Top 10 Business Management Courses & Certifications for Beginners

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Top 10 Business Management Courses & Certifications for Beginners

What is Business Management?

Management is a process in which an individual plan, organizes, directs, and controls an organization's activities and resources to attain its goals effectively and efficiently within a constantly changing environment. Specifically, Business management is a process whereby the business gets its employees to achieve their maximum outputs using the resources they have at their disposal, using as little effort as possible.

Business Management is focused on organizing, planning, and analyzing the activities of a business, which are necessary for effective business management and operation. Running the operations of a business means dealing with an array of departments, strategies, and processes. Management is also highly needed to get efficiency and performance from an organization's operations.

Why Business Management is important?

The basic idea behind business management systems is to provide the tools for managers to monitor, plan, and monitor their activities, as well as to gauge business productivity.

A business Management System provides the basis of tactical as well as strategic business decisions regarding the ongoing processes, tasks, activities, and procedures, aiming at meeting any goals an organization has, as well as meeting the expectations and needs of customers.

Top Business and Management Courses, Tutorials, and Certifications

  1. Strategising: Management for Global Competitive Advantage
  2. Leading: Human Resource Management and Leadership
  3. Strategic Leadership and Management
  4. Value Chain Management
  5. Financial Management
  6. Global Challenges in Business
  7. Managerial Economics and Business Analysis
  8. Innovation: From Creativity to Entrepreneurship
  9. Business Foundations Specialization
  10. Business Analytics Specialization

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Best  Business Management Tutorials & Certifications Online For Beginners

1. Strategising: Management for Global Competitive Advantage

Learn Strategising: Management for Global Competitive Advantage from Macquarie University.

In this course, you will :

  • Analyze how technology and innovation can disrupt and reshape your organization.
  • Evaluate the different ways supply chains can effectively meet your customer's demands.
  • Understand the different strategies that your organization can implement to remain competitive.
  • Develop your understanding of how organizations can make positive contributions to society while effectively maintaining their bottom line.

You will learn how to think strategically to make your organization more competitive, how crucial it now is for supply chains to effectively meet customer demands, how to leverage technology and innovation to disrupt and reshape your organization, and how to make a positive contribution to the world while effectively maintaining the bottom line.  

In this course, you will learn how to deploy disruptive strategic thinking to develop or protect your organization’s competitive advantage. Through structured learning activities you will gain an appreciation of how important sustainability will be for every organization in the future and how to achieve it.

This course focuses on the key principles behind the latest thinking in value co-creation, strategy, and marketing, and teaches you how to apply them. By learning how to continuously plan, monitor, analyze and assess all that is necessary for an organization to meet its goals and objectives, you will be better prepared to take your organization forward in a viable strategic direction.

The Strategising: Management for Global Competitive Advantage Certificate Course is offered by Macquarie University.

  • Course rating: 4.8 out of 5.0 (804 Ratings total)
  • Duration: 96 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion
  • View Course
Strategising: Management for Global Competitive Advantage
Offered by Macquarie University. Future-proof your business strategy. Strategic management, global supply chain management, disruptive ... Enroll for free.

2. Leading: Human Resource Management and Leadership

Learn Leading: Human Resource Management and Leadership from Macquarie University.

In this course, you will :

  • Analyze how to motivate staff with meaningful work.
  • Understand how to enable your organization to deliver on its strategic objectives.
  • Examine the ways you can harness your team’s diversity and use teamwork to innovate and increase your organization’s output.
  • Evaluate leadership theories and develop your leadership skills.

Through these courses in Human Resources, you will learn how to motivate staff with meaningful work, better enable your organization to deliver on its strategic objectives, harness your team’s diversity and use teamwork to innovate and increase your organization’s output and strengthen your leadership skills.

You will examine what organizational culture is, the primary organizational structures, and what we mean by ‘systems’, before building on your foundational knowledge and taking a more strategic perspective. The structured learning activities that complement this course will not only prepare you to take your organization forward in a more strategic direction but make better decisions along the way.

In this course, you’ll explore a range of concepts, theories, and methodologies that will help you navigate and optimize your work environment. You’ll examine case studies on advanced leadership strategies and be challenged to consider how these might apply to your workplace. And you’ll discover that your ability to manage and lead people in a flatter, more team-driven context is now the key to organizational success. You’ll learn how the digital revolution, along with an increased focus on projects and teamwork, has dramatically altered the perception of leadership in a way that now demands all organizational members take on some form of self-leadership.

This course will also teach you how to develop a meaningful brand identity and the role it can play in clarifying and reinforcing your leadership vision within your organization, for your partners, and for your customers. You will discover that meaning crosses into almost every aspect of management.

The Leading: Human Resource Management and Leadership Certificate Course is offered by Macquarie University.

  • Course rating: 4.8 out of 5.0 (1,332 Ratings total)
  • Duration: 96 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion
  • View Course
Leading: Human Resource Management and Leadership
Offered by Macquarie University. Get ready for the Future of Work. Leading people and organisations to adapt, compete and succeed in a ... Enroll for free.

