Business Analytics Using Forecasting (FutureLearn)

Business Analytics Using Forecasting (FutureLearn)

Discover how business can harness the power of big data to make better predictive analysis. Learn how to use data to create powerful business forecasts. Organisations currently collect a vast quantity of data about suppliers, clients, employees, citizens, transactions, and much more. However, many are unaware of the predictive power this ‘big data’ has if anaylsed correctly. On this course, you’ll learn about forecasting using big data, exploring how it’s used by business as an important component of decision making.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see FutureLearn's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

You’ll examine how to define a forecasting task and workflow. You’ll understand how to evaluate forecasting performance, analysing different forecasting methods. Ultimately, you’ll be able to implement your own practical forecasting process.

What topics will you cover?

  • Goal definitions
  • Data visualisation
  • Data modeling
  • Performance evaluation
  • Model deployment

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Describe business challenges and opportunities that call for forecasting
  • Evaluate performance of a forecasting solution
  • Apply and be familiar with popular forecasting methods
  • Explore, identify and model different types of patterns in time series
  • Develop a forecasting solution using forecasting methods

Who is the course for?
This course is for anyone who wants to understand how big data can help their business or organisation’s decision-making process. You will need to be familiar with basic statistical methods, including linear regression, as well as have basic knowledge of Excel and R software.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Big Data: from Data to Decisions (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
Queensland University of Technology

Big Data: from Data to Decisions (FutureLearn)

Get a practical insight into big data analytics, and popular tools and frameworks for collecting, storing and managing data. Data is everywhere and can be obtained from many different sources. Digital data can be obtained from social media, images, audio recordings and sensors, and electronic data is quite often available as real-time data streams.

No sessions available
2 Weeks
Data Visualisation: Creating Charts and Complex Visualisations in Tableau (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
FutureLearn

Data Visualisation: Creating Charts and Complex Visualisations in Tableau (FutureLearn)

Learn the fundamentals of data visualisation and storytelling to boost your career options. Struggling to turn data insights into action within your organisation? Learn how to identify the right metrics to add to data dashboards and identify the most effective components to help you tell data stories through beautiful visualisations. This course will take you from theory into practice. You’ll build the skills you need to create interactive dashboards using Tableau.

May 23rd 2022
4 Weeks
Practical Time Series Analysis (Coursera) Coursera
The State University of New York

Practical Time Series Analysis (Coursera)

Many of us are "accidental" data analysts. We trained in the sciences, business, or engineering and then found ourselves confronted with data for which we have no formal analytic training. This course is designed for people with some technical competencies who would like more than a "cookbook" approach, but who still need to concentrate on the routine sorts of presentation and analysis that deepen the understanding of our professional topics.

Oct 5th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Data Visualization with Tableau Project (Coursera) Coursera
University of California, Davis

Data Visualization with Tableau Project (Coursera)

In this project-based course, you will follow your own interests to create a portfolio worthy single-frame viz or multi-frame data story that will be shared on Tableau Public. You will use all the skills taught in this Specialization to complete this project step-by-step, with guidance from your instructors along the way.

Oct 5th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Big Data: Measuring and Predicting Human Behaviour (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
The University of Warwick

Big Data: Measuring and Predicting Human Behaviour (FutureLearn)

Join us to explore how the vast amounts of data generated today can help us understand and even predict how humans behave. We increasingly rely on networked computer systems and smart cards to support our everyday activities, and everything we do generates data – whether buying bread at the supermarket, taking a ride on public transport, or calling a friend for a chat.

No sessions available
5-12 Weeks
Business Ethics: Exploring Big Data and Tax Avoidance (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Leeds

Business Ethics: Exploring Big Data and Tax Avoidance (FutureLearn)

Learn why big data and tax avoidance are some of the biggest ethical issues facing businesses today and how they can be addressed. Explore the ethical complexities of big data and tax avoidance. Ethical behaviour brings significant benefits to businesses such as attracting employees, customers and investors. But failure to manage it properly can create huge challenges. On this course, you’ll discover big data and tax avoidance.

Self Paced
2 Weeks
Starting a Business 5: Managing Finances (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Leeds

Starting a Business 5: Managing Finances (FutureLearn)

Find out how forecasting and managing your finances can lead to a profitable and sustainable business. The management of finances is crucial to a successful business; financial information provides the evidence to support your decisions about a business and helps to justify those decisions when you present them to other people.

Self Paced
2 Weeks
Big Data: Statistical Inference and Machine Learning (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
Queensland University of Technology

Big Data: Statistical Inference and Machine Learning (FutureLearn)

Learn how to apply selected statistical and machine learning techniques and tools to analyse big data. Everyone has heard of big data. Many people have big data. But only some people know what to do with big data when they have it. So what’s the problem? Well, the big problem is that the data is big—the size, complexity and diversity of datasets increases every day. This means that we need new technological or methodological solutions for analysing data. There is a great demand for people with the skills and know-how to do big data analytics.

No sessions available
2 Weeks
Data Visualisation with Python: Bokeh and Advanced Layouts (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
FutureLearn

Data Visualisation with Python: Bokeh and Advanced Layouts (FutureLearn)

Elevate your data visualisation skills and better communicate your data insights with the data visualisation package, Bokeh. Learn how to use Bokeh in Python. On the first week of the course, you’ll explore the key functions of Bokeh and how it can be used to create interactive visualisations and dashboards.

May 30th 2022
4 Weeks