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18 Free Online Business Courses You Can Take Now

April 10, 2021 5:48 pm0 commentsViews: 817

Free courseware sites haven’t revolutionized the educational process yet, but they’re certainly well on their way. You’ll find all kinds of classes to take for free online, even business courses from accredited colleges. Whether you want to brush up on accounting before the next term of business school or take a course to learn how to address a specific program at work, you can probably find a free online class that can help. To give you a taste of what’s out there, we’ve rounded up 19 business courses you can take online for free.

1.      Foundations of Business Strategy: Professor Michael Lenox from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business offers a series of seven lectures on topics such as understanding competitive markets, analyzing firm capabilities, and determining competitive positioning.

2.      Operations Management: This course is divided into three sections: operations strategy, managing processes, and lean operations. It covers topics such as Little’s Law, capacity and bottleneck, and continuous improvement. The course is taught by Gad Allon from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

3.      Business Ethics: Listen to a series of 20 lectures on the importance of ethical behavior in business. This course is provided by the University of Virginia Darden School of Business through Udemy. Each lecture is by a different professor, so you’ll get a variety of different viewpoints on the subject matter.

4.      Competitive Decision-Making and Negotiation: This course uses simulation to cover 12 different situations in which negotiation is required. Topics include mixed motive bargaining, distributive bargaining, fair division, and auctions.

5.      Financial and Managerial Accounting: The goal of this class is to help the student develop an understanding of the financial reports that are used in business. The course is divided into five challenges: the record keeping and reporting challenge, the computation challenge, the judgment challenge, the usage challenge, and the search challenge.

6.      Taxes and Business Strategy: You will study the tax factors that impact decision-making in business. After completing this course, you will be able to identify tax planning opportunities and apply basic tax strategy principles.

7.      Understanding the Laws of Supply and Demand: This is a quick course in the economic laws of supply and demand that will be of use to business and financial professionals as well as politicians who would like to learn how supply and demand affect pricing.

8.      Marketing Management: Students will learn basic marketing theory. Skills taught include how to develop effective marketing strategies, evaluating marketing opportunities, and design strategy.

9.      Management Communication for Undergraduates: Through the MIT Open Courseware platform, the Sloan School of Management offers this undergraduate course from their Management Science curriculum. Study materials and lecture notes are provided.

10.  Practical Leadership: If you need to improve your leadership skills to move ahead at work, consider this course. Topics covered in this course include leadership frameworks, communication, situational leadership, influencing others, and decision-making.

11.  Strategic HR Management: MIT professors Diane Burton and Paul Osterman teach students how to create systems and strategies for managing human assets. Topics include recruitment, training, reward systems, retention, workforce diversity, relationships with unions, and equal opportunity employment laws.

12.  Building and Leading Effective Teams: Being able to lead and manage a team is an important skill for any manager to possess. Improve your effectiveness as a team leader by taking this course.

13.  How to Develop “Breakthrough” Products and Services: Not every product is a winner. In fact, there are a lot more losers. Learn how to develop breakthrough products that revolutionize the way people interact with the world.

14.  Manufacturing System and Supply Chain Design: Topics covered in this course include manufacturing system design, supply chain design, high-volume automated lines, decentralized distribution systems, revenue management, pricing strategies, and capacity planning.

15.  An Introduction to Business Cultures: This short, 4-hour introductory course offered by LearningSpace will help you understand the concept of corporate cultures, examine the difficulties that might be expected when working with businesses that are located in other countries, and recognize factors that influence the culture of an organization.

16.  Training and Human Resources Development: Learn how to identify the need for training in your company and implement an effective training program. This 10-lesson course is available free of charge through the University of California Irvine OpenCourseWare platform. Work your way through the self-guided course at your own pace. Topics include Cost Accounting for Training, The Anatomy of an OJT Program, The Five Levels of Evaluation, and much more.

17.  Law for the Entrepreneur and Manager: Learn the basics of business law in this MIT course, which covers issues related to the formation of a company, financing, product development, intellectual property, international trade, and more.

18.  Business Management Certification Program: This free training program is like the CliffsNotes version of an MBA. If you find yourself thrust into a management role unexpectedly, you can complete this course quickly—and even print out a certificate at the end.

Whether you want to take a single class to brush up on a skill or learn the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in business administration, it is now possible to get the business education you need to get ahead at work online for free—as long as you don’t need the actual degree.