My mom’s first business was conducting group art sessions. These themed classes happened once every few months, and children across the city would sign up for them.

Then, in 2019, she started conducting one-on-one, monthly sessions with kids. She liked the recurring income, but then the pandemic hit. The classes stopped, and she craved interaction with the children. She knew that group sessions would work and that kids and adults would enjoy it.

Five years later, she’s an online art coach, and she has students all over the country and beyond!

This is the power of business analytics. Understanding a problem and using data to look for a solution. It’s about analyzing data and making decisions that drive profits.

It’s easier for small businesses like my mom’s, but what happens when you have tonnes of data and variables? How will you make sense of it?

Well, for starters, with the help of these business analytics courses.

• What is Business Analytics?
• Why Trust Us and Why These Courses?
• The Best Business Analytics Courses

The Best Business Analytics Courses

What is Business Analytics?

Imagine this: You’ve decided you want to cook stir-fry noodles. After work, you head to the nearest store to get the ingredients. You spot the noodle aisle and choose rice noodles, now where’s the soy sauce? Oh, on a different aisle. You go and get it, only to realize that the coconut milk you’ll need to make stew tomorrow is two aisles away.

Next time, you visit another retail store. Here you find the noodles, sauces, and coconut milk, all in one aisle. Perfect. You’ve found your post-work grocery store.

Something as simple as stocking aisles is a decision based on business analytics. Once a store owner notices a pattern in consumer shopping (in this case, that people tend to buy noodles, sauces, and coconut milk together), they take steps to make shopping easier for you, in turn, converting you, a one-time visitor, into a regular customer.

But what exactly is business analytics?

The easiest definition is by Oracle:

Business analytics refers to:

• Taking in and processing historical business data
• Analyzing that data to identify trends, patterns, and root causes
• Making data-driven business decisions based on those insights

Yes, it’s heavy stuff.

But it’s also different from business analysis. Business analysis involves understanding present patterns in data and recognizing problems, whereas business analytics involves making data-driven decisions based on that data.

The difference is minute, and both require knowledge about:

• Statistics
• Data visualization
• Data tools and software

Plus, you need:

• Problem-solving and adaptability  skills
• Creative and critical thinking skills
• Communication skills

Since we produce data every microsecond, the demand for business analysts grows with it. Today, the average entry-level salary of a business analyst is $88000.

To be one of the result-driven, successful business analysts, you must possess the above skills. These courses will help with the knowledge and practice, but why should you trust this list?

Why Trust Us and Why These Courses?

At Class Central, we make course shopping easy. We’re eliminating your effort of jumping between different platforms, comparing the duration, syllabus, instructors, etc of every course.

Our database of 250,000 courses guides you to the best one without the hassle. For instance, if you’re looking for courses on entrepreneurship, you’ll find thousands offered by Coursera, edX, Udemy, and more on our platform.

Now, how did I choose these courses?

I’ve picked these eight courses based on:

• Diverse curricula: Business analytics revolves around data and statistics, and the courses present different ways to work with data (SQL, Tableau, Excel, etc).
• Intermediate level learning: To analyze business data, you need to know business fundamentals. Most of the courses are suitable for those who are well-versed in running a business or in basic statistics.
• Paid and free courses: At Class Central, we prefer listing  budget-friendly courses, but business analytics is an advanced course, and I’ve included some premium courses that offer high-quality content.
• Learner experience: As always, I’ve read reviews and watched the content to understand the learner experience.

Let’s get to the courses.

Best Intro to Business Analytics (Udemy)

• Level: Beginner
• Rating: 4.6 (5,993 ratings)
• Duration: 5 hours
• Cost: Paid

If you’re running a business, but you don’t know how to leverage data to grow it, this course is perfect.

Business analytics helps you take data-driven decisions to serve customers, make operational changes—basically anything that will drive growth and profits. But if you’re lost and find the process overwhelming, I get it.

This course will help you understand your business, its processes, business targets, and more. It will teach you how to set KPIs, identify metrics to measure, and conduct basic Excel processes to analyze data.

It’s a beginner’s guide to navigating business analysis. As someone who’s starting out, you can count on its simple structure and digestible curriculum.

What sets it apart?

• It offers insights into business processes and target setting
• It’s a beginner-friendly course, perfect for those who don’t have a statistical or analytical background or knowledge
• The exercises and quizzes help beginners understand concepts better
• It’s taught by Randy Rosseel, who has worked with Coca-Cola for 16 years. He was an associate director of planning and performance management

What you might not like

Some learners found the course basic, so it’s recommended for individuals who are new to data analysis.

Who is it for?

• Founders and business owners who want to use data for growth

Most Comprehensive Business Statistics and Analysis Specialization by Rice University (Coursera)

• Level: Beginner
• Rating: 4.7 (7,490 ratings)
• Duration: 120 hours
• Cost: Free to audit

Another statistics course, but this one has something different. Apart from understanding data, business analysts also test hypotheses—are consumers buying more on weekdays? Are the majority of the employees taking an off on Mondays? If you want to spot problems with data, then this program will enable you.

On the surface, you’ll see that some courses are similar to the NobleDesktop course, but here are two courses that stand apart:

• Business Applications of Hypothesis Testing and Confidence Interval Estimation
• Business Statistics and Analysis Capstone (application-based)

P.S. Learners have also loved taking the course on Excel from this program.

