20 Courses from ISB to supercharge your career

The Indian School of Business has successfully put India on the global map of management education by nurturing young leaders with an understanding of developing economies and the society at large. Through innovations in curricula and pedagogy to reflect the shifting business landscape, the ISB is committed to providing the best venue for management education to meet the growing need to develop young leaders who can manage global challenges.In this post,we take look at curated compilation of courses offered by ISB.

All these courses are completely online, so there’s no need to show up to a classroom in person. You can access your lectures, readings and assignments anytime and anywhere via the web or your mobile device.When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.

#1.Business Technology Management

Indian School of Business
Products and business models in today’s competitive environment are increasingly being transformed by technology. This new digital economy places IT at the centre of firm strategy and operations, and requires a new breed of IT managers and leaders who can examine technology through a business lens. The Business Technology Management specialization will empower you with knowledge of the IT domain, management, leadership and team building skills, and functional and analytical skills. These skills are critical to leverage technology to create competitive advantage. Video: Professor Deepa Mani speaks about the Specialization

#2.Financial Markets and Investment Strategy

Indian School of Business
The Investment Management Specialization teaches professional asset management of securities using portfolio management and behavioral aspects of finance. Specific topics include: an introduction to the basics of finance, how to evaluate risk and expected return, the behavioral aspect of investment strategy, and current trends.

#3.Trading Strategies in Emerging Markets

Indian School of Business
This Specialization equips individual investors and money managers with the skills required to develop their own trading strategies and test them. When you complete the Specialization, you’ll be ready to apply eight ready-made trading strategies, based on rigorous academic research, that have been shown to be. You’ll also be able to design your own trading strategy, back test it, and measure its performance.

#4.A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment

Indian School of Business
What are the determinants of a happy and fulfilling life? This is surely one of life’s biggest questions, and a question that has interested many of our ancestors. Buddha famously gave up his kingdom in search of happiness. Several Greek philosophers (from Aristotle to Epicurus and Plato to Socrates) had their own views on what it takes to be happy. And of course, we all have our own theories about happiness too. How valid are our theories? Until recently, if you wished for an answer to this question, you would’ve been forced to base it on discussions with spiritual leaders. Or, if you were lucky, you could’ve based it on late-night (and perhaps intoxicant-fueled) conversations with friends and family. Happily, all that has changed now. Over the past decade-and-a-half, scientists have gotten into the act big time. We now have a pretty good idea of what it takes to lead a happy and fulfilling life. This course, based on the award-winning class offered both at the Indian School of Business and at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, developed by Prof. Raj Raghunathan (aka “Dr. Happy-smarts”) draws content from a variety of fields, including psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral decision theory to offer a tested and practical recipe for leading a life of happiness and fulfillment. Although not mandatory, reading Prof. Raj’s forthcoming book, titled If you’re so smart, why aren’t you happy? can help you review and assimilate the material covered in this book at your leisure. For Coursera learners alone, the hardcover version of the book is available for a deep discount of 50%, plus shipping and handling. You can order the hardcover for 50% off by writing to Aaron at: Aaron@800ceoread. com. Please mention that you are a student of the “coursera happiness course” in your email. The course will feature guest appearances by several well-known thought leaders, including: – Dan Ariely (author of Predictably Irrational and, soon to be released, Irrationally Yours), – Ed Diener (“Dr. Happiness”), – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of Flow), By taking this course, you will discover the answers to questions such as: – Why aren’t the smart-and-the-successful as happy as they could-or should-be – What are the “7 Deadly Happiness Sins” that even the smart and the successful commit? and – What are the “7 Habits of the Highly Happy” and how can you implement them in your life? By the end of the course, I expect students who have been diligent with the lectures and exercises to not just gain a deeper understanding of the science of happiness, but to also be significantly happier.

#5.Accounting and Finance for IT professionals

Indian School of Business
This course presents an introduction to the basics of financial accounting and finance for IT professionals. The first part of the course will focus on understanding the most important financial statements, namely, the balance sheet, the income statement, and the statement of cash flows. We will then focus on how we can understand the financial health and performance of the company by examining a number of important financial ratios that are derived from the financial statements of the company. The second part of the course will focus on the basics of finance. This includes the concept of time value of money, discounting cash flows, and capital budgeting. The course will also introduce the idea of real options, how they affect a project’s NPV, and their impact of the decision to accept/reject a project. Lectures on concepts will be supplemented with numerical examples.

#6.Advanced Trading Algorithms

Indian School of Business
This course will provide back test results for all the strategies in developed and emerging markets. The learner will also be taught scientific ways of back testing without succumbing to either look ahead (or) survival bias. You will learn various methods of building a robust back testing system for the strategies discussed in the previous course. You will be taught how to differentiate between mere data mining and results based on solid empirical or theoretical foundation. Next, you will learn the ways and means of back testing the results and subjecting the back test results to stress tests. After which, you will learn the various ways in which transaction costs and other frictions could be incorporated in the back testing algorithm. Finally, you will learn techniques for measuring a strategies’ performance and the concept of risk adjusted return. You will use some of the famous measures for risk adjusted returns such as Sharpe ratio, Treynor’s Ratio and Jenson’s Alpha. You will see how to pick an appropriate benchmark for a proposed fund.

#7.Behavioral Investing

Indian School of Business
Through this course, you will learn how individuals and firms make financial decisions, and how those decisions might deviate from those predicted by traditional financial or economic theory. We will explore the nature of these biases and their origins, using insights from psychology, neurosciences and experimental economics on how the human mind works. From these biases, you will be able to examine how the insights of behavioral finance complement the traditional finance paradigm. We also look at the micro and macro biases. Finally, we will explore how these insights describe more complicated topics such as fat tail events and financial crises.