3. Strategic Leadership and Management

Learn Strategic Leadership and Management from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

With this course, you will:

  • Enhance leadership and business skills for immediate impact.
  • Practice everyday leadership and manage people
  • Learn and apply concepts and techniques to effectively manage organizations through organizational design
  • Formulate and implement the strategy.

The Specialization covers the strategic, human resource, and organizational foundations for creating and capturing value for sustainable competitive advantage including how to manage people and organizations, analyze the competition, and develop strategies both within a business and across a portfolio of businesses.

This course covers the following topics: negotiation, feedback and coaching, conflict management, and leading change. The objectives are to learn how to use leadership skills to work more effectively with others, how to use leadership skills to organize others to work more effectively together, and to apply the foundations of effective leadership skills to everyday situations faced by leaders.

In this course, you will understand how firms are organized, what factors must be taken into account in making critical design decisions, and what role managers play in making these choices. Further, you will build a practical framework to understand the critical linkages between organization design and the creation of economic value through execution.

The capstone is a strategic leadership and management plan where you’ll apply what you will learn to an actual business situation with participation from one or more focal companies.

The Strategic Leadership and Management Certificate Course is offered by the University of Illinois.

  • Course rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 (10,610 Ratings total)
  • Duration: 96 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion
  • View Course
Strategic Leadership and Management
Offered by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Leadership and Business Skill for Immediate Impact. Apply practical strategies to ... Enroll for free.

4. Value Chain Management

Learn Value Chain Management from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

With this specialization, you will:

  • Understand how to apply a financial perspective of accounting for costs
  • Understand how financial and non-financial accounting information facilitates strategic performance measurement
  • Integrate this information to continuously improve strategy.
  • Understand the role of operations management and process improvement
  • Synthesize information to make decisions for organizational initiatives
  • Apply analytical techniques for tactical operations and process improvement decisions.
  • Understand how marketing works in the business world
  • Understand how various marketing elements interact to create value for consumers
  • Ultimately maximize value for your organization.

In this Specialization, you will gain competencies that are critical for managers in any functional area. You will learn to create, model, analyze, and maximize value in accounting, operations, and marketing.

The Value Chain Management Certificate Course is offered by the University of Illinois.

  • Course rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 (4,667 Ratings total)
  • Duration: 128 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion
  • View Course
Value Chain Management
Offered by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Master Value Chain Analysis. Acquire critical business management competencies to ... Enroll for free.

5. Financial Management

Learn Financial Management from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

This Specialization covers the fundamentals of strategic financial management, including financial accounting, investments, and corporate finance.

With this course, you will:

  • Learn to evaluate major strategic corporate and investment decisions
  • Understand capital markets and institutions from a financial perspective
  • Develop an integrated framework for value-based financial management and individual financial decision-making.
  • Have a thorough understanding of financial statements and the financial information they provide
  • Be able to critically evaluate and analyze cash flows statements
  • Understand the management and evaluation of portfolios and firm valuation techniques
  • Understand how to incorporate risk and uncertainty into investment decisions and understand how companies make financing and investment decisions

In this course, you will learn the foundations of financial accounting information. You will start your journey with a general overview of what financial accounting information is and the main financial statements. You will learn in detail how firms account for fixed assets. You will then move to finance of assets and discuss accounting for liabilities. You will learn how to interpret and estimate regressions that provide us with both a benchmark to use for security given its risk, as well as a risk-adjusted measure of the security’s performance.

You will learn about the fees charged to investors by mutual funds and the evidence regarding the relation between fees charged and fund performance. Segments of the portfolios of mutual funds that may be more likely to outperform and examples of strategies designed to “earn alpha” will also be introduced. You will then critically analyze how firms recognize revenues. You will learn in detail how firms account for fixed assets. You will then move to finance of assets and discuss accounting for liabilities.

The Financial Management Certificate Course is offered by the University of Illinois.

  • Course rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 (7,528 Ratings total)
  • Duration: 128 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion
  • View Course
Financial Management
Offered by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Become a Strategic Financial Manager . Develop an integrated financial management ... Enroll for free.

6. Global Challenges in Business

Learn Global Challenges in Business from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

With this specialization, you will be able to:

  • Understand how businesses function in the global marketplace.
  • Make ethical decisions to run a responsible business in the global marketplace.
  • Understand the role of business in addressing global challenges such as poverty and the environment.
  • Understand how businesses can pursue opportunities and confront challenges in the complex global marketplace.

This course focuses on understanding subsistence marketplaces and designing business solutions for the billions of people living in poverty in the global marketplace. More broadly, the course uses the context of extreme resource constrained contexts to learn about the bottom-up approach pioneered through the Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative, and apply it in any context.

The course will involve virtual immersion in subsistence contexts, emersion of unique insights, bottom-up design, innovation, and enterprise. A parallel project will focus on understanding a specific need in a subsistence marketplace, and designing a solution and an enterprise plan.

This course explores the ways firms overcome challenges when operating globally. You will learn how to determine the best strategy to follow when expanding globally, the advantages and disadvantages of those strategies, and the appropriate responses to external pressures.

