It is predicted that the global Business Analytics Market will reach more than $70 billion in the years to come. In terms of salary, scope, and professional incentives, Business Analytics has emerged as one of the more lucrative careers for aspiring analysts.
Glassdoor’s “25 Best Jobs in America” second these numbers by featuring both Business Analytics and Data Sciences- a sub-field -in its lists recurrently. With tens of thousands of annual job openings in the US alone, now is a great time for potential analysts to explore and hone their skillsets with curated learning programs.
To help you get started, we have prepared the following list of the best business analytics courses online. These also include specializations and career tracks in Business Analytics.
Business Analytics Courses Online – Overview
Business Analytics refers to a collection of tech-based processes and operations used to analyze and report historical data. This analytic investigation allows businesses to identify key trends, gaps, and developments that make room for more informed decision-making.
It is vital here to understand the difference between business analytics and business analysis as two closely linked but separable subsets of business intelligence. While the primary tenet of both domains is data, the main difference lies in what is to be done with it.
Business analytics professionals focus on data for visualizations and reporting. Their purpose is to create compelling stories that can help analysts project for the future.
In turn, business analysts study the internal functions and processes to identify newer needs and offer solutions. Since much of this is based on the data mined by the analytics department, business analysts act as liaisons between the management and IT suites.
In addition, there are obvious overlaps between Business Analytics, Data Analytics, and its parent denomination Data Science. Each field involves tampering with datasets and visualizing the latter in the form of digestible insights.
But while this tampering is the end goal for data analysts (and to an extent for data scientists), Business Analytics takes it a step further by using these insights to inform high-stake business decisions. The following list of some of the best Business Analytics courses online will help drive a greater understanding of what the field entails.
Business Analytics Courses Online 2022 – Top Picks
| Business Analytics | Business Analytics | Business Analytics | Business Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
| Nanodegree | University Course | Specialization | CBAP Certification |
| Udacity | University of Cape Town | Wharton Online | Pluralsight |
| $339/month | $948 | $59/month | $29/month. |
| View Course | View Course | View Course | View Course |
If mathematical, statistical, and predictive analyses are up to your alley, we suggest you go through our list of the best business analytics courses online for a transformative career.
1. Business Analytics – Udacity
Udacity’s Business Analytics nanodegree (visit website) is a popular introductory level program to gain foundational data skills. Participants will be able to use those skills via sound data analysis, and communicate or visualize their results with Excel, Tableau, and SQL. This is a lucrative career path as you can apply business analytics to any industry.
Spanning over a total of four courses, the program can be completed within 3 months with a dedicated learning span of 10 hrs/ week. In the first module, you will learn to use Excel for manipulating, analyzing, and communicating important findings.
Next, you will learn to extract and analyze stored data via SQL (Structured Query Language). From here, your end goal will be to generate powerful and compelling visualizations, something you will pick up in the final module of this program.
Like other Udacity programs, enrolment comes with an assortment of additional materials and resources. These include project reviews, feedback from experienced reviewers, technical mentorship, resume support, etc. It is one of the most popular and best business analytics courses online and the program’s certification is highly recognized.
Instructors: Josh Bernhard, Dana Sheahan, Mat Leonard, Derek Steer
Business Analytics Courses: 4 | Prerequisites: None
Price: View Course. From $339/month. Up to 75% off. Includes certificate.
2. Business Analytics – University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town (visit website) offers this comprehensive business analytics course for practicing analysts and professionals who wish to develop their skills further. With this class, students will be able to apply advanced data analysis techniques to interpret and understand number sets for better decision-making.
The 8-week program will take you from advanced techniques in data analytics to informed decision-making and critical thinking in business. It will help learners acquire high-level business analytical skills and understand the basics of performative analysis in Python.
By the end, students will be able to use analytical tools such as Tableau to communicate business insights effectively. At the same time, you would be able to derive real business value through storytelling and data-based visualization. This is one of the best business analytics courses online to further boost the hard skills modern companies need the most.
Provider: University of Cape Town | Duration: 8 weeks | Certificate: Yes.
Prerequestsities: Basic Statistics, Analytics | Type: Instructor-lead | Price: $948
Info: View course. Get free prospectus. Browse all business analytics courses.
3. Business Analytics Specialization – Coursera
Coursera’s program in business analytics (visit website) involves a series of five courses that typically take around six months for completion at 3 hours/week. As a learner, you’ll retain the flexibility of opting for individual courses, which come with their own certificates or follow the entire specialization.
