Coursera: Analysis of a Disruptive Innovator in Education

This report examines Coursera as a disruptive innovator in the education sector. It begins by defining disruptive innovation and then introduces Coursera, highlighting its founding, mission, and ranking as a disruptor. The report analyzes Coursera's business model, emphasizing its role in providing online academic services and degrees from top universities at affordable costs. It discusses Coursera's impact on the education industry, including its wide range of courses, optimization of digital mediums, and contributions to skill enhancement. The report also addresses the challenges Coursera faced initially, such as public skepticism, and how it overcame them through marketing and demonstrating the value of its platform. Furthermore, it explores Coursera's growth during the COVID-19 pandemic and its initiatives like the “Workforce Recovery” program. Finally, the report concludes by emphasizing Coursera's ongoing commitment to innovation and its success in helping students achieve their educational goals.

Disruptive Innovation

Topic :- Disruptive Innovation
Disruptor organisations can be characterised as the business firms that started out at small
scale but exhibits the necessary capability and potentiality to emerge as one of the strongest
competitors in their respective industry. Coursera is a business firm founded by Andrew and
Daphne Koller. The firm came into existence in 2012 in the city of California. The business
enterprise incorporates the facilitation of online academic services to the students all across the
globe. The company has also been ranked at 4th position in CNBC's 50 most disruptor companies
in the year 2020. The company can be termed as an online institution that provides advanced
opportunity to the students to en-roll in various different online courses and acquire degrees from
almost all the leading universities in the world at affordable expenditure (Ayoub, Amin and
Wani, 2020). Coursera can be termed as a disruptive organisation as it is one of a kind in the
entire academic industry. The conceptualisation of the idea to facilitate the individuals with a
medium which can be utilised by them to study online and to get a degree from the top colleges
for the same can be stated as a revolution in the education industry. For example, an individuals
acquiring a bachelors degree from a renowned and popular university is likely to incur the less
expenditure in comparison to the one attending the real time program.
Coursera is an online platform that provides a wide rage of programs to the individual in
order to provide them with a diverse choice for selection of the appropriate course that is the
most suitable for them. The company has facilitated the optimisation of digital medium in an
excellent manner . It has set an example for the other business organisations in the education
sector on how to lead innovation and creativity in the educational domain. There are
approximately 3000 courses offered by Coursera which involves sociology, science,
mathematics, psychology,entrepreneurship, information technology etc. The respective firm can
be stated as the first organisation in the world that has provided such a wide platform to the
students in the respective organisation and has opened the door for new business opportunities
for other institutions as well (Wu and Zhou, 2020).
Coursera is also capitalised by various leading business enterprises all around the world
in order to facilitate the skill enhancement well as concept and knowledge development of their
employees. In the initial period after the commencement of the organisation, it did not receive

the encouragement and support of the individuals as public was reluctant to trust the firm and
invest their money in the same. The company made various efforts in marketing sector in order
to advertise and promote the firm in a productive manner in order to reach maximum number of
audience and engage the same towards the firm. With the constant determination and hard work,
the individuals started the importance of the advanced platform provided by the firm in the
education sector and how the optimisation of the same can help the individuals in achievement of
their career goals and dream jobs.
The emergence of COVID-19 accelerated the growth and development in the online
teaching but Coursera has been doing the same from past few years. The public has now
understood the perks associated with online teaching and are trying to leverage on the same as
well. Coursera has contributed a lot in the upliftment of the employees during the pandemic
period as the company has launched an initiative named as “Workforce Recovery”. The
concerned initiative focuses upon helping out the government authorities in providing various
jobs from various to the unemployed individuals in order to enhance the overall employment
rate in the society (Khor, 2020). The respective initiative has not only helped the organisation to
hire competent workforce but has also helped the employees to acquire jobs in such uncertain
market conditions.
Overall, it can be stated that Coursera is a brilliant platform for the students aspiring to
learn new skills and concepts in their filed of interest in order to alleviate their knowledge. The
business organisation is growing day by day due to its constant drive for leading innovation in
the academic industry. Coursera has been able to communicate its vision to the world and has
helped and assisted a large number of students to accomplish their educational goals and
aspiration from their dream universities.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Khor, E.T., 2020. Features Identification and Classification of Discussion Threads in Coursera
MOOC Forums. In Transforming Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (pp.
189-202). Springer, Singapore.
Wu, B. and Zhou, Y., 2020. The Impact of MOOC Instructor Group Diversity on Review
Volume and Rating—Coursera Specialization as an Example. IEEE Access, 8,
pp.111974-111986.
Ayoub, A., Amin, R. and Wani, Z.A., 2020. Contribution of developed countries towards
MOOCs: an exploration and assessment from a representative platform Coursera. Asian
Association of Open Universities Journal.