The Global Challenges in Business Certificate Course is offered by the University of Illinois.

  • Course rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 (953 Ratings total)
  • Duration: 128 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion
  • View Course
Global Challenges in Business
Offered by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Business Challenges of the 21st Century. Equip yourself with frameworks to pursue ... Enroll for free.

7. Managerial Economics and Business Analysis

Learn Managerial Economics and Business Analysis from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

With this specialization, you will :

  • Analyze macroeconomic and microeconomic variables at the firm and country levels.
  • Assess market characteristics and firm-level behaviors as frameworks for making business decisions.
  • Explore asymmetries and externalities as forms of market failure and as best practices for equilibrium outcomes within market structures.
  • Create a business plan that requires the application of data analysis tools and interpretations of statistical findings.

In this Specialization, you will build a solid understanding of the operation of markets and the macro-economic environment with real-world examples. You will be able to identify firm and country-level economic factors that impact business decisions, develop an analytical framework using statistical tools, and apply economic theory and data in the analysis of the business environment and trends to make effective business decisions.

The capstone project involves an in-depth Business analysis of an actual business situation in which you will examine the global economic environment of a business. The final project will be a business plan that uses statistical tools and economic theory to create a comprehensive analysis of the microeconomic and macroeconomic environment in which the focal company operates.

The Managerial Economics and Business Analysis Certificate Course are offered by the University of Illinois.

  • Course rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 (5,331 Ratings total)
  • Duration: 140 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion
  • View Course
Managerial Economics and Business Analysis
Offered by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Business Tools for Successful Execution. Apply economic theory and analytical tools ... Enroll for free.

8. Innovation: From Creativity to Entrepreneurship

Learn Innovation: From Creativity to Entrepreneurship from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In this course, you will:

  • Learn thinking flexibly
  • Develop an entrepreneurial mindset
  • Learn how to recognize and question assumptions and constraints to identify and capitalize on opportunities
  • Learn to create innovative value propositions
  • Learn how to discover new market positions for sustained competitive advantage

This course will offer a set of frameworks, tools, and concepts to develop innovative strategies holistically to achieve leadership positions. You will build your capability to lead and design your organization in effectively implementing innovation initiatives and achieving its strategic intent. You then investigate the particulars of managing innovation when disruptive technologies are involved.

This course will examine when, why, and how you can be creative. It examines the cues that trigger you to consider being creative. It provides a road map of the creative process – the process of changing your perspectives – and the kinds of outcomes that result from creativity.

The capstone for the specialization will provide a learning experience that integrates across all the courses within it. It will involve an analysis of a situation concerning a new enterprise – a venture of one’s own or within a larger organization – to develop the current business model and compare it against alternative business models to identify potential opportunities and challenges.

The Innovation: From Creativity to Entrepreneurship Certificate Course is offered by the University of Illinois.

  • Course rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 (3,090 Ratings total)
  • Duration: 128 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion
  • View Course
Innovation: From Creativity to Entrepreneurship
Offered by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Innovate in a Connected World. Learn about frameworks to manage and innovate in ... Enroll for free.

9. Business Foundations Specialization

Solve Real Business Problems. Build a foundation of core business skills in marketing, finance, accounting, and operations.

In this specialization you will learn:

  • Analyze and improve business processes in services or manufacturing
  • Manage people through motivation and reward systems
  • Read income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements
  • Understand branding and go-to-market strategies

This business foundation specialization will teach you to develop basic literacy in the language of business. This can be useful to you to start or improve your own small business, apply to business school, or to transition to a new career.

During this specialization, you will learn the fundamentals of marketing, accounting, operations, and finance across five different courses. You will apply the skills learned by developing a go-to-market strategy to address a real business challenge.

This Business Foundations Specialization course is taught by Wharton University online on Coursera.

  • Course rating: 1,03,484 total enrollments
  • Duration: 56 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion
  • View Course
Business Foundations
Offered by University of Pennsylvania. Solve Real Business Problems. Build a foundation of core business skills in marketing, finance, ... Enroll for free.

10. Business Analytics Specialization

Make Data-Driven Business Decisions. Achieve fluency in business data strategies in four discipline-specific courses.

In this business analytics specialization you will learn:

  • Explain how data is used for recruiting and performance evaluation
  • Model supply and demand for various business scenarios
  • Solve business problems with data-driven decision-making
  • Understand the tools used to predict customer behavior

This specialization is for beginners who want to learn about business analytics including those with no prior analytics experience. During these courses, you will learn different things in business analytics including how data analysts describe, predict, and inform business decisions in the specific areas of marketing, human resources, finance, and operations.

You will develop basic data literacy and an analytic mindset that will help you make strategic decisions based on data.  At the end of the course, you will make business strategy recommendations by applying your skills to interpret a real-world data set.

This Business Analytics Specialization course is taught by Wharton University online on Coursera.

  • Course rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 (15,470 Ratings total)
  • Duration: 72 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion
  • View Course
Business Analytics
Offered by University of Pennsylvania. Make Data-Driven Business Decisions. Achieve fluency in business data strategies in four ... Enroll for free.

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