BUSINESS

Business courses give you an instant competitive advantage, equipping you with essential business and management knowledge alongside key transferable skills. Whether or not you have prior experience, business courses offer key insights that can be applied to real-world work situations.

Top Business Schools

i will teach you to be rich by ramit sethi

The benefits of enrolling in a Business course

Business courses equip you with the knowledge, practical skills, latest best practices and frameworks necessary to build and/or manage successful organizations in an increasingly dynamic, complex and competitive global business environment.

Learn About Multiple Disciplines

Business courses are interdisciplinary in nature and offer insights into the multiple disciplines that make up a business such as economics, resource planning, finance, sales, marketing, and people management. More importantly, a business course will teach you how to connect these aspects to the larger context.

Make an Immediate Impact

Business courses teach you how to make smarter organizational decisions, how to solve problems creatively, and how to think strategically in a hands-on, practical manner. Using the skills and knowledge gained through a business program, you can make an immediate impact on your work.

Develop Entrepreneurial Competence

Business courses help you develop entrepreneurial competence, enabling you to build your own business venture. A business program helps build skills such as creative problem-solving, innovation, continuous improvement, calculated risk-taking, leadership, and people management.

Broaden Your Skill Set

Business courses equip you with core business and management skills. They also offer soft skills such as communication, negotiation, and collaboration. You’ll also get hands-on training in conducting research and deep analysis to make smarter decisions and maximize business value.

Diverse Career Opportunities

A business course will equip you with strong business knowledge, commercial acumen, and transferable skills that make you highly desirable and employable across domains and industries. Furthermore, there is always a need for good leaders and managers, which business courses prepare you for.

Featured Business Courses on Skill Upgrade

All You Need to Know About Business Management

What is Business Management?

Business management is the process of organizing, coordinating, directing and implementing business strategies and activities. It requires the proper management of people, ensuring employees reach their best productivity levels. It also requires the proper planning, allocation and management of resources to ensure maximum efficiency, effectiveness and value generation.

Business management is crucial because it helps ensure the smooth day-to-day operations of the business so that organizational goals and objectives are met. Proper management of the business also ensures that the organization’s limited resources are used efficiently, avoiding wastage of time, money and effort. When a business is managed strategically, it remains stable even in the event of external or internal turbulence.

Business Career Specializations

Business Administration

Business administration is the process of organizing an organization’s resources and people to ensure goals and objectives are met. It focuses on the day-to-day oversight and management for the smooth operation of the business.

Economics

Economics focuses on the allocation of resources for production, distribution and consumption. It is as much about understanding human behavior, decisions and reactions in the face of scarcity as it is a study of how the world works.

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is the ability and willingness to ideate, develop, organize and run business ventures, managing risks effectively to maximize business value and profits.

Finance

Finance is all about the efficient management of finances through proper planning, budgeting, forecasting, risk analysis, and investments. Its sub-specializations include corporate finance, investment banking, risk management, and international finance.

Human Resources

Human Resources is the strategic approach to the efficient and effective management of an organization’s most critical resources: its people. It involves everything from hiring, firing and compensation to conceptualizing employee experiences, encouraging further learning and upskilling.

Marketing

Marketing is about understanding, analyzing and influencing customer behaviors through compelling messaging, advertising and promotions. It involves identifying target audiences, understanding customer needs and wants, creating and managing the brand, and maximizing customer loyalty.

Operations

Operations involves the management of the internal functions of an organization to ensure efficiency and cost-effectiveness. It requires strategic thinking, planning and the continuous improvement of processes and systems for business success.

Top Trends in Business Management and Leadership

Entrepreneurship on the Rise

In the last two years, millions of people were let go from their jobs due to the global pandemic and the resulting economic slowdown it caused. This sparked a new wave of innovation and made way for a new generation of entrepreneurs. In Q3 2020 alone, the US saw 1.5 million new business applications—double the number seen in 2019.

The Shift Towards a-Digital First Approach

Another major trend emerging from the global pandemic is the increasing shift towards a digital-first approach. Given the changing customer behaviors, needs and preferences, organizations that are able to transform digitally gain competitive advantages while those that are unwilling to modernize are bound to perish.

Flatter Organizational Structures

Several organizations are shifting towards flatter structures with fewer hierarchies and relatively greater levels of autonomy, allowing employees to ideate, innovate and thrive. This helps them become agile and flexible, equipped to face the dynamism and complexities of the future of business.

The Need for Soft Skills

Business leaders and entrepreneurs may have tons of experience and technical knowledge; but without soft skills such as communication, collaboration, team building and emotional intelligence, they will not be able to thrive. The global pandemic amply highlighted this fact.

Flexible Work Setup

More and more employees are demanding flexible work setups—in fact, the engagement rates of job posts that mention flexibility are 35% higher than job posts that require 100% on-site attendance. With the growing demand for flexi work, organizations today are under pressure to create highly functional cultures and equitable employee experiences, regardless of where their people are located.

Why Should I Enroll In An Online Business Course?

Gain an Instant Competitive Edge

You can immediately apply the concepts, frameworks, strategies and skills you learn in online business courses to your work, helping improve your performance and business outcomes. This instantly gives you a competitive edge at your workplace.

Flexible Courses Perfect for Busy Professionals

Busy working professionals can take online business courses from anywhere, anytime, and on-the-go. These offer immense flexibility and freedom to schedule and pace learning, and learners don’t have to quit their jobs or take sabbaticals to take these courses.

Intensive Courses that are Shorter and More Affordable

Online business courses are anywhere between a few days to months in length. Despite the shorter duration, they are intensive, focused and rigorous, providing you with training in specific areas of business. The best part: they only cost a fraction of the cost of an MBA or a business degree.

