Business Analysis, Introduction to

A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when lessons are released. You will have access to all lessons until the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such, we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final exam has been released, you will have two weeks to complete all of your course work, including the final exam.

Lesson 1
Decision-making is one of the most important aspects of business. So, we'll start things off by exploring a variety of analytical approaches you can use for making business decisions. We'll also look at the basic steps involved in problem solving.

Lesson 2
This lesson will help you understand the probability of events. We'll talk about basic probability concepts and how you assign probabilities to experimental outcomes. You'll find out how to apply probability concepts to business situations.

Lesson 3
In today?s lesson, we'll delve into the concepts of mean and standard deviation and how they're used in business. We'll also go over survey analysis, the various steps involved in doing a survey, and the most common errors that people make.

Lesson 4
Today's lesson is all about the use of probability in decision-making. We'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. We'll talk about using an optimistic, conservative, and an in-between approach in making decisions. Finally, we'll examine the concept of Expected Value.

Lesson 5
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. In today's lesson, we'll talk about this approach and where the different decisions can lead.

Lesson 6
All businesses need to forecast sales and expenses. And the forecasts need to be accurate. In this lesson, we'll cover forecasting as it's done in business analysis. You'll learn about the two types of forecasting: qualitative and quantitative.

Lesson 7
In today's lesson, you'll discover modeling, which is the application of mathematical constructs to decision making. We'll explore simple, intermediate, and complex types of models and discuss the two approaches to model development: reductionist and holistic.

Lesson 8
Today is about how models are developed within a business organization. We'll talk about what needs to be done and who needs to do it in order to make the modeling effort a success. We'll explore the respective roles of the analyst (modeler) and the client for whom the model is being developed.

Lesson 9
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. Today, we'll look at financial analysis and how it differs from accounting. We'll discuss cost estimating, and various types of business costs. You'll get familiar with the concepts of break-even analysis and benefit/cost analysis, both of which play a vital role in business analysis.

Lesson 10
The techniques of PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) and CPM (Critical Path Method) have proven to be extremely valuable to project managers. In today's lesson, I'll 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.

Lesson 11
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 today we'll cover step-by-step procedures for creating and using a simulation model.

Lesson 12
In this, our final lesson, we'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 I'll show you many business applications of each.