Business Analytics

Business Analytics will help demystify data and equip you with concrete skills you can apply in your everyday decision-making. Beginning with basic descriptive statistics and progressing to regression analysis, you’ll learn business analytics through real-world examples, from performing A/B testing on a website to using sampling to check warehouse inventory.
Apply NowWhat You'll Learn
- Interpret data to inform business decisions
- Recognize trends, detect outliers, and summarize data sets
- Analyze relationships between variables
- Develop and test hypotheses
- Craft sound survey questions and draw conclusions from population samples
- Implement regression analysis and other analytical techniques in Excel
About the Professor

Janice Hammond is the Jesse Philips Professor of Manufacturing and Senior Associate Dean for Culture and Community at Harvard Business School. She currently teaches Supply Chain Management in the MBA program and is program chair for the HBS Executive Education International Women’s Foundation and Women’s Leadership Programs. Her research focuses on speed and flexibility in manufacturing and logistics systems to respond to changing customer demand.
Who Will Benefit
College Students and Recent Graduates
Prepare for your next opportunity by learning how to apply basic statistics to real business problems.
Those Considering Graduate School
Strengthen your analytical skills before pursuing an MBA or other graduate program.
Mid-Career Professionals
Develop a data mindset to make more informed business decisions and advance your career.
Program Structure
Business Analytics consists of approximately 40 hours of material delivered over an eight-week period. You can complete the coursework on your own time while meeting regular deadlines.
For those interested in learning business fundamentals more broadly, the three-course Credential of Readiness (CORe) program—consisting of Business Analytics, Economics for Managers, and Financial Accounting—is available for $2,250.
Interested in CORe?
Note: By enrolling in the Business Analytics certificate program, participants will be ineligible to enroll in the CORe program. By enrolling in the CORe program, participants will be ineligible to enroll in Business Analytics as an individual certificate program.
- Length: 8 Weeks
- Program Dates: 1/15/20 – 3/11/20
- Cost: $1,600
- Detailed Calendar
- Application Deadline: January 6
- Length: 8 Weeks
- Program Dates: 3/18/20 – 5/13/20
- Cost: $1,600
- Detailed Calendar
- Application Deadline: March 9
The HBS Online Advantage
- World-class faculty
- Edge-of-your-seat online learning
- Global peer collaboration and networking
- Real-world, case-based learning
Harvard Business School Online offers a unique and highly engaging way to learn vital business concepts. Immerse yourself in real challenges faced by business leaders across a variety of industries—from how to accurately predict home video sales based on box office performance to forecasting staffing needs for a hotel front desk. You’ll wrestle with the same issues and imperfect information, while problem-solving and interacting with fellow learners from around the world.
Stories from Our Learners
-
I am applying concepts from the Business Analytics course in my current venture. From designing surveys to hypothesis testing, every aspect of data collection and analysis informs our customer validation process.
-
The way Business Analytics blended numbers with the impact on business forecasting and improvement of business processes was simply amazing. The real-life cases from different spheres made the learning more insightful. The subject further helped affirm the power of data/numbers in analyzing and forecasting about a particular business initiative.

Enroll today in Harvard Business School Online's Business Analytics course.
Apply Now