Directed at beginners, the path aims at enabling learners to kick-start a profession in Business Analytics or expand their skill set to advance their careers. Be prepared to expand your credentials with additional training in Customer, Business and Predictive Analytics, Regression Analysis, Decision Trees, and Marketing Performance Evaluations.
Business Analytics Specialization begins with an introductory course on Customer Analytics, Operations Analytics, and People Analytics before moving on to the role of statement data and non-financial metrics in forecasting future financial performances.
You will finish off with a capstone project yielding the opportunity to apply previously acquired skills to real challenges faced by global technology companies. This is among the best business analytics courses online if you want university-style education.
Provider: Wharton Online | Business Analytics Courses: 4 | Duration: 6 months
Price: View course. Get Coursera Plus (View) – $59/month with certificate.
4. Predictive Analytics for Business – Udacity
Udacity’s second nanodegree (visit website) is a collaboration with Alteryx and Tableau aimed at fresh analysts with some experience in data analysis, statistics, and algebra. Enrolling in the program can help you scale further expertise and advance professionally.
Comprising of six modules, this advanced-level program averages around three months’ learning at 10 hours per week. Predictive Analytics for Business aims to help upcoming analysts upgrade their skillset through real-world implementations of business intelligence.
Your next-level analytic journey begins with incorporating a framework that helps you layout your diagnostic approach and lessons in Simple and Multiple Linear Regression. With data wrangling, you will learn to deal with various data types and master reformatting and joining data from multiple resources.
With the basics down, you will move on to classification models, executing A/B tests, using ETS and ARIMA models to forecast data, and finally, segmentation and clustering data for appropriate interpretations. It’s one of the best business analytics courses online for those looking to start a career in this field.
Instructors: Patrick Nussbaumer, Ben Burkholder, Maureen Wolfson
Business Analytics Courses: 6 | Prerequisites: Algebra, Descriptive Statistics, Excel
Price: View Course. From $339/month. Up to 75% off. Includes certificate.
5. Introduction To Business Analytics – Udemy
Udemy’s introductory course (visit website) teaches the core concepts of BA to allow marketers to make better and more informed business decisions based on data. It’s one of the best business analytics courses online suitable for beginners or those wanting to gain essential skills before specializing.
Introduction to Business Analytics allows you to polish your business acumen, understand business performance, familiarize yourself with modern business processes, and strategize on leveraging data for greater efficiency.
In the nine units that comprise this course, you will begin with an understanding of end-to-end processes incorporation and high-stake operations before moving to core topics. The latter include mature analytics, expert techniques in practice, analytics life cycle, data visualization, and practical case studies.
Instructor: 365 Careers | Level: Beginners | Lectures: 55
Video: 5 hours | User Rating: 4.5/5 ★★★★☆
Price: View Course. From $11.99 (Sale – 95% off). Browse Category.
6. Business Process Analytics in R – DataCamp
Data Camp’s course (visit website) teaches key processes in Business Analytics. It is a four-module program that trains learners to extract actionable insights from large sets of event data and drive business processes in R.
Learners are required to have some familiarity with data in Tidyverse. You will begin with an introduction to process analysis in three steps: extraction, processing, and analysis. Next, you will dive into the three main perspectives of data analysis that include control-flow, business performance, and organizational background.
With the basics in processing down, you will move towards filtering and aggregating the data before initiating an end-to-end analysis of an order-to-cash process. This is one of the best business analytics courses online to improve analytics skills in R.
Videos: 16 | Time: 4 hours | Exercises: 58 | Certificate: Yes
Price: Standard $25/month. Premium $33/month.
Info: Visit website. Get a discount on all plans. Free trial.
Tip: Browse our lists of data science courses and data analytics courses. If AI is on your learning schedule here are the best artificial intelligence courses.
7. Analyzing Business Data in SQL – DataCamp
This Data Camp class (visit website) focuses on generating performance-gauging metrics from SQL queries to analyze the effectiveness of a business’s operations. 4 hours of dedicated learning will sufficiently transport you towards the end of the course. By learning to write SQL queries, you will learn to generate report-ready results for businesses.
You will start the first of four modules by using Common Table Expressions to calculate profit. The second module deals with the art of calculating registrations and active users’ KPIs. In the final two modules, you will focus on spotting variance in user behaviors and packaging KPIs into readable reports that can be communicated to the higher-ups.
You may try their business analytics courses for free. DataCamp allows users to make use of its free monthly trial before switching to the $12/month standard subscription plan.
Videos: 15 | Time: 4 hours | Exercises: 46 | Certificate: Yes
Price: Standard $25/month. Premium $33/month.
Info: Visit website. Get a discount on all plans. Free trial.