#8.Business Analytics and Digital Media

Indian School of Business
The explosion in digital media – web, social and now mobile – represents a departure from how things were like in the last century. This proliferation of digital media is both a threat and an opportunity for many businesses. Business Analytics can be leveraged to process data, sentiment, buzz, contacts, context and other aspects of business interest in real time, for business performance and impact. The course picks and uses use-cases from a variety of industries and geographies, to showcase the potential and impact that business analytics done properly (or not) can have on business performance.

#9.Capstone Project: Business Technology Management

Indian School of Business
The Capstone Project places you in the shoes of a CIO of a hypothetical FMCG firm, Indus Consumer Products Limited, who is required to select a portfolio of IT investments for the decision year that is aligned with the business strategy and objectives of the firm. Different business units in the company have proposed different applications to implement. Your job as CIO will be to analyze the business case for each of the projects and identify those that best serve the long-term business strategy and objectives of the firm. Your choice of IT investments is constrained by the IT budget for the given financial year. The case consists of the following artifacts: – Letter from the CEO – Company Report – IT Assessment Report – Proposal for the SCM Initiative – Proposal for Rural Connect – Proposal for the new ERP System The case is designed to provide a Capstone experience on many of the concepts and frameworks learned in the specialization. Learners need to: (a) Identify a broad business focus of the company using the competitor data. Provide a couple of lines on the strategic pain points for the firm. (b) Which one of the five applications must the company invest in? Why? Provide strategic and financial reasons in support. (c) Thoroughly analyse past projects to remove redundant or unviable investments. (d) Identify and propose strategies for managing risk associated with large scale IT investments. (e) Create an organizational structure and communication plan that will engage various stakeholders of the organization.

#10.Creating a Portfolio

Indian School of Business
This course integrates all the learning from the first three courses and guides the learner about ways of building a portfolio of strategies and integrating the same into a hedge fund. In the first part of the course, you will be taught ways of measuring the contribution of a strategy to a portfolio in terms of risk and return. You will be able to appreciate the consequences of including a strategy to a new as well an existing portfolio. Next, you are taught various ways of conducting the tilting analysis in order to determine the optimal weight to be placed on each strategy. After this you will learn to develop techniques for minimizing overall portfolio risk. You will also get a basic overview of the regulatory framework that is applicable to hedge funds. You will know about different types of investors and the expectations of each type of investors.

#11.Design your own trading strategy – Culminating Project

Indian School of Business
In the culminating project, you will develop new trading strategies, evaluate them using the tools learned in the course, integrate them with the existing portfolio and also develop a plan to start a hedge fund.

#12.Digital Transformations

Indian School of Business
Information Technology (IT) is fast changing the world around us. This course will provide you an understanding of IT-enabled changes in the business environment, and how insightful executives leverage IT to create value and win competitive battles. The course is divided into three parts – the first part of the course focuses on the industry impacts of technological innovation. Here, we will explore competition and business models in the high-tech industry, using examples of companies like Google, Apple and Facebook. We will also explore competitive dynamics of industries that consume significant technology with emphasis on how technology has disrupted industries such as music, media and education. The second part of the course focuses on how IT transforms cost structures of firms by helping them build information capabilities that significantly increase value chain efficiency. The final part of the course will focus on the impact of IT on innovation and decision-making within firms that, ultimately impacts revenue growth.

#13.Financial Markets and Investment Strategy Capstone

Indian School of Business
In the Capstone project, you have to design an investment plan for an individual at three different stages of his life. Depending on the stage of his life the individuals biases, risk preferences and wealth requirements change. You have to keep in mind all of these and design an appropriate investment plan for each stage of his life. You will use the concepts learned in the 4 courses to achieve this target. You should consider different assets and different markets to achieve the investors goals by building an optimal portfolio which matches his profile. In the end you should also evaluate the performance of his portfolio.

#14.IT Project Management

Indian School of Business
The concepts and use of project management tools, techniques and methodologies are becoming all pervasive. This course addresses project management in the context of IT projects, including software projects. Using the framework of project life cycle, the course covers various aspects pertaining to (i) project initiation, (ii) project planning and scheduling, (iii) project monitoring and control, and (iv) project termination. For planning and scheduling of projects, the use of project network and estimation of time and cost are covered in detail. Scheduling of projects with resource limitations is covered next. Risk assessment methods including simulation and risk reduction approaches are also be covered. The students will be required to use the software @risk to simulate project completion times. The use of Earned Value Analysis for Project Monitoring and Control is emphasized. For Software Project Management, the Waterfall Model and Agile Project Management are covered in detail.

#15.Introduction to Financial Markets

Indian School of Business
Learn the general concepts of financial markets and economy. You will see the difference between primary and secondary markets and learn about markets for different products. You will also look at various economic Indicators and their influence on the markets. After completing this course, you will have a much stronger background of financial markets and ready to go to the next stage in the Specialization. This course is designed to help students with very little or no finance background to learn the basics of investments.

#16.Investment Strategy

Indian School of Business
Discover the basic concepts of needs analysis, investment policy, asset allocation, product selection, portfolio monitoring and re-balancing. We will look at the types of institutional investors – pension funds and insurance companies. You will learn the client management life cycle and dive into portfolio management as a process. You will learn the basic concepts, principles, and the major styles of investing in alternative assets. Finally, we study the impact of digