How is digital company management taught, and which 5 skills does IND459 give a founder?
The course catalogue of Galatasaray University’s Industrial Engineering programme lists a course coded IND459, Digital Company Management and Business Analytics (ects.gsu.edu.tr, accessed October 2026). The course is given in the 7th semester for 5 ECTS credits; its textbook is the 15th edition of Laudon and Laudon’s Managing the Digital Firm. Here the digital company (dijital şirket) is not a status but a way of managing, in which business processes run over digital networks. The Ministry of Industry and Technology’s digital company definition had not been published as of October 2026, when this article was last updated.
What this means for you: the seven weekly topics of the syllabus can be reduced to five skills for the founder of a newly incorporated company. All five can be learned and applied today, without waiting for the definition.
How is digital company management taught at university, and what does IND459 cover?
BU BÖLÜMÜN ÖZETİ
- The course at a glance
- Laudon and Laudon’s digital firm concept
- Two meanings, two paths
The course defines the digital company as one whose business processes and customer-supplier relationships run over digital networks. Gülçin Büyüközkan Feyzioğlu teaches it. The content is management and analytics, not law or status.
The course at a glance
IND459 is given in the 7th semester of the Industrial Engineering undergraduate programme for 5 ECTS credits. The weekly topics open with digital company management and digital systems, and continue with planning, infrastructure and current technologies. Industry 4.0 and digital transformation, e-business, decision support systems, case studies and data analytics follow. Analytics exercises use Tableau.
Laudon and Laudon’s digital firm concept
The textbook is called Managing the Digital Firm; a digital firm is a company whose core business relationships are built and managed digitally. The concept is academic, independent of and older than Türkiye’s public scheme. The university teaches this meaning; the Ministry will define the other one. Same words, different things.
Two meanings, two paths
The phrase digital company covers two things today: the Ministry’s status, not yet published, and a company that runs its business digitally. The course teaches the second. The second can be set up today; the first waits for the definition. Our guide to the two meanings of digital company explains the distinction; the official framework is in our guide to what a digital company is.
Which five skills do IND459’s weekly topics give a founder?
We reduced the seven topic headings to five skills: digital system planning, building e-business, decision support, data analytics and case reading.
The difference between an engineering student and a founder
The student sees these topics through large-company examples; the founder applies them in a one- or three-person company. A three-person company has accounting software instead of an ERP, and Search Console and GA4 instead of a data warehouse. Same skill, smaller tool.
How do the digital system planning and e-business skills work in a new company?
The first skill is planning the company’s digital backbone: domain name, website, corporate e-mail, accounts and software. The second skill is selling on top of that backbone.
System planning: inventory first
Which software will be opened in the company’s name, which data will be kept where, and who will have access? In a new company the list is short: domain name, hosting, website, corporate e-mail, three social accounts, accounting software. All in the company’s name, not the founder’s personal account.
What do the decision support and data analytics skills mean at incorporation?
The third skill is deciding with numbers, the fourth is reading those numbers. The course teaches decision support systems and analytics with Tableau. In a new company Search Console and GA4 do that job.
Data analytics: two dashboards instead of Tableau
The student builds a dashboard in Tableau; the founder looks at the GA4 and Search Console dashboards. The skill is the same: which number matters, and which number is noise? On a new site, the first months bring impressions and few clicks. That is normal; the direction of a number matters more than a single week.
No data, no analytics
If measurement is not set up together with incorporation, the first months are lost. Search Console and GA4 do not collect data retroactively; they start from the day they are installed. Structured data (Organization and FAQ) should be in place the same day for AI reading.
How is the case reading skill used on the digital company agenda?
The course’s case study topic teaches how to draw lessons from someone else’s company. For a founder, the nearest case is the digital company agenda itself. Reading the news as a case separates exaggeration from gaps.
Reading the agenda as a case
On 27 April 2026 two ministers made statements; on 4 June 2026 a legal provision was published; on 6 September 2026 the programme set a target; on 12 October 2026 KOSGEB (Türkiye’s Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization) announced platform support. A case reading combines these in one sentence: the direction is clear, implementation is waiting for the definition. The full order of the steps is in our guide to the digital company timeline.
The preparation checklist is the output of the case
A case reading should end in a list. Our guide to preparing before the digital company definition answers what should be ready before the definition appears. The third 2026 application period for the KOSGEB Business Development Support (İş Geliştirme Desteği) closes on 31 October 2026; the list can be built around that date.
Which skill comes first at incorporation, and how does a founder set the order?
System planning comes first, because the other four run on top of it. Then e-business and measurement go up the same day; analytics and case reading need continuity. The order is independent of the definition.
