabakfabrik, öffnet eine externe URL in einem neuen Fenster. While we were unable to hold the class directly at smec's Tabakfabrik office because of the Covid-19 restrictions, we had a great virtual session in which Oscar introduced the students to smec's business model as well as its larger ecosystem, most importantly the role of Google as a "frienemy". Students also learned about how GoogleAds work and logic behind the ad-bid system, a cornerstone of e-commerce. In an interactive session, students worked in detail on the different elements of the business models of smec and GoogleAds and we ended with an open discussion on strategic developments and the legal basis of e-commerce business models. Thank you so much to smec and Oscar in particular for these amazing insights.