Introduction to Business Analysis

Give yourself an employment advantage by developing analytical skills that are consistently in high demand. This course will teach you powerful quantitative methods that will have you making better, more informed, and more effective business decisions.

6 Weeks / 24 Course Hrs

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Ohlone Community College

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Learning method

Self-Guided

$135

No instructor. Study on your own schedule

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Instructor-Moderated

$135

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Starting April 16 | May 14

Details + Objectives

Course code: iba

The days of making critical business decisions by instinct or coin toss are long gone. If you are planning a career in business, you cannot afford to miss this course!

What you will learn

Learn quantitative methods that will have you making better, more informed, and more effective business decisions
Understand probability, sampling and surveys
Learn qualitative and quantitative forecasting
Understand modeling and how it is used to make better business decisions
Learn how financial analysis differs from accounting
Examine how to perform a risk analysis

How you will benefit

Make better, more informed, and more effective business decisions
Give yourself an employment advantage by developing analytical skills that are consistently in high demand

How the course is taught

Instructor-Moderated or Self-Guided online course
6 Weeks or 3 Months access
24 course hours

Outline

Decision-making is one of the most important aspects of business, so you'll start things off by exploring a variety of analytical approaches that you can use for making business decisions. You'll also look at the basic steps involved in problem solving.

This lesson will help you understand the probability of events. It will talk about basic probability concepts and how you can assign probabilities to experimental outcomes. You'll also find out how to apply probability concepts to business situations.

In this lesson, you'll delve into the concepts of mean and standard deviation and how they're used in business. You'll also go over survey analysis, the various steps involved in doing a survey, and the most common errors that people make.

This lesson is all about the use of probability in decision-making. You'll explore an analytical approach called Decision Analysis. You'll learn how to structure a problem so that when you decide how to deal with it, you know what result to expect. The lesson will also talk about using an optimistic, conservative, and in-between approach when making decisions. Finally, you'll examine the concept of Expected Value.

What if the decision you want to make isn't the most sensible one from a financial perspective? There are times when you need to base the worth of a decision on its value to you. An example of this would be deciding to buy a lottery ticket. Sometimes it's appropriate to make business decisions this way. This lesson will talk about this approach and where the different decisions can lead.

All businesses need to forecast sales and expenses, and the forecasts need to be accurate. This lesson will cover forecasting as it's done in business analysis. You'll learn about the two types of forecasting: qualitative and quantitative.

In this lesson, you'll discover modeling, which is the application of mathematical constructs to decision making. You'll explore simple, intermediate, and complex types of models and discuss the two approaches to model development: reductionist and holistic.

This lesson is about how models are developed within a business organization. It will talk about what needs to be done and who needs to do it in order to make the modeling effort a success. You'll explore the respective roles of the analyst (modeler) and the client for whom the model is being developed.

The most widely used type of business analysis is financial analysis. This probably doesn't surprise you too much since the point of any business is to make a profit. In this lesson, you'll look at financial analysis and how it differs from accounting. The lesson will discuss cost estimates and various types of business costs. You'll get familiar with the concepts of break-even analysis and cost/benefit analysis, both of which play a vital role in business analysis.

The techniques of PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) and CPM (Critical Path Method) have proven to be extremely valuable to project managers. This lesson will explain the basics of PERT/CPM and how to utilize these techniques in your work. You'll meet a simple technique called a Gantt chart, which works quite well for planning a simple project with a relatively small number of tasks.

Risk is a part of any business situation, which makes it something you need to consider when you do business analysis. Simulation is an excellent method of performing risk analysis, so this lesson will cover step-by-step procedures for creating and using a simulation model.

In the final lesson, you'll look at computer-based information systems. This includes such areas as Decision Support Systems, Optimization Analysis, and Knowledge-Based Systems. You'll learn what each of these areas constitutes and examine many business applications of each.

Instructors & Support

Matt Crabtree

Matt Crabtree, CFP ®, earned his Bachelor of Science in Business, Information Systems Management, in 1999, a mini MBA certificate from The School of Management at Yale University in 2004, a certificate in Financial Planning from Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business in 2012 and has received the financial industry's most rigorous and prestigious professional designation of Certified Financial Planner ™. After many years in project management, office management, and business sales, Matt began training individuals and organizations in areas of business finance, leadership development, successful negotiations, sales management, and customer service excellence. Matt has trained individuals and various units within the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as corporate organizations including IBM (technology), Accuray (healthcare-technology), and Gen-Probe (molecular diagnostics). Matt's natural aptitude for explaining his material in an easy-to-understand and enjoyable manner allows each student to gain insights into areas that are often considered challenging.

Instructor Interaction: The instructor looks forward to interacting with learners in the online moderated discussion area to share their expertise and answer any questions you may have on the course content.

Requirements

Prerequisites:

You must be proficient with basic algebra.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

PC: Windows 8 or later.
Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

FAQ

Instructor-Moderated: A new session of each course begins each month. Please refer to the session start dates for scheduling.

Self-Guided: Your course begins immediately after you enroll.

Instructor-Moderated: Once a course session starts, two lessons will be released each week for the 6 week duration of your course. You will have access to all previously released lessons until the course ends. You will interact with the instructor through the online discussion area. There are no live sessions or online meetings with the instructor.

Self-Guided: You have 3 months of access to the course. After enrolling, you can learn and complete the course at your own pace, within the allotted access period. You will have the opportunity to interact with other students in the online discussion area.

Instructor-Moderated: The interactive discussion area for each lesson automatically closes two weeks after each lesson is released, so you're encouraged to complete each lesson within two weeks of its release. However, you will have access to all lessons from the time they are released until the course ends.

Self-Guided: There is no time limit to complete each lesson, other than completing all lessons within the allotted access period. Discussion areas for each lesson are open for the entire duration of the course.

Instructor-Moderated: Students enrolled in a six-week online class benefit from a one-time, 10-day extension for each course. No further extensions can be provided beyond these 10 days.

Self-Guided: Because this course is self-guided, no extensions will be granted after the start of your enrollment.

Reviews

After taking this course, I have a much better idea of what people learn in an MBA program. I can make a better decision about whether I should apply for business school.

I found the course most informative and beneficial to me. I came away with answers to questions I have had for a long time with regard to Business Statistical and Modeling analysis.

I have enjoyed this class; very informative. The class gave me the opportunity to see another side of the business world and see all that analysts do to come up with solutions.

I have no background in business analysis, and this course provided a basic foundation. If I decided to pursue business analysis in more depth, I will at least have been exposed to important concepts and definitions. I will actually be able to apply some of the material directly in my job. Thank you.

The course was relevant and useful in my current position - and enabled me to use the information learned during the course to make real world decisions.

The instructor was thorough, had interesting real world and relevant examples and one could not help but gain some valuable and helpful knowledge.

This course is very usefull to any individual in making business decisions. I also decided to continue my study of Management Science.

This course provided some valuable information that I can use on a daily basis. The instructor's writing style is very easy to comprehend and follow. Thanks for a great experience.

You do an outstanding job of covering the information -- your communication on the topic is just simple enough but just complex enough to bridge the "What?" and the "Why?" and the "How?" of this topic within a 12-lesson span. Thank you!

You make things simple enough for the non-business person, yet challenging enough to feel stimulated. I've already started implementing some concepts into my current job and my boss has taken notice of the different perspective I've developed thanks to your courses!