Business Essentials Certificate: OnlineLisa A2022-10-21T10:51:32-04:00
An integrated look at management, finance, accounting, operations, analytics, and marketing.
This online business certificate program is designed to enhance your ability to understand and apply business concepts and skills. As you develop a broader perspective on how a business or organization works, you’ll gain fundamental insight into how you, your employees, and the decisions you make as a manager impact the performance and profitability of your enterprise. We accomplish this with integrated topics, the creation of a professional development plan, and a 90-day virtual follow-up and check-in.
Online Certificate in Business Essentials
Format: Online business certificate comprises four courses. Each course begins the first full week of the month and runs for three consecutive weeks.
Estimated Time Commitment: Three to four hours per week
Would you prefer an on-campus experience? Make sure to view our Business Essentials in-residence option.
Price: $3,200
Flexible Payment Options: Please take advantage of special discount offers listed below.
We accept PayPal for non-credit certificates. Students who qualify for PayPal Credit can take advantage of interest-free offers that enable you to spread payments over several months. If you need an individual payment plan, please don’t hesitate to ask us.
Registering early? We can bill you two weeks before class starts. Select “Bill Me Before Class Starts” as a payment option when you checkout.
Is your employer paying for the course? Select “Send My Employer an Invoice” as the payment option to reserve your spot in class and put the employer’s info into the billing address details and we can invoice them directly.
25% off for early registrants. Receive 25% off certificate and individual courses when you register and pay 30 days prior to class start. Use code EARLYBIRD at checkout.
35% off for IU faculty, staff, and alumni
50% off for Kelley School of Business alumni
Discounts are also available for Kelley School of Business staff and faculty. Contact Jazmin at jazramos@iu.edu or complete the form for promotional codes.
Is this online business certificate right for you?
This certificate program is for people who realize that advancing their careers will require a new approach, a new game plan. Business Essentials will help do that by exposing you to the essentials of management, finance, accounting, operations, analytics, and marketing. You will work with Kelley faculty in each of these areas, along with like-minded individuals in your cohort.
For those with limited formal business education, or those in their early to mid-career, this is a certificate program that will help “get you there.”
People who earn this online business certificate will:
Understand the functional areas of a business: management, accounting, finance, marketing, operations, and analytics.
Map/model those areas and see how they fit together or identify gaps.
Create, critique, revise, and implement a personal development plan.
Work closely with Kelley faculty and like-minded participants to create accountability for implementing the learnings. This includes a follow-up session 90 days after the last class.
Business Essentials Online Certificate: Key Takeaways
Is this online business certificate right for you?
This certificate program is for people who realize that advancing their careers will require a new approach, a new game plan. Business Essentials will help do that by exposing you to the essentials of management, finance, accounting, operations, analytics, and marketing. You will work with Kelley faculty in each of these areas, along with like-minded individuals in your cohort.
For those with limited formal business education, or those in their early to mid-career, this is a certificate program that will help “get you there.”
People who earn this online business certificate will:
Understand the functional areas of a business: management, accounting, finance, marketing, operations, and analytics.
Map/model those areas and see how they fit together or identify gaps.
Create, critique, revise, and implement a personal development plan.
Work closely with Kelley faculty and like-minded participants to create accountability for implementing the learnings. This includes a follow-up session 90 days after the last class.
Integrated Business Curriculum
The Kelley School of Business is nationally recognized for its innovative online programs. This 12-week program is delivered by full-time faculty members from the No. 1–ranked Kelley Online MBA Program (U.S. News & World Report, 2020).
This certificate will require three to four hours of work per week, half of which will consist of a live synchronous session. The program is designed to have maximum career impact and does not end with the last day of class. The class convenes online 90 days after the last session to review the results of your hard work and celebrate the outcomes of this transformative business immersion.
The curriculum is divided into four three-week courses. Each course begins the first full week of the month and runs for three consecutive weeks. Register for all four courses at once to earn your certificate or take individual courses as your schedule allows.