Technology-Led Learning

Most online business courses leverage advanced tech tools to ensure optimized, immersive learning experiences. They offer personalized content recommendations and leverage gamification and analytics to help improve learning outcomes.

What Should I Expect From An Online Business Course?

Structure and Format

Online business courses vary in structure and format, ranging from cohort-based courses to self-paced programs with live components, to MOOCs. While MOOCs typically have pre-recorded videos and self-learning course materials, the best online courses incorporate interactive, live sessions with the faculty and discussions with the global cohort.

Learning Goals

The best online business courses always have clearly defined goals, expectations, and measurable learning outcomes. They often leverage quizzes, self-assessments, and projects to accurately assess the learners’ progress.

Schedule

Most courses require you to spend just a few hours every week. The self-paced components of online business programs offer a great degree of flexibility and freedom to learners. The live components— interactive lectures, networking events and tutorials—are scheduled with busy working professionals in mind.

Nature of Course Content

Most courses usually offer short, videos, quizzes, learning materials, references, and other engaging content for the self-study component. The best courses also keep refreshing and upgrading their content to keep pace with the business landscape, and they incorporate real-life case studies, exercises, and other hands-on learning activities.

Technical Support

All good online business courses offer 24/7 technical support to learners to ensure seamless learning experiences. Some of the e-learning platforms also have extensive documentation and active online support forums to help students out.

How to Choose a Business School

Do You Need a Business Degree or An MBA To Succeed in Business?

Not necessarily. MBAs and business degrees, no doubt, offer intensive training and deep insights into the workings of businesses, industry trends, markets, and global business environments. They help develop practical skills to apply theoretical frameworks to real-world situations.

However, getting a degree does not guarantee success—it is just a starting point. To succeed in business, one would need to have creativity, drive, a flexible mindset, and agility.

Further, the business world is dynamic. There is a constant need to upskill oneself and stay updated on the latest best practices. While MBAs and business degrees do offer these insights, they require a 1 to 3-year time commitment, during which some of these insights will become redundant. Online courses and programs are better suited to keep upskilling oneself through accelerated yet rigorous learning.

Studying Business in a University: Pros and Cons

Pros

Cons

The university’s brand and certificate add value to your resume
Direct access and face-to-face time with the faculty
Networking opportunities with the cohort, faculty, and industry experts
Plenty of career growth opportunities, including internships and placements

May have to take a sabbatical or a break from work to earn the certificate / degree
Higher tuition fees—you may have to take out student loans
Additional costs of relocation, accommodation, and conveyance

Online Business Courses, Nanodegrees, and Micro-Credentials: Pros and Cons

Pros

Cons

Accelerated yet intensive training in focused areas of business management with real-world case studies and hands-on learning
Perfect for full-time working professionals who want to upskill or reskill themselves
Affordable tuition fees with no additional costs for relocation, accommodation, etc.
Flexible and self-paced learning, often with live access to the faculty and a diverse, global cohort
More options in terms of course length, outcomes, and focus
Technology-led courses that enhance the learning experience and outcomes

May not be as prestigious as a university-issued certificate and often doesn’t count toward a university degree
May not be recognized by all employers
Several courses are simply recorded videos without any live sessions or personal touch
May not offer one-on-one access to the faculty or teaching assistants
Fewer networking opportunities with the cohort and the faculty

How Much Would It Cost To Study Business Management Online?

Cost of an Online Business Course/ Program Offered by An Ivy League University

The Business Strategy Course is a 6-week online certificate program from Harvard Business School Online. This is a self-paced program with weekly deadlines and opportunities to engage with peers. The program costs $1750.

Cost Of a Business Course/ Program Offered by An Online School

The Business Strategy Sprint from Section4 is a 2-week course taught by Professor Scott Galloway with live faculty sessions and access to TAs and the global cohort. By purchasing a Section4 membership for $83 per month billed annually, you get unlimited access to sprints on the platform and all their live programming.

Cost Of Business Certifications Offered by Companies

Strategic Planning Foundations, a course by executive leadership consultant and coach Mike Figliuolo, is offered on the LinkedIn Learning platform. A subscription costs $26.99 per month, billed annually after the one-month free trial, and provides access to all the courses on the platform.

Top Jobs Available And Salaries For Business Graduates

As per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be an 8% growth in business and financial operations occupations between 2020 and 203—a phenomenon that is expected to generate 750,800 new jobs. While the nature of jobs and skill requirements may continue to change, the demand for business graduates will continue to rise.

Entry-Level Roles

Mid-Level Roles

Senior / Executive Roles

Financial Analyst – $73,725

Accountant – $60,057

Talent Acquisition Specialist – $59,355

Project Manager – $88,907

Human Resource Manager – $81,185

Business Manager – $80,455

Finance Director – $148,927

VP, Sales – $165,886

Chief Investment Officer – $225,494

How SkillUpgrade Can Help You In Your Business Career

Backed by 15+ years of experience in online education, SkillUpgrade helps you find the best online business courses, enabling you to launch and accelerate your career in business management and/or start your own venture. We sort through the clutter of thousands of online business courses and specializations to help you find the best ones.

We find and review online business courses that offer real human interaction, hands-on, immersive training, enabling you to learn skills that matter and gain the latest business insights. We don’t review courses unless we have taken them ourselves. We interview at least two students who have taken the program before writing our professional course reviews.

With SkillUpgrade, you can effortlessly find an intensive online business course that perfectly fits your needs and learning goals.