The aim is to equip you to solve business problems with research and data.

What sets it apart?

• It covers regression and hypothesis testing, among other statistical concepts
• The capstone project in the end will test your knowledge and help you practice
• The instructor teaches with examples, and his approach makes it easier to apply concepts
• The instructor, Sharad Borle, the Associate Professor of Management of Rice University, has been published in journals

What you might not like:

The presentation designs seem outdated

Who is it for?

• Founders and small business owners who want to spot business problems and resolve them with data
• Existing business analysts who want to test data
• Aspiring business analysts with no statistical background

Best Business Analyst Certificate with Live Classes (NobleDesktop)

• Level: Beginner
• Rating: 4.5 (619 ratings)
• Duration: 63 hours
• Cost: Paid

To be a successful business analyst or even to interview to be one, you need to master tools and techniques. This ultra-comprehensive course covers Excel, SQL, Tableau, and PowerPoint to help you arrange data, visualise it, analyse it, and communicate it.

It’s a 63-hour, in-depth, well-rounded course that is all about inferring numbers with different tools. It also provides hands-on training on software and is licensed by the NYS Department of Education.

What stands out is its clean structure—it teaches at basic and advanced levels (for instance, there are three levels for Excel). Plus, you can take this course in in-person format or online.

What sets it apart?

• It focuses on three tools and offers in-depth knowledge about them
• You can choose between in-person and online sessions
• After the course, you can retake it within one year
• It has a small number of students for interactive and quality learning
• It covers data software from basic to advanced levels
• The flexible pricing allows you to pay in installments
• The expert instructors have designed a simple yet powerful curriculum

What you might not like:

The course is heavily priced, but it offers a wealth of information that will strengthen your statistics fundamentals

Who is it for?

• Founders and small business owners analyze business data, but don’t know how to apply tools
• Aspiring business analysts who want to learn statistical tools

Best BI Professional Certificate for Analysts by Google (Coursera)

• Level: Advanced
• Rating: 4.8 (2,302 ratings)
• Duration: 80 hours
• Cost: Free to audit

Is business intelligence (BI) different from business analytics? Yes.

BI is the infrastructure needed to find, store, and analyze data, and business analytics (a subset of BI) is the study of the raw data to understand patterns, predict situations, and make decisions.

If you’re looking to get into a business intelligence profession, this program could be your starting point. It offers three courses: one on the foundations, one on data models, and the last on communicating data. They introduce you to software and tools that automate data extraction and make data management easier.

The program blends technical skills with practical insights by pushing you to apply your knowledge to case studies.

What sets it apart?

• Created by Google experts, so the curriculum is comprehensive
• You practice on real data sets and learn through industry case studies
• From fundamentals to insight communication, it covers the majority of BI aspects
• It also teaches statistical tools and software, along with theory

What you might not like:

Since it’s a Google course, the tools and methodologies are limited, yet useful

Who is it for?

• Business analysts who want to learn how to automate data processes
• Data analysts who want to transition into a business analyst role

Best Business Analyst Course with Excel, Stats, SQL, Tableau (Udemy)

• Level: Beginner
• Rating: 4.5 (619 ratings)
• Duration: 23 hours 31 minutes
• Cost: Paid

From understanding the average order value to predicting sales during holiday seasons, statistics is a weapon, in fact, a superpower for business analytics. But when you have the data of thousands of customers, products, or employees, how will you understand it with only Excel?

This course introduces you to tools such as SQL and Tableau that help you visualize and make sense of data. Plus, it teaches you crucial statistical concepts like probability, time series, and more.

Overall, this is a good start to learn statistics and basic data software.

What sets it apart?

• It eases into the tools by explaining the role of AI in business workflows
• It teaches with simple examples and case studies (perfect for beginners)
• It also has worksheets and assignments for better learning
• The instructor, Leo Zhu, is a product manager and a mentor to pre-medical school students on the Medical College Admissions Test. He also consults on optimizing SaaS/no-code integrations to improve startup operational efficiency

What you might not like

Some learners found the course fast-paced, and some sections lacked in-depth explanation.

Who is it for?

• Aspiring and existing business analysts
• Founders and business owners who want to analyze large amounts of data

Best BI + GenAI Specialization by IBM (Coursera)

• Level: Intermediate
• Rating: 4.8 (94 ratings)
• Duration: 40 hours
• Cost: Free to audit

Can AI really analyze data for you? Yes, and this program will show you how. With four courses, you’ll learn how AI can be integrated at every level of business intelligence, i.e., to manage data and structure it.

This program will also help you adopt better visualization techniques that will improve reporting. You’ll find a section on the ethical side of using generative AI to instill responsibility and accountability.

With hands-on projects, deep reading material, and frequent quizzes, this program offers you solid foundations in business intelligence with AI.

What sets it apart?

• You will learn through diverse methods—videos, discussions, expert advice, project, etc
• The course also uses real-world case studies to support theoretical knowledge
• You will learn how to handle, manage, analyze, visualize, and communicate data
• This course is by Skill-Up EdTech, which has several data-related courses on Coursera

Who is it for?

• Existing business analysts who want to automate tasks with AI
• Aspiring business analysts who want to add an in-demand skill to their resume
• Founders/business owners who want a seamless way to study data

To become a business analyst, you need a strong grasp of technical and soft skills. I hope these courses instill problem-solving and critical thinking in you, along with software knowledge that drives results.