Business Acumen. Get an overview of the essential functional areas of business and begin work on your personal development plan.
Business Strategy. What makes some firms more successful than others? How do firms create competitive advantage? How can strategy contribute to the creation and capture of economic value? How are strategies managed? These are some of the questions that we will address in this module as we study how firms compete and the common elements that drive successful corporate and competitive-level strategies.
Accounting. We provide non-accounting personnel with a core understanding of the accounting language. You will gain the skills necessary to effectively communicate with business professionals regarding the financial activities of a business entity, and to derive meaningful information from an entity’s financial statements and disclosures.
Finance. We cover basic finance concepts including TVM (time value of money), the trade-off between risk and return, financial valuation techniques, cash flows, capital allocation/budgeting, and the role that financial markets play in enabling business. Some knowledge of Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software is required.
Operations Management. Businesses are built around processes, and processes must be able to adapt and change for a business to remain competitive. We’ll cover the basics of process analysis and process improvement.
Business Analytics. You will learn the value of data. Specifically, you will learn to prepare and analyze data, converting raw data into meaningful information. Through hands-on experience with spreadsheet modeling in Microsoft Excel, you will learn to identify business problems and model potential solutions to provide the insights necessary to make informed and effective business decisions.
“If anyone’s looking to sharpen their understanding of modern-day business, I highly recommend! Thanks to our Kelley professors Carl Briggs, Joe Fitter, Shannon Threlkeld and Russell Clark for their great content.”
Sam Stalion, Higher-Ed marketing and communications
“As the faculty lead for this program, I believe it is an excellent opportunity to develop higher-level business skills to support your professional development goals. That is the very reason that we designed this program and put the faculty team together. We want you to be the very best business professional you can be. We stand ready to support you on that journey.”
Carl Briggs, Clinical professor of operations and decision technologies, Kelley School of Business
“As the faculty lead for this program, I believe it is an excellent opportunity to develop higher-level business skills to support your professional development goals. That is the very reason that we designed this program and put the faculty team together. We want you to be the very best business professional you can be. We stand ready to support you on that journey.”
Carl Briggs, Clinical professor of operations and decision technologies, Kelley School of Business
“If anyone’s looking to sharpen their understanding of modern-day business, I highly recommend! Thanks to our Kelley professors Carl Briggs, Joe Fitter, Shannon Threlkeld and Russell Clark for their great content.”
Sam Stalion, Higher-Ed marketing and communications
Andrea Astill is a lecturer in the Accounting Department at the Kelley School of Business. Prior to joining the faculty, she worked as an internal auditor and held various positions in corporate accounting. During her 20 years with the Kelley School, she has taught at every level of the accounting curriculum, from the Introduction to Financial Accounting in the undergraduate program to the Advanced Financial Accounting, and Earnings Management Detection courses in the Kelley graduate program. The range of her instructional experience demonstrates her ability to tailor her instructional support to the needs of learners at the novice through expert levels.
She has received numerous teaching awards for teaching excellence (Trustees Teaching Award, Excellence in Teaching Award) and for her teaching innovations (Innovative Teaching Award, PWC INQuires Grant). She serves on the Teaching Excellence Committee, chairing the TEC Sauvain, Panschar, and Panschar AI awards subcommittees.
Andrea earned her bachelor’s from the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah, her master’s degree from the Kelley School; and she received her academic and research training through the Kelley School’s Business Accounting PhD Program.
Andrea is proud to call Bloomington her home. For 20 years she has immersed herself in the Bloomington community by serving on numerous not-for-profit boards. Currently, she serves as the treasurer and finance committee chair for Girls Inc., which inspires and empowers young women to be bold, smart, and strong. In her free time, she practices culinary arts, takes pride in construction and home improvement projects, and enjoys relaxing with her dogs, family, and friends.
Carl Briggs is a clinical professor of operations and decision technologies and co-director of the Business Operations Consulting Workshop. During his 30 years with the Department of Operations and Decision Technologies at the Kelley School of Business, he has been recognized for his innovative approach to management education, receiving teaching awards and accolades in the United States, Asia, and the European Union. He currently holds active academic appointments in the United States, Germany, China, and South Korea.
Carl directed Kelley’s Supply Chain Management Academy. His areas of expertise are project management, process improvement, and strategic sourcing—he has trained hundreds of business professionals in areas including project management, process improvement, Lean Six Sigma, value analysis/engineering, supply base rationalization, total cost of ownership, inventory management, and effective contract management.
Though Carl routinely travels around the world teaching, lecturing, and working with corporations in pursuit of supply chain excellence, he enjoys his Bloomington home, which he shares with his wife Annette and their children, Mariah, Ben, and Emily.
Joe Fitter is a lecturer of finance and director of the MBA Strategic Finance Academy at the Kelley School of Business. He holds a BS in finance and an MS in finance, both from the Kelley School.
Prior to joining the IU faculty, Joe spent 25 years in corporate finance, serving as finance manager, finance director, operations finance controller, and head of finance in the high-tech industry with Fortune 50 corporations across the US, southeast Asia, and China.
As a faculty leader of the Global Business and Social Enterprise (GLOBASE) consulting project in China, Joe prepares students for global business leadership with an understanding of corporate social responsibility. His areas of expertise include corporate finance, investments, personal finance, and international finance.
Kari Johnson is a senior lecturer of Operations and Decision Technologies and an award-winning educator with nearly twenty years at the Kelley School of Business. A master’s degree in instructional systems technology has provided Kari with a strong background in designing effective and efficient learning modules. These are skills she uses daily in her role as faculty coordinator of an undergraduate business analytics course with over 1,000 students per semester. These skills are also valuable to Kari as an author of the textbook Introductory Business Analytics, written with a team of K303 faculty to help business students master data-driven decision-making techniques and understand the value of data in today’s business environment.
Russ Clark is a lecturer in the Operations and Decision Technologies Department at the Kelley School of Business. He holds a BS in industrial management from Purdue University and an MBA from the Kelley School.
Prior to joining the IU faculty, Russ was a senior manager in Ernst & Young’s Strategy and Transformation Practice; CIO, chief of staff, and EPMO leader at Cummins Inc.; and vice president of systems at the Companies of OneAmerica, among other roles. He has provided thought leadership and led technology-driven business and organizational transformations in the government, life sciences, manufacturing, and financial services sectors.
As an IU faculty member, Russ serves as co-director of the Supply Chain Institute and also teaches operations and supply chain management, IT strategy, and project management. In addition, he often consults and provides training in the areas of strategy and planning, program and project leadership, agile project management, operational improvement, and organizational transformation.
Russ lives in Bloomington with his wife Daphne and two sons, Weston and Evan.
Shannon Threlkeld is a senior lecturer for the Department of Marketing at the Kelley School of Business, where he has taught more than 20,000 students at both the undergraduate and MBA level. Shannon has won numerous teaching awards, including the Innovative Teaching and Teaching Excellence—Above and Beyond Professor Award.
Now in his 23rd year at Indiana University, Shannon has worked with both students and business executives in the areas of marketing analytics, business-to-business marketing strategy, data modeling, healthcare marketing strategy, project management, and executive coaching. He has designed and delivered numerous executive education seminars and workshops for both university students and corporate clients. He teaches in both traditional and virtual classroom settings, has extensive experience in executive coaching, and has worked with recognized corporations both domestically and internationally for more than 16 years.
Shannon and his wife Sarah have a boxer dog named Sophie. Shannon’s interests include volunteering for the local public school system, golfing, reading, and traveling with his wife.
Will Geoghegan is an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Kelley School of Business. He received his PhD from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and has spent the last 15 years educating and working with companies around the world to develop strategic plans.
Will has received teaching awards across various levels (undergraduate, graduate, and executive) and was recently named one of the 40 best business professors under 40 by Poets and Quants. His research interests include strategic management, innovation, innovation systems, innovative capabilities, and technology transfer.