go through Megan MarasSeptember 22, 2022 at 2:24 pm
Lunch at some of the restaurants on Boston’s Water Street as seen in August 2022. (Photo by David L. Ryan — The Boston Globe/Getty Images)
Businesses of all sizes and industries are prioritizing data-driven decision-making—making professionals in fields such as data science and business analytics in high demand. According to the Graduate Management Admissions Council, a survey of corporate recruiters found that 86% of companies plan to hire graduates with a master’s degree in business analytics in 2022. Companies pay these new hires six-figure salaries; the GMAC survey reports that by 2022, the average salary for graduates with a master’s degree in business analytics in the United States will be $105,000.
But you don’t necessarily need a full master’s degree program to gain exposure to this fast-growing field.Columbia Business School professor Dan Wang has previously said that now more than ever, MBA graduates must have skills beyond traditional business degrees wealth. These skills include knowledge in areas such as analytical marketing, product management, and working with business analysts in strategic roles.
Several universities offer online courses if you want to familiarize yourself with business analytics without having to take a degree program. We’ve rounded up four free business analytics online courses led by top universities.
Boston University: Business Analytics for Data-Driven Decisions
Boston University offers free online courses where students can learn how to apply analytics to their business strategies. In the Business Analytics for Data-Driven Decisions course, students will be exposed to concepts such as predictive modeling and machine learning, and how the results of the analysis can be used to develop business strategies.
The course is seven weeks long and participants need approximately three to six hours per week. It is taught according to a curriculum and is led by lecturers from Boston University’s Department of Computer Science and Information Systems. According to the course description, the course is designed to specifically address the needs of managers as there is a growing demand for leaders who can reframe business problems as data problems and use data to develop a competitive advantage for their business.
University of Colorado Boulder: Business Analytics for Decision Making
Business Analytics for Decision Making, offered by the University of Colorado at Boulder, is a course that teaches students the fundamentals of business analytics. Without delving into computer languages and advanced statistics, this course provides participants with the basics of Excel and teaches them through the Analytical Solver Platform, enabling them to practice developing predictive and prescriptive models.
Taught by professors at the university’s Leeds Business School, the free online course takes about nine hours to complete. This is the third course of five in the Advanced Business Analytics specialisation series offered by the school.Other courses include: Introduction to Business Data Analysis, Predictive Modeling and Analysis, Communicating Business Analysis Results and Advanced Business Analysis Capstone
University of Michigan: Introduction to Data Analytics for Managers
The University of Michigan offers a course called “Introduction to Data Analytics for Managers” for those seeking to better understand how data sources can be used to improve business strategy. Lecturers at the University of Michigan use lectures, business case studies, and practical applications of analytical tools to educate executives in the field of business analytics. Students will learn the basic skills of analysis, including simple scatter plots, SQL queries, hypothesis testing, and machine learning experiments.
Participants are not required to have any analytical background or skills, and the business analytics course is six weeks long and requires approximately two to four hours of work per week, although it is self-paced.
University of Pennsylvania: Customer Analysis
The customer analytics course taught at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is one of four courses offered in the school’s business analytics professional series. This course discusses how the vast amounts of data collected through operations such as credit card transactions and online shopping carts can be used to inform business decisions. By the end of the course, participants will be ready to describe tools for predicting customer behavior and will understand current best practices in customer analytics at top companies.
Customer analytics is taught by professors in the school’s marketing department, and the course takes approximately 12 hours to complete. Other courses in the Business Analytics specialization series include Operations Analytics, People Analytics, Accounting Analytics, and the Business Analytics Capstone.
See where the schools you’re considering are ranked by Fortune for the best master’s degree programs in data science (in-person and online), nursing, computer science, cybersecurity, psychology, public health and business analytics, and Ph.D. How does it perform in education programs MBA programs (part-time, administrative, full-time and online).