8. Statistics for Business Analytics A-Z – Udemy
Udemy’s second course (visit website) is a two-in-one curated course in Business Analytics and Data Science. The class belongs to Udemy’s exclusive business collection. Although directed at business professionals and organization members, learners must only possess a working knowledge of high school math before embarking on the journey.
Statistics for Business Analytics consists of a total of 6 units adding up to some 6 hours of on-demand video. Core topics include, but are not limited to, Normal Distribution, differentiating between continuous and discrete variables, Z-scores and Z-tables, practicing Central Limit Theorems, t-Scores, and t-Tables, etc.
You will begin your learning path with concepts relating to deviations, distributions, and skewness, before moving on to Central Limit Theorem, Hypothesis Testing, Statistical Significance, and Advanced Learning. An assortment of bonus lectures awaits you at the end of the course, along with a sharable certificate.
Some real-world examples of business challenges included in the course can help you drive a greater understanding of the implementation and analytic applications. In terms of Udemy, this is among the best business analytics courses online.
Instructor: Kirill Eremenko | Level: Beginners | Lectures: 42
Video: 6 hours | User Rating: 4.5/5 ★★★★☆
Price: View Course. From $11.99 (Sale – 95% off). Browse Category.
9. Becoming a Business Analyst – Pluralsight
Becoming a Business Analyst is an introductory level program aimed at fresh learners without any prior experience in analytics and divided into Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced level modules. Based on your skillset, you can either opt for one particular module or organically build your command by subscribing to the entire path.
Starting with the beginner’s module, you will be introduced to the roles and responsibilities of business analysts that uniquely position them as the ultimate liaisons between the various organizational tiers. With a stoic understanding of an analyst’s scope down, you can proceed to the next milestone.
In the intermediate module, you will take your skillset up a notch by creating and leveraging networks that help analysts manage conflicts, learn stakeholder perspectives, and generate consensus for policy changes.
Once you’ve secured your footing in the theoretical groundings, it’s time for the advanced-level instructions. In the final module, you will learn about the unique technical solutions and Agile Scrum processes that are part and parcel of most analysts working in large business setups today. One of the best business analytics courses online for beginners.
Business Analytics Courses: 6 | Level: Beginners to Advanced
Price: View Course. $29/month. Includes certificate. Get free trial.
10. Business Intelligence Master’s Program – Edureka
Edureka offers an extensive business analytics Master’s program comprising 11 courses, 200+ hours of interactive learning, and real-world projects. With the industry short of around 150,000 savvy business managers, Edureka brings the opportunity to fill this void through its self-paced certification program. Bonus features include lifetime access to all course material, live consultancy, and hands-on projects.
Business Intelligence Master’s Program is aimed at learners with various levels and requires no prior experience. Core topics covered in the program include, but aren’t limited to Data Mining, Data Modelling, Advanced Database Concepts, Data Visualization & Reporting, Tableau, Cognos BI, NoSQL DB concepts, and MongoDB Architecture, etc.
Each course is an opportunity to earn certification in a related field sub-set. To qualify for the Master’s program, you are required to complete each course notwithstanding any particular order. However, Edureka recommends sticking to the default arrangements for this learning track. It’s one of the best business analytics courses online that are guided.
Modules: 11 | Time: 6-7 weeks | Interactive Hours: 200 hours | Certificate: Yes
Capstone: Yes | Price: 1,199. View course.
11. Business Analyst Master’s – Simplilearn
Endorsed by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), Simplilearn’s Master’s Program in Business Analytics is a three-tiered online bootcamp for graduates of engineering or an equivalent degree.
Enrolling in this program will put you abreast of seven detailed courses at the end of which you’ll be awarded a Master’s certificate. You will also earn individual certificates for each of the courses completed. Simplilearn’s Master’s program is a customized career path to provide learners with extensive expertise in business analysis.
Mastering the technical skills and topics introduced in this program will catapult you into an active analytics career. Some of the key skills and subject essentials include Excel analytics, statistical tools, life cycle management, data analysis using Tableau, Agile Scrum methodologies, SQL, and Scrum applications.
Simplilearn is well established and offers some of the best business analytics courses online. Over a span of four weeks, learners are delivered 8 hours of high-end mentoring from expert industry trainers. Towards the end, you’ll have the option to complete a hands-on project from any one of the three popular niches of retail, hospitality, and banking.
Business Analytics Courses: 7 | Average salary: $85K – $115K | Capstones: 14
Certification: Master’s Program | Price: $1,299.
