Earning a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in business analytics means graduating with a well-rounded business skill set with a specialty or focus on business analytics. This degree opens doors to rewarding leadership opportunities in various fields and more significant career earnings potential across industries.
A Preview of Your Career in Business Analytics
Business or management analytics drives the decision-making for businesses, nonprofit organizations and government agencies. As a result, professionals and leaders in this field continually improve business processes and procedures, operational efficiency and performance. Graduates of the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) 100% online, AACSB-accredited Executive MBA with a Specialization in Business Analytics degree are experts in analytics thanks to the program’s rigorous coursework that focuses on descriptive, prescriptive and predictive analytics.
This knowledge works alongside traditional MBA training, including business law, accounting, information analysis, business analysis, operations management, economics, corporate finance, marketing and strategic management to prepare professionals to lead within their organizations and among departments.
Your career may take you in many directions. You may work as a consultant with business leaders to devise new operational systems or an e-commerce strategy, with executives in your organization to enhance work processes or execute a business process redesign or on a strategic team to provide targeted analysis for business in foreign markets. Analysts work in every sector, from automobile manufacturing to supply chain management. Because analytics drives nearly all business decision-making today, you will likely have many opportunities throughout your career to rise into high-level management and executive positions or start your own consultancy.
Skills Gained With an MBA in Business Analytics
An MBA program provides the training that today’s businesses expect of their leaders. That includes training in areas like strategic decision making, effective communication with professionals at all levels of business and motivation to develop your subordinates.
In fact, many MBA programs offer a concentration component. In the case of business analytics, specialized courses with a theoretical lens cover information analysis and management, programming for analytics, data mining, modeling and more. The focus is on learning to apply knowledge as a leader in order to oversee projects, develop processes, implement initiatives and monitor performance.
MBA students also learn about three main types of analytics and how they apply in all areas of business:
- Descriptive analytics quantitatively describes features in sets of data.
- Predictive analytics uses statistical techniques including predictive modeling, machine learning and data mining to make predictions.
- Prescriptive analytics involves the application of math and computational sciences to suggest decisions that take advantage of predictive analytics and descriptive statistics.
What Are the Qualities of an Ideal MBA Student?
Those who have the following qualities are particularly poised for an MBA:
- Have a business background and want to become more familiar with analytics and how it can drive smarter business decision-making
- Aim to develop your leadership and decision-making capabilities through analytics in order to become a high-level manager or executive
- Are interested in the broad application of each type of analytics and using them to improve a broad variety of business outcomes
- Are a cerebral, theoretical thinker with a talent for problem-solving and innovating once equipped with the expertise to do so
If you are interested in becoming a high-level manager or executive and driving the decision-making of a business unit, or even rising to the C-suite or starting your own consultancy, an MBA with a specialization in business analytics may be the right gateway to your future.
Learn more about the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s online Executive Master of Business Administration with a Specialization in Business Analytics program.
