So, you’ve heard the whispers – “business analyst,” a magical incantation promising lucrative careers and the power to untangle any corporate knot. But before you don your metaphorical data goggles and dive into a sea of spreadsheets, hold on! The path to becoming a top-notch business analyst can be as labyrinthine as any workflow diagram.
That’s where this blog post swoops in like a white knight, shining a light on the 12 best online business analyst courses out there, ready to turn you from buzzword enthusiast to boardroom boss.
No more sifting through endless course listings, drowning in a sea of acronyms and lofty promises. We’ve done the legwork, dissecting the curriculum, evaluating instructors, and comparing learning platforms to present you with a curated selection of online training that caters to every budget, schedule, and career goal.
Whether you’re a fresh-faced graduate seeking your first foothold or a seasoned professional looking to level up your skillset, we’ve got a course that’ll make your inner business analyst sing.
This isn’t just about learning the lingo of process flows and stakeholder analyses. It’s about unlocking the secrets of bridging the gap between business needs and technical solutions. It’s about understanding the human dynamics that make companies tick, mastering the art of communication, and wielding data like a Jedi knight of efficiency.
So, grab your virtual notebook and put on your analytical thinking cap, because we’re about to embark on a journey through the 12 best online business analyst courses, ready to transform you from a curious learner to a confident consultant.
Top Business Analytics Online Courses
- Business Analytics Specialization – Offered by University of Pennsylvania – [Coursera]
- Introduction to Business Analytics 2024 – [Udemy]
- Advanced Business Analytics Specialization – Offered by University of Colorado Boulder – [Coursera]
- Complete Introduction to Business Data Analysis – [Udemy]
- Strategic Business Analytics Specialization – Offered by ESSEC Business School – [Coursera]
- Business Analytics for Data-Driven Decision Making – Offered by Boston University – [edX]
Bonus Courses
- Business Analyst – [Simplilearn]
- Business Analytics – [Udacity]
- The Business Analytics: Decision Making Using Data – Offered by University of Cambridge – [Judge Business School]
- Imperial Business Analytics: From Data to Decisions – [Imperial College London]
- Business Analytics – [Harvard Business School Online]
- Business Analyst Certification Course Training in India – In Collaboration with IBM – [EXCELR]
12 Best Business Analytics Courses, Classes, and Training Programs
1. Business Analytics Specialization – Offered by University of Pennsylvania – [Coursera]
| Offered By | University of Pennsylvania |
| Rating | 4.6 |
| Enrolled | 130,827 enrolled |
| Duration | Approximately 6 months to complete Suggested pace of 3 hours/week |
| Instructor | Matthew Bidwell + 12 Others |
| Paid | Yes |
| Certification | Yes |
| Return or refund policy | 14 days from the date of payment |
| Cons | Some of the topics in the course have not been touched on in greater detail. |
It is one of the top business analytics online courses, which provides you with an introduction to big data analytics for all kinds of business professions, including those sans any experience.
Once you are through with this business analyst course online, you will work on a Capstone project to apply all that you have learned. In addition, the course will fetch you a shareable certificate, which will add value to your CV. This specialization is a cluster of five business analytics certification online courses.
Learning Outcomes
Some things you will learn in this best business analyst certification online course are:
- Explaining how data is utilized in performance evaluation and recruiting
- Model demand and supply for different business scenarios
- Understanding the tools utilized in predicting customer behavior
- Solving business problems with data-driven decision-making
- How data analysts describe, predict, and inform business decisions in the human resource, operations, finance, and marketing field
- Basic data literacy
- An analytical mindset equips you to make solid business decisions
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites to take these business analytics online courses.
2. Introduction to Business Analytics 2024 – [Udemy]
| Rating | 4.6 |
| Enrolled | 9,332 students |
| Duration | 5 hours of on-demand video |
| Instructor | 365 Careers |
| Paid/Free | Paid |
| Certification | Yes, provided |
| Return or refund policy | Without a subscription, you can pay for the individual course and get a 30-day money-back guarantee on it. |
| Cons | More practical concepts should be included in the course. |
Next in line for the best business analytics online courses is one of the highest-rated courses by Udemy. You will learn from a professional with valuable experience and a proven track record.