12. Post Graduate Program in Business Analysis – Simplilearn
Simplilearn’s post-graduate program is authorized by Purdue University and has earned certification endorsement from IBM and IIBA. Learners and aspiring professionals looking to kick-start careers in Business Analysis can enroll in this six-month certification that serves as an online bootcamp. Upon completing, you will receive a joint Purdue-Simplilearn certification and become entitled to Purdue Alumni Association membership.
As you enroll in the course, you will find yourselves abreast of eight compulsory and five elective modules. Some of the core topics from the program’s compulsory content include Scrum processes, analytics with Excel, Tableau Training, data analysis and visualization with Python, and mathematical optimization.
An industry-relevant capstone project awaits towards the end of your learning. Once again, students will reserve the choice of project domains: Banking, Retail, and Hospitality.
Among the assortment of additional support features, you will earn yourself around 70 hours of live online interaction and masterclass from top Purdue faculty. The admission fee of $2000 is inclusive of all associated costs, including Alumni membership fees.
Provider: Pure University, IBM | Average salary: $85K – $115K | Capstones: 14
Type: Post Graduate Program Certification | Price: Full $2,500. Monthly $220 with Affirm
13. Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) – Pluralsight
Pluralsight’s second skill path on the list aligns the guidelines disseminated by IIBA BABOK and covers each of the certification objectives listed by IIBA CBAP. Completing the required 35 hours of professional development will render you eligible to appear in the CBAP certification exam.
Once again, the skill path is divided into three tiers aimed at beginners, intermediate and advanced level learners. If you are unsure where to start, Pluralsight can help you evaluate your skillset via a free skill-IQ test. You can enroll for individual courses, but to qualify for the CBAP certification exam, you must complete all of the three modules.
Your certification journey will begin with an introduction to the BABOK guidelines and business analysis key terms. From here, you’ll move on to internalizing the skills and competencies required of an analyst. Learn how to leverage your skillset and implement the same for improvisation, solutions, agile management, and working with stakeholders.
This is among the best business analytics courses online to get professional certification. At the advanced level, you’ll cap your training with a closer look into unique business analysis techniques in the form of case studies. The goal is to empower learners with an implementable skill set that enables the latter to meet daily organizational challenges.
Business Analytics Courses: 15 | Level: Beginners to Advanced
Price: View course. $29/month. Includes CBAP certificate. Get free trial.
14. Business Analytics Foundations (MicroMaster’s) – edX
edX’s Business Analytics Foundations is a self-paced MicroBachelor program averaging around 8 months for completion with dedicated learning of 8-10 hours per week. This is one of the best business analytics courses online to consider and suitable for beginner and intermediate levels for those looking for university-style education.
Two courses, Scripting with Python and Applied Statistics with Python, comprise the entirety of this suite. Upon purchasing and completing both with a minimum passing grade of 70% or higher, you will qualify for the certificate.
SNHUx’s MicroBachelors specializes in drilling foundational skills amongst aspiring business analysts. Some key concepts include scripting languages, task automation, and the application of statistical methods to solve problems computationally using Python.
The course can be completed in random orders, although students are recommended to follow the default order set by the program. Full program experience will cost you an upfront fee of $996.
Business Analytics Courses: 4 | Time: 8 months | Certificate: MicroBachelors
Provider: snhu, edX | Price: approx. $996.
15. Master of Business Analytics – MIT, SLOAN
MIT Management Sloan School’s Master of Business Analytics is a twelve-month program to leverage modern analytic tools, such as Data Science, Machine Learning, and Optimization to drive efficiency. It focuses on fundamental skills that can help learners adapt to changing scenarios and devise quick computational solutions rapidly.
Classified as a STEM-designated program, it allows international students to extend their training in the U.S. by 24 months after graduating. If this is your career goal, this could be one best business analytics courses online to be shortlisted.
By the time you have finished the program, you are expected to have covered around 111 to 141 units of classwork. Learners are required to complete up to 66 units per term and the curriculum is set up between spring and fall tenures.
Core concepts addressed in the curriculum include analytic implementation in various domains, optimization methods, business transformation through the application of machine learning and analytics. Once completed, you’ll have developed an appreciation for organizational dynamics, navigating social networks, and change initiatives.
Duration: 12 months | Certificate: Yes.
Provider: MIT Management Sloan School | Price: approx. $1,600.
16. Become a Business Analytics Expert – LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning launches a ten-course learning path with around 10 hours of content aimed at both fresh learners and professionals with prior experience.
With the learning track’s focus on planning business strategies, developing predictive models, and comparing the efficiency of analytical tools, you’ll emerge self-sufficient in the foundations of analytics in businesses.
