I'm looking for an online source (paid or free) that offers good quality courses on business and management, for all levels, including topics such as finance for non finance people
Hi,
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I am a former venture capitalist turned entrepreneur, graduated from Business School ( Europe's best business school), Engineering School (France's best engineering school) and Law School. I've also followed many courses online on platforms like Coursera, MIT OpenCourseware, iTunes University and Udemy.
I could help you design your ideal learning path. If you're interested, let's schedule a free 15 minutes call.
*****
In order to enhance your skills in business and management, you'd better use a mixed approach and combine academic sources, professional sources, books and journalistic/news sources.
*** Academic Education sources ***
- www.coursera.org (free to learn, pay to have a certificate)
Coursera is a MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) that allows you to attend classes from the best universities in the world for free. You'll have access to lectures (videos and text), syllabus, multiple-choice quizzes, peer graded assignement,... and even forums in order to exchange with other students.
A good place to start would be to browse the Business courses catalog for topics that interest you : https://www.coursera.org/courses?orderby=upcoming&cats=business
I would recomend you to follow the Wharton courses, a series of 4 courses that cover the basis of management and business as well as advanced material.
- www.edx.org (free to learn, pay to have a certificate)
Same as coursera but with different universities
- Open Courseware (free to learn)
Before the MOOC became famous and fancy, Open Courseware was the most talked about initiative for (free) online education. It is less dynamic and multimedia than Coursera and EdX but you can still find some good courses (in PDF format).
You should check the MIT section of Open Courseware and specifically their departement of business (Sloan School of Management) : http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/
- iTunes University (free to learn)
If you have iTunes installed on your computer (or if you have an iPhone) you should check iTunes Univerity. It is a collection of audio and video lectures by hundreds of universities in the world. Many lectures are about business.
- www.khanacademy.org (free)
Some basic notions of economics, finance and management explained in a very easy and didactic manner. Could be a good way to start learning the basics.
*** Professional Education sources ***
- www.Udemy.com (most good classes cost a few tens of $)
If you want to learn more practical skills (such as how to use Excel or Powerpoint or how to negociate with investors for instance) you should browse the course catalog of Udemy. Contrarily to the MOOC, Udemy courses are not given by Professors and academics but by professionals and experts.
You should take a look at their business category :
https://www.udemy.com/courses/Business
*** Books ***
Some great notions can be learned in business litterature. Depending on what are your objectives you could read specific books or textbooks. I would particularly recommend :
- "Corporate finance" by Pierre Vernimen
- "Entrepreneurship" by Andrew Zacharakis
- "Rework" by 37 signals
- "Delivering Happiness" by Tony Hsieh
- "Crossing the Chiasm" by Geoffrey More
- "The Outliers" and "The Tipping point" by Malcom Gladwell
*** Journalistic / News sources ***
Lastly, in order to become a better business person you should read very regularly business news : Knowledge is power !
I recommend you to read (daily or weekly depending on the time you have) :
- Harvard Business Review
- Wall street journal
- Financial times
- The Economist
...
You can also follow some business blogs, watch business podcasts and follow business leaders on Twitter.
I hope that these advice helped you and wish you good luck in your journey,
Let me know what time would suit you to organize a free 15 minute call so I could help you define your ideal learning path.
Best regards,
David
Having looked through the answers to this question already, plenty of options have been provided which are good resources for you to check out.
My personal favorites are edx.org and LinkedIn Learning.
You should also check out Harvard Business Reviews learning resources and library - online text and video content specifically around business, management, and finance which I've found super useful.
Something a little left field as well is to head over to Mindvalley.com which has some interesting quests around business and management.
Also, check out Masterclass.com which has some useful courses, from successful CEOs and entrepreneurs, similar to Mindvalley, around business and management.
All the best for you learning and development!