The first 30 days: system and measurement
Domain name and hosting in the company’s name, a website with 6 top-level pages and 12 sub-pages, three social accounts tied to the corporate e-mail, Search Console and GA4 on the same day. These four jobs match the course’s first three topics and its analytics topic. If the order breaks, data is lost for good.
The following months: content and decisions
108 AI-SEO-ready articles across 6 keyword groups are the content side of the e-business skill. As articles are published, Search Console shows which group is searched; that is decision support at work. Without content there is no number to read, and AI answers recognise the company by reading this content.
Quick Summary
- GSU’s IND459 course is given in the 7th semester for 5 ECTS credits; its textbook is Laudon and Laudon, Managing the Digital Firm, 15th edition.
- The course teaches the digital company as a way of managing; the Ministry’s status definition had not been published as of October 2026.
- Seven weekly topics reduce to five founder skills: system planning, e-business, decision support, data analytics, case reading.
- In a new company, Search Console and GA4 take the place of Tableau; neither collects data retroactively.
- The third 2026 application period for the KOSGEB Business Development Support closes on 31 October 2026.
Short Glossary
- Digital firm
- Digital firm is the academic concept used to describe a company whose core business relationships are built and managed over digital networks.
- Decision support system
- Decision support system is the structure that collects data and presents it as numbers and reports so that a manager can decide.
- ECTS
- ECTS is the credit unit used in European higher education to measure the workload of a course.
Frequently Asked Questions
Next Step
If you want to plan your company’s digital side together with incorporation, book a discovery call on our digital company page and review the My Digital Company (Dijital Şirketim Olsun) delivery list; we stay your friendly adviser throughout your digitalisation journey.
The definition and conditions of the digital company scheme are not final yet; support amounts and conditions may change. Check the latest information with the Ministry of Industry and Technology, KOSGEB and the Official Gazette before deciding. This is not legal or financial advice.
Sources: Galatasaray University, IND459 Digital Company Management and Business Analytics course details (accessed October 2026) · AA, Medium-Term Programme report (10 September 2026) · KOSGEB, Entrepreneur Support Programme renewed (12 October 2026) · Diken, Şimşek: we are introducing a digital company regime (27 April 2026)
Updated: October 2026
Sık Sorulan Sorular
The first three topics of the course (digital systems, planning and infrastructure, Industry 4.0) form the system planning skill. The e-business, e-commerce and mobile business topic is the second skill. Decision support systems are the third, data and business analytics the fourth. Case studies are the fifth skill. The mapping is our reading, not the course’s official learning outcome.
The five skills feed each other: without a system there is no e-business, without e-business there is no decision data, without data the analytics stay empty. Case reading connects the four to the outside world. The order follows the incorporation calendar: first the system, then the sales channel, then measurement and reading.
The Industry 4.0 heading in the course describes sensors, automation and connected production. In a three-person service company its counterpart is automation: a WhatsApp Business greeting message, form replies, an appointment flow. Same technology, different scale. The repetitive part of the work is left to the machine.
The e-business topic treats the website as a place of transaction: requesting a quote, ordering, booking an appointment. An AI-ready and user-friendly website puts this flow into the page plan; 6 top-level pages, 12 sub-pages and 6 categories are built on this logic. E-commerce infrastructure is a separate decision for product sellers; a service company starts with a form and WhatsApp.
The course describes a decision support system as a structure that puts numbers in front of the manager. In a new company this structure is two reports: impressions and clicks in Search Console, visits and form submissions in GA4. Which service is in demand comes out of these two reports. Advertising and content decisions follow.
A case analysis asks three questions: what happened, why did it happen, what should be done? For the digital company the answers are: the provision arrived, the definition did not; implementation needs secondary legislation; digital preparation runs independently of the definition. We read the public data architecture proposals with the same method in our article on the once-only data principle and the company passport.
One person need not learn all five skills. We build the digital system plan, the content and the measurement together with incorporation in our digital consulting service. You can follow the agenda on our digital company page, where we collect every question on the topic.
No. The course teaches Laudon and Laudon’s digital firm concept, that is, the management of a company that runs its business over digital networks. The Ministry’s status definition had not been published as of October 2026; the course is independent of it.
Digital system planning: domain name, website, corporate e-mail, accounts and measurement tools should be set up in the company’s name on the day of incorporation. The other four skills run on top of this backbone.
Not for a newly incorporated company. The Search Console and GA4 dashboards give impressions, clicks, visits and form counts. The skill is reading which number matters and which way it is moving.