One question a lot of MIS professionals face day to day is:
“How do I shift my career to work in Advanced Analytics?”
A lot of people have asked this question to me. While there was no clear path for this around 3 years back, the scenario has changed today. Currently, professionals in MIS industry can undertake various certifications in advanced analytics to jump start their analytics career. This article summarizes various certifications available to people in India and rank orders them based on their merits.
Consideration set
This analysis is aimed for people with work experience. I plan to write a similar article for freshers some time later. Further, I have only considered courses from educational institutes well known across India. I have excluded certifications from Software companies (as they tend to focus on software training rather than the concepts behind) and other smaller training institutes.
Following table summarizes various certification options available as of today:
Note: There are courses running currently in IIM Bangalore and IIM Lucknow as well, but I am not sure whether they will continue as there is no information on websites of these institutes.
Following are details for each of the courses with link to their websites:
Certificate Programme in Business Analytics (CBA), ISB
The program is a combination of classroom and Technology aided learning platform. Participants will typically be on campus for a 5 day schedule of classroom learning every alternate month for a span of 12 months, which would ideally be planned to include a weekend.
In the month of no classroom connect, the classes will be conducted over a technology aided learning platform. The contact hours in this platform would be 24 hours a month and every alternate month. One more highlight of the programme is the Action learning project whose runs for 3- 6 months and asks students to solve a real business problem from an organization. For more information, go to:
http://www.isb.edu/certificate-programme-in-business-analytics
Advanced Certificate Program in Business Analytics (ACPBA), SJMSOM, IIT Bombay
Jointly designed by the Shailesh J Mehta School Of Management at IIT Bombay, and HughesNet Global Education, the program is spread over one year and covers both the theoretical and practical aspects of the discipline. Industry experts also contribute to the course by giving lectures and presenting real-life consultancy projects. Towards the end of the course, there is 3 day on campus interaction between students and experts. For more information, go to:
http://www.hugheseducation.com/ACPBA
Executive Program in Business Analytics, IIM Calcutta
Again designed with HughesNet Global education, this executive long distance program is designed to expose participants to state of the art tools and techniques of analytics. The program coverage would include discussion on topics such as Data Mining, Design of Experiments, Survey Sampling, Statistical Inference, Investment Management, Financial Modeling, Advanced marketing Research etc.
There are 2 sessions of 3 hour interaction every week (Thursday and Saturday). For more information, go to:
http://www.hugheseducation.com/EPBA
Advanced Business Analytics & Optimization Program (Two Certifications), CEP, IIT Delhi
This program is designed by Ivory education along with DMS, IIT Delhi. It is designed to build Advanced Skills in Business Analytics and Optimization and is divided in two parts. It follows a step-by-step approach where theoretical concepts will be followed by case studies and practical implementations.
Verdict
So what would I do if I was a MIS professional?
If I had 4 – 5 years of experience and the resources, I would go for the course offered by ISB. There are some clear benefits of this course:
- You get ISB brand on your CV
- Method of teaching is mostly classroom, there by giving a lot better learning experience
- They require higher work experience than most other courses, so you can expect to learn lot more
If I had lesser work experience (resources could still be figured through education loans), I would go for the course run by IIM Calcutta because of more time spent to cover similar course material. Hopefully, this would mean that you have more time for interaction and hands on experience.
So, following is the summary of my recommendations for advanced analytics certification:
Which one would you join if you were a MIS professional? Also, If you are aware of any certification programmes, which could be helpful, please feel free to mention in comments or to write to me.
P.S. All views mentioned here are my own and are in no way biased or influenced by any of the institutes above.
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Kunal is a post graduate from IIT Bombay in Aerospace Engineering. He has spent more than 10 years in field of Data Science. His work experience ranges from mature markets like UK to a developing market like India. During this period he has lead teams of various sizes and has worked on various tools like SAS, SPSS, Qlikview, R, Python and Matlab.
