Designed for managers, Data Science for Business takes a hands-on approach to demystifying the data science ecosystem and making you a more conscientious consumer of information. Data is only as useful as the insights you can draw from it. This course helps you appreciate the full benefits of data-driven decision making and gives you the business analytics tools and techniques to understand, visualise and analyse the data available to you.
This is an official Harvard Online course, featuring faculty from Harvard Business School and delivered on Harvard Online's learning platform. IPMC International handles your registration, payment and local support, then enrols you on the course. The format is self-guided within a scheduled cohort, and the certificate of completion is issued by Harvard Online.
The course builds three connected sets of skills:
The programme is taught through real business case studies across five modules. There are no prerequisites. To earn the Certificate of Completion from Harvard Online and Harvard Business School Online, participants complete all modules and associated assignments by the stated deadlines.
Study good data and bad buys through the Carvana case. Learn to translate business problems into data hypotheses, explore and describe datasets, and use visualisations to generate hypotheses.
Using the Fannie Mae investment-identification case, relate the quality of data to the quality of your conclusions. Prepare and clean data for analysis, examine data dictionaries, design table joins and manage missing data.
Explore the StockX case on demand. Critique existing charts and identify ways to improve them, generate insight with graphs, and design visualisations that express data clearly.
Connect yesterday's data with tomorrow's prediction. Evaluate temporal patterns, match the time scale to the business problem, and select appropriate smoothing techniques for forecasting.
Study the Bark Gift Shop case on motivating managers and the ATO Pictures case on marketing movies. Identify relationships between variables, write hypotheses, and interpret linear models including interactions and dummy variables.
Revisit the Carvana and Fannie Mae cases. Complete a confusion matrix and interpret results from logistic regression, CART, random forest, lasso and neural networks to select a model that guides decisions.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne: Your instructor. A Professor of Business Administration whose research and teaching focus on data science, forecasting, project management and behavioural decision-making. In 2014 she was named one of "21 Thought-Leader Professors" in data science.
Learners also hear from industry experts who bring the case studies to life, including Temple Fennell (CEO and founder of ATO Pictures), Paul Matherne, MD (a pediatric cardiologist and Associate Chief Medical Officer for UVA Children's) and Susanna Gallani (Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School). Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.
This course is particularly well suited to people who aren't data scientists but who work alongside them as managers, decision-makers or colleagues. It's ideal for professionals, graduates and organisations who want a globally recognised Harvard Online credential to advance their careers or capabilities.
On successful completion you receive a digital Certificate of Completion from Harvard Online. No letter grades are assigned; participation is evaluated on a complete/incomplete basis. Once you've earned it you can add it to your CV and LinkedIn. For example, under LinkedIn "Licenses & Certifications" list Harvard Online as the issuing organisation and the certificate for Data Science for Business as the credential.
The course fee is confirmed on enquiry and put in writing before payment.
Pay IPMC securely by debit/credit card in UAE Dirhams (UAE) or by UPI, card or net banking in Indian Rupees (India).
Yes. The course is delivered by Harvard Online and the Certificate of Completion is issued by Harvard Online and Harvard Business School Online.
Absolutely. It's designed for people who need to work with data and data scientists as managers, decision-makers or colleagues. No coding or advanced maths background is required.
You complete all modules and assignments thoughtfully by the stated deadlines and contribute to discussions on the platform. You can set your own daily or weekly pace within the cohort. No letter grades are given. Your work is assessed on a complete or incomplete basis.
After the final deadline, coursework is reviewed and, once eligibility is confirmed, your certificate is delivered by email. You keep access to the course materials for 60 days after the final deadline.
This course runs as a scheduled Harvard Online cohort. The next cohorts start 2 Sep 2026 and 18 Nov 2026. Enquire and we'll reserve your place.
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