Analytics for Business Decision Making, a one-year post-graduate certificate, helps mid-career professionals learn the tools and skills of data.

A second cohort of students is finishing a one-year post-graduate certificate focused on Analytics for Business Decision Making.

The certificate offers executive course delivery in afternoons and evenings, with a mix of face-to-face, self-directed, and live online courses.

It requires no prior programming or statistics experience and develops skills that are applicable to any industry.

Students work with real businesses individually and in teams to develop insights from their data.

Anand Nair says the program offers a solid grounding in industrial tools that aid in business decision-making through data modelling and structuring streams of data, along with how to communicate data analytics with colleagues and supervisors and the basics of programming in multiple languages.

He has a bachelor degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA in finance and worked in mergers and acquisitions for three years in his native India.

“I decided that data analytics would be a good extension for me. Only a few colleges in Canada offer analytics for business decision-making programs like this one. I felt the faculty and the industry experience was great at Mohawk.”

His classmates come from diverse backgrounds, have a range of industry experience and come from around the world.

Mergers and acquisitions are all about numbers in balance sheets and profit and loss statements. Using data analytics adds a huge advantage.

“Predictive modelling is most fascinating for me. Using data to predict future trends is mind-boggling to me,” he says.

Nair anticipates he’ll work in finance but is also interested in marketing.

“Data can help us predict the human mindset.”

Anh Nguyen is in the program to build her skillset within her human resources field.

“I realized that data analytics is a necessary skill because HR policies need to be backed up with data so they are of the most benefit.”

Nguyen, who has worked in the banking field in her native Vietnam, says data has to be used to answer questions.

“Without answering questions, the data is useless. The first semester is about the technical tools and the second semester has a focus on answering business questions and how to tell the story of the data.”

Nguyen says she chose Mohawk’s graduate certification program because it’s highly practical, hands-on and project-based.

“It’s an intense workload but there so much demand for this knowledge in so many fields. It’s a perfect blend of technical, business and communication skills.”

This story originally appeared in Momentum Magazine.