This is not just a course, but a journey wherein the instructor will lay out the base for superior business analytics skills, which will prove helpful to you at multiple instances in your professional journey.
In addition, the instructor will instill in you analytical abilities, which are vital in a business setup, majorly when you are working in a large blue-chip corporation that runs a complex business.
However, we would recommend going in sequence as every concept in the course builds on the previous one. So, if you do not take in the proper order, you are susceptible to getting lost.
Along with the business analytics certification online, you get structured analytics training, active Q&A support, various course notes, quiz questions, and hands-on practice. So, you will learn by doing. In addition, once you pay for the course, you will have access to all future updates.
Learning Outcomes
This is the best business analyst course online and will teach you the following:
- Requisite business acumen
- Building a strategic plan of how your employer or business can leverage the data to achieve superior performance
- Define business expectations
- Ability to understand the right measure of business performance
- Knowledge of stakeholder mapping
- Familiarity with modern business analytics techniques
- Well-acquaintance with end-to-end process mapping
- Defining metrics
- Performing benchmarking
- Understand the difference between an annual business plan and a long-range plan
- Comparing KPIs vs. metrics
- Identifying key value drivers
- Gaining an understanding of the prerequisites of a successful analytics project
- Knowing the right drill to manage an analytics project
- Understanding the importance of the Master Data function
- Identifying key value drivers
- Developing an understanding of the H2R, R2R, S2P, O2C end-to-end processes in a corporation
- Carrying out variance analysis, historical analysis, correlation, trend analysis, time series, deep learning analysis, value-based analysis, and regression
- Learning what business intelligence and what BI analysts do, and why it is vital in a corporate setup
- Performing external and internal benchmarking
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites per se for this business analyst course online. Your instructor will teach everything from the basics in these business analytics classes online.
Who should take this course?
This course with business analytics certification online is suitable for:
- People aspiring to commence a successful career in business
- Ambitious managers
- Business intelligence analysts
- Individuals who desire to start their company but do not have the needed training
- Financial analysts
- Business executives
- Anyone who wishes to measure their business’s performance
3. Advanced Business Analytics Specialization – Offered by University of Colorado Boulder – [Coursera]
| Offered by | University of Colorado Boulder |
| Rating | 4.4 |
| Enrolled | 44,119 students |
| Duration | Approximately 5 months to complete
Suggested pace of 3 hours/week |
| Instructor | David Torgerson, Manuel Laguna, and Dan Zhang |
| Paid | Yes |
| Certification | Yes |
| Return or refund policy | 7-days free trial |
| Cons | As it is a specialization, more advanced topics should be touched upon in the course. |
This best business analyst certification online course has brought together experienced practitioners and academic professionals to share real-world data analytics skills that you can apply in your business to boost your profits, expand it, and achieve maximum value for the shareholders.
There are five business analytics online courses in this specialization. All of them are 100% online courses, which will fetch you certifications.
Learning Outcomes
This business analyst certification online course will provide you with:
- Practical skills in manipulating and extracting data with SQL code
- Employing a structured approach to business problem-solving.
- Application of the statistical methods for executing predictive, descriptive, and prescriptive analysis
- Effective presentation and interpretation of analytical results
- Challenging problems experienced by decision-makers in today’s competitive business environment
- Evaluating different courses of action
- Achieving a crisp competitive advantage by using the data to understand the business’s performance
Prerequisites
This is an intermediate-level course. So, some prior experience will help.
4. Complete Introduction to Business Data Analysis – [Udemy]
| Rating | 4.6 |
| Enrolled | 25,867 students |
| Duration | 3.5 hours of on-demand video |
| Instructor | Ian Littlejohn |
| Paid | Yes |
| Certification | Yes |
| Return or refund policy | 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee |
| Cons | The course is far too elementary, even for beginners. |
Do you wish to learn practical and simple techniques to produce impactful Data Analysis and Excel Dashboards? If yes, this is one of the best business analytics online courses.
An exceptional thing about these business analytics classes online is that it is all hands-on. Therefore, whatever you learn theoretically will be followed by its practical application. Also, on completion, you get a business analytics certification online.
This course is meant for all business professionals who wish to take their data analyzing abilities to the next level.
This is the best business analyst course online that comprises concise and clear step-by-step lessons, which have been compiled by the bestselling Udemy instructor in full HD 1080p. A great thing about this course is that you get lifetime access to all the materials.
Learning Outcomes
In this business analytics training online course, there is an array of things for you to learn:
- Transforming data into intelligent insights with powerful analysis methods, tools, and techniques
- Learning the art of data analysis with easy-to-master drag-and-drop techniques, sans any confusing formulas, VBA, or macros
- Eight different techniques for data analysis, which are easy to implement in Excel
- Asking the right questions of data with the trend, comparison, ranking, Pareto, variance, and several other techniques
- Transforming your data into a decisive competitive advantage, can open new income streams for you, allow better decision-making, and boost your productivity
- Understanding of the best data presentation and analysis techniques
- Knowledge of the best design practices and the setting up of the interactive dashboards
Methods of Analysis covered in the course.
Some methods of analysis you will learn in the best business analyst certification online course are:
- Key Metrics
- Comparison Analysis
- Trend Analysis
- Ranking Analysis
- Interactive Dashboards
- Contribution Analysis
- Variance Analysis
- Pareto Analysis
- Frequency Analysis
- Correlations
Prerequisites
A few prerequisites for this business analytics certification online course are:
- Understanding of working with data in Excel
- Excel (2010 – Office 365)
- Knowledge of Excel Power Pivot and Power View, which are exclusive to Windows
Mac users can take the course, but unfortunately, Excel on Mac might not be free.
Who should take this course?
This business analyst course online is ideal for:
- Business people who wish to convert data into information
- Excel users who want to take their analysis and reporting to another level
- Students who want to learn powerful data analysis methods
5. Strategic Business Analytics Specialization – Offered by ESSEC Business School – [Coursera]
| Offered by | ESSEC Business School |
| Enrolled | 27,469 students |
| Rating | 4.4 |
| Duration | Approximately 5 months to complete
Suggested pace of 2 hours/week |
| Instructor | Nicolas Glady and Arnaud De Bruyn |
| Paid | Yes |
| Certification | Yes |
| Return or refund policy | 7-day free trial |
| Cons | The instructor is not very responsive to the grading of the assignments. |
Next in line, we have a specialization comprising the four best business analytics online courses. In these best business analytics certification online courses, you will acquire a certification from one of the world’s leading business schools. Across these classes, you will learn from two of Europe’s leading business analytics and marketing professors.
Who should take this specialization?
These courses are suitable for:
- Data scientists
- Business analysts
- Students
- Anyone who aspires to apply their statistical techniques and knowledge to business contexts
Learning Outcomes
In this business analyst certification online course, you will learn about the following:
- Analytical approaches, which work well in different industry domains
- Hands-on case studies in the real business context
- Forecasting and predicting events
- Statistical customer segmentation
- Calculating customer scores
- Taking the analyses and their effective presentation to the stakeholders for business to roll in action
- Application of analytics in different sectors, such as Public service, communications, media, etc.
- Using the statistical techniques in R to formulate business intelligence insights
- Compellingly presenting the statistical data to allow sustainable and intelligent business decisions
Prerequisites
These are advanced-level business analytics online courses. For this business analytics certification online course, you must possess an understanding of:
- Statistics
- R or any other programming language
- Databases
- Data analysis techniques, such as classification, regression, and clustering
6. Business Analytics for Data-Driven Decision Making – Offered by Boston University – [edX]
[edX]
| Offered by | Boston University |
| Teaching mechanism | Instructor-led on a course schedule |
| Enrolled | 44,333 students |
| Duration | Estimated 7 weeks (3–6 hours per week) |
| Instructor | Chris Dellarocas and John W. Byers |
| Paid | Optional |
| Certification | Only in the paid version |
| Return or refund policy | 7 days from the date of payment |
| Cons | Graded assignments and certifications come strictly with the paid version. |
Next on our list is an instructor-paced business analyst course online. You will learn to make better business decisions via analytic methods to extract creative, competitive advantages from data.
This business analyst certification online is a part of both the Digital Product Management and the Digital Leadership MicroMasters programs.
Learning Outcomes
In this course, you will:
- Learn the techniques and tools to become an evidence-based or data-driven manager
- Be made thorough about the method of reframing a business question as a data question
- How data can be of significant assistance, and how you can obtain it.
- To perform the analysis
- Build a managerial culture to operate in a manner
- Get the requisite know-how to clean the data
- The practical implication of the concepts, methods, and processes of business analytics
- Derive and communicate insights from the analysis
- Get a competitive advantage from enterprise data
- Understanding of the manager’s needs in an analytically focused enterprise
Prerequisites
For this business analyst certification online course, you will need the use of Microsoft Power BI Desktop. Sadly, there is no compatible version of Power BI Desktop for Linux or macOS operating systems.
Also, it is an advanced business analyst course online. So, you must have elementary knowledge of statistics or have studied the subject in college.
Who should take this course?
Broadly, this business analytics training online is available for all learners. However, the learners from one or more of the countries or regions might not be able to access it. These include people from Crimea, Cuba, and Iran. Of course, edX is trying to procure licenses to make the course available to them, but the same is not available now.
Bonus Best Business Analytics Online Courses
1. Business Analyst – [Simplilearn]
It is a globally authenticated best business analytics certification online course, which imparts to you all the three aspects of business analysis – planning and monitoring, requirements elicitation, and requirements management & communication.
By taking this course, you will be job-ready. In addition, you will be comfortable working with all the latest tools, have experience working on real-world projects, and partake in the Masterclasses from IBM experts.
These business analytics classes online have been designed, bearing in mind the standards of IIBA® BABOK V3.
So, taking this course will also prepare you for the ECBA, CCBA, and CBAP exams. After you are through with the course, you will obtain 25 IIBA CDUs. After completing the course, you will work on the Business Analyst Capstone project, which will give you access to industry trainers for 8 hours over four weeks.
Overall, the course intends to amplify your Business Analysis skills with hands-on and industry-relevant projects.
Learning Outcomes
In this business analytics certification online course, you will gain:
- Expertise in business analysis.
- Understanding of the competencies of a business analyst
- Skills and concepts needed to pursue an active business analyst career
- Knowledge of Excel, CBAP, Tableau, Agile ScrumMaster, SQL, CCBA, and Agile Scrum Foundation
- Plan, execute, monitor, and track Scrum projects
- Knowledge of the proper application of statistical tools and concepts
- The right understanding of building an interactive dashboard
- Insight into business analysis planning and monitoring
- Master the concepts of requirements life cycle management
- Insights into identifying, defining, assessing, and completing various elements of business analysis tasks
- Understanding of moving average, hypothesis testing, ANOVA, and regression to data sets using Excel
- Knowledge of the fundamentals of Excel analytics functions and conditional formatting
2. Business Analytics – [Udacity]
This is a three-month course, which will need an effort of 10 hours per week from your end. More so, this best business analyst course online is a nano-degree program.
Learning Outcomes
This is one of the top business analytics online courses and will teach you:
- Basic data skills, applicable across industries and functions
- Analyzing data
- Knowledge of design and visualization principles to create impactful data visualizations
- Building models with Excel, Query databases with SQL
- Creating informative data visualizations with Tableau
- Building data dashboards
- Finding insights from a data dashboard
- How to read data
- Using statistics and visuals to communicate and find insights
- Communicating stories with data
Prerequisites for this business analyst certification online
As such, there are no prerequisites for you to take this business analytics training online. However, you must be comfortable using a computer and know how to download programs.
