Business Foundations Certificate online

This course provides students with an introduction to basic accounting fundamentals and skills necessary to analyze financial information of firms from a decision-maker perspective. Financial information is presented in the form of financial statements, principally, the income statement, balance sheet, statement of retained earnings, and cash flow statement. We will discuss how accountants organize the results of business transactions and report them to external users who will then use the reports to make decisions.

This course will help students to develop a comprehensive analysis of the micro and macroeconomic forces that shape and modify our economy. Supply and Demand, Revenue and Cost, wages, employment, regulations and taxation are discussed as they affect production, consumption, investment, trade, prices, quantities, profits, inequality, and the economy as a whole.

A study of the basic principles and practices of financial management of private (as opposed to government owned or affiliated) business operations. The principles and models discussed in the course can be equally applied to publicly listed companies as well as privately owned ones. This course includes an operational framework for financial analysis, financial planning including capital budgeting, along with valuation analysis and cost of capital. The basic framework of analysis used is that of risk and return, emphasizing that the objective of the firm is to maximize shareholder return, subject to satisfying societal and other stakeholder concerns.

The main objective of this course is to introduce the basic statistical concepts and tools in order to form the foundation through which students can analyze data used for decision-making. The course is application-oriented and focuses on topics that are useful in business and industry such as descriptive statistics, probability, conceptual modeling, and problem formulation and decision analysis. The course prepares students to develop an understanding of how to deal with new trends in the industry such as big data and data mining.

This course takes a broad-based look at management and organizations in order to provide students with the building blocks needed for more advanced classes in the program. It exposes students to the history of management thought and to some of the most influential organizational theories. It uses insights from multiple disciplines such as economics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and political economy and offers frameworks for analyzing modern organizations and current managerial practices. The course concludes with a discussion of contemporary issues in management.

Marketing is viewed as a system designed to create, capture, distribute, and communicate value to consumers and businesses. The course emphasizes the managerial approach to developing marketing strategy through analyses of business conditions, customers, and competitors. Emphasis is given to understanding buyer motivations, behaviors, and contexts as the basis for marketing decisions.

Managers need resources to succeed, and successful managers tend to negotiate well to give themselves the best chance to succeed. They negotiate with customers and suppliers for better prices, and they negotiate with internal functions to get better support and key resources to deliver value to both internal and external stakeholders. As managers move up the corporate ladder, they negotiate with their team members for better commitment and they negotiate with their superiors for domain independence. This course will focus on managers’ need to influence others, manage conflict, and negotiate agreements in a wide range of business scenarios both within and outside the organization. Students will be introduced to basic theories of negotiation, practices and frameworks of negotiation. Students will be provided with opportunities to reshape their understanding of negotiation, discover their own negotiation styles, and apply negotiation principles to critical issues. The course takes a view that negotiation is also a life skill that comes in handy in career growth and addresses the managers need to understand that influencing often occurs without formal power or authority. The course uses a combination of lectures, discussions, role-play exercises, cases, and exams.