Introduction to Business Analysis

Details

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.

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!

Enrollment Options:

Instructor-Led
6 Weeks Access Course Code: iba
Start Dates* Mar 13 | Apr 17 | May 15 | Jun 19
*Choose start date in cart

$129.99

USD
Self-Paced
3 Months Access Course Code: T9594
No Instructor, Start Anytime

$129.99

USD

Enroll before 28th February and get high quality lamination on your hardcopy certificate absolutely free! Use your certificate to your advantage by showing your certified credentials to prospective employers and recruiters.

Syllabus

Problem Solving and Decision-Making

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.

Introduction to Probability

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.

Introduction to Sampling and Surveys

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.

Decision Analysis

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.

Utility and Decision-Making

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.

Forecasting

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.

The Modeling Process

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.

Modeling in a Corporate Environment

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.

Financial Analysis

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.

Project Management PERT/CPM

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.

Computer Simulation and Risk Analysis

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.

Computer-Based Information Systems

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.

Requirements

Hardware Requirements:

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

Software Requirements:

  • PC: Windows 8 or newer.
  • Mac: OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 or later.
  • Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.

Other:

  • Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites to take this course.

Instructor

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 is registered as a securities broker with the Financial Authority Regulation Authority (FINRA) and with the U.S. stock exchanges (NYSE and NASDAQ) and as an investment advisor with FINRA. 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.

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