3. Business Analytics: Decision Making Using Data – Offered by University of Cambridge – [Judge Business School]
This best business analytics certification online is a 3-month online course, which will need an effort of 4 to 6 hours every week. Once you are through with this best business analyst certification online course, you will earn a digital certificate of completion from Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education.
Learning Outcomes
In this course, a few things you will learn are:
- Decision biases – identifying the types of biases in the decision-making process
- Applications and predictive capabilities of neural networks
- Connecting predictive analytics to a business objective
- Knowing how to employ machine learning tools/models
- Prescriptive analytics by understanding risk aversion, sunk cost fallacy, diversification, decision-making processes, and debiasing
- Understanding the right way to choose the network architecture
- Understanding the right way to clean, collect, and describe the data you have
- Knowing what prescriptive analytics means
- Learning what big data means and how should it be used
- Knowing how to make design experiments work and using them to acquire meaningful data or make data-driven decisions
- Understanding all plausible organizational issues, you ought to take note of when making decisions.
- Analyzing data to optimize decisions for your business
Who should take this course?
This best business analytics certification online is suitable for managers in different functions interested in implementing analytics projects at their organization.
4. Imperial Business Analytics: From Data to Decisions – [Imperial College London]
The next course on our list is a four-month online course, which needs an effort of 4 to 6 hours every week. It is an incredibly interactive and immersive program.
A great thing about this business analyst certification online is that the learnings in the course are applicable across all industries, such as banking and financial services, IT, healthcare, consulting, advertising, education, fast-moving consumer goods, retail, and telecommunications.
Once you are through with this business analyst course online, you will earn yourself a Digital certificate from Imperial College Business School Executive Education.
Learning Outcomes
This best business analytics certification online course will:
- Give you the vital knowledge to boost your understanding of business analytics.
- Take you through the fundamentals of the programming language Python.
- Equip you with the drill to use descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics to identify, analyze, and solve critical business problems
- Applications of the analytical frameworks
- Enable you to understand or explore frameworks and techniques of business analytics and the fundamental methods to make the proper sense of your data
- To use data in the best manner possible for making informed business decisions.
Prerequisites
For this best business analyst certification online course, there are no prerequisites. Therefore, you can start the course sans any prior knowledge or experience.
Who should take this course?
These business analytics online courses are suitable for:
- Professionals who aspire to make a career in data science and analytics
- Experienced professionals, such as Technical managers apply analytics in their organization or function
- Consultants wishing to amplify their analytics knowledge
- Senior functional managers or mid-level managers who want to better their decision-making process
5. Business Analytics – [Harvard Business School Online]
This business analyst course online is aimed at demystifying data and solidifying your analytics skills. To bag the certification from Harvard, you must complete all the included five modules in these business analytics classes online, score satisfactory marks on all the quizzes, and do it all by the stated deadline.
Learning Outcomes
In this business analytics certification online, you will learn:
- Basic descriptive statistics
- Regression analysis
- Summarizing data sets
- Analytical techniques in Excel
- Applying regression analysis
- Applying fundamental quantitative methods to real-world corporate problems
- Interpreting data for forming business decisions
- Crafting sound survey questions
- Recognizing the trends to foresee changes
- Detecting outliners
- Understanding the relationship between variables
- Developing and testing hypotheses
- Concluding population samples
Who can take this course?
This business analyst certification online course will benefit:
- MBA or someone in graduate school wanting to learn data analysis
- Recent graduates planning to pursue a career in the field
- Professionals who wish to enter this field of work
6. Business Analyst Certification Course Training in India – In Collaboration with IBM – [EXCELR]
We have arrived at the last course on our list. This best business analyst course online is provided in association with IBM and has been developed by ExcelR. To earn this certificate from IBM, you will have to qualify for their written test.
Topics covered
Some topics covered in this business analytics certification online course are:
- Business Statistics
- Excel: Basics to Advanced
- SQL
- Tableau
- Power BI
- SAS
- R Basics
- Python Basics
Conclusion
So, these are the 12 best business analyst courses online. Enroll and start your training today!