Upon enrolling, you will begin with an introduction to business analytics before learning R to update your data science skillset and using the same to perform logistic regressions.
From here, you’ll proceed to perform cluster and principal component analysis and learn about the three stages of predictive processes in businesses, i.e., Prescriptive, Predictive and Descriptive Analytics. Later modules include forecasting with Exponential Smoothing, Seasonal Baseline Smoothing, and Trended Smoothing.
Business Analytics Courses: 10 | Duration: 2-4 weeks | Certificate: Yes.
Level: Introductory | Price: from $24.99/month. 1-month free trial. View course.
17. Business Statistics and Analysis Specialization – Coursera
Business Statistics and Analysis Specialization is a beginner-level program that trains learners in building data analysis and business modeling skills independent of prior experience. A series of five online business analytics courses comprise this specialization that will cost you around five months for completion at a steady pace of 5 hours/week.
In this self-paced program, you will be introduced to Excel functionality in Business Statistics. From here you’ll dive into Basic Data Descriptions, Statistical Distributions, and applications of Hypothesis Testing and Confidence Interval Estimation.
In the last two modules, you’ll learn to Perform Linear Regression for Business Statistics and implement the skills learned in the form of a capstone project. Coursera offers financial aid to eligible students.
Provider: Rice | Business Analytics Courses: 4 | Duration: 5 months
Price: View course. Get Coursera Plus (View) – $39/month with certificate.
18. Business Analytics – Harvard HBS Online
Business Analytics by Havard Business School is a self-paced course for beginner-level learners who can cap the course with a certificate of completion by the end. Some key concepts and skills that you will learn in this program include recognizing trends, detecting outliers, and summarizing data sets.
With the foundations down, you’ll move on to analyzing relationships between variables, and developing hypotheses to better inform high-stake decisions. Dive into accuracy estimations in statistics and regression analyses. The cost of enrolment stands at $1,600.
Duration: Self-paced | Certificate: Yes.
Provider: Harvard Business School | Price: approx. $1,600.
Choosing the Best Business Analytics Courses Online
If you have decided to embark on a solo-cum-impersonal journey of expanding or switching careers to Business Analytics, choosing the best business analytics courses and certifications will remain integral. You should, first and foremost, differentiate between the prescribed roles in Business Analysis as opposed to Analytics.
As part of the former, you will mainly serve as a tech liaison between various departments. In Business Analytics, you will generate intuitive insights by technically interpreting historical data. Your choice for a transforming business analyst course must bear the differences in these designated fields of interest.
Several other factors can also play out in heavily impacting your success rates. The most important of these include:
- Your motivation level – learners at the lower end of the motivation string should opt for short-term business analytics courses and certifications.
- Your level of expertise – learners with greater expertise can afford to skip courses within a specialization as opposed to beginners.
- Your financial standings – not only your current financial circumstance but your future career goals must align with the online program.
Instead of a one-size-fits-all solution, learn to customize the criteria as per your need so as to earn maximum returns on your investment.
Providers: Browse our lists of Udacity nanodegrees, Pluralsight courses, or Simplilearn certifications. Other providers include Coursera, Edureka, or FuturLearn.
Best Business Analytics Courses Online 2022 – Verdict
Wrapping up our review of the best business analytics courses online. The sheer abundance of online courses, specializations, and career tracks along with the varying nature of outcomes and projected goals, makes it virtually impossible to point out favorites.
Student ratings will drive learners toward more informed data-driven decisions as well as research and comparative analyses between popular courses and platforms. So long as you can strike a harmony between your own goals and the objectives projected by the course of your choice, you will remain at the winning end.
Best Business Analytics Courses Online 2022
- Business Analytics – Udacity
- Business Analytics – University of Cape Town
- Predictive Analytics for Business – Udacity
- Business Analytics Specialization – Coursera
- Introduction To Business Analytics – Udemy
- Business Process Analytics in R – DataCamp
- Statistics for Business Analytics A-Z – Udemy
- Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) – Pluralsight
- Business Intelligence Master’s Program – Edureka
- Business Analyst Master’s – Simplilearn
- Post Graduate Program in Business Analysis – Simplilearn
- Analysing Business Data in SQL – DataCamp
- Becoming a Business Analyst – Pluralsight
- Business Analytics Foundations (MicroMaster’s) – edX
- Master of Business Analytics – MIT, SLOAN
- Become a Business Analytics Expert – LinkedIn Learning
- Business Statistics and Analysis Specialization – Coursera
- Business Analytics Courses – Harvard HBS Online
What are the best business analytics courses online? What is your learning experience? If you have become a business analyst yourself and want to share some career advice, please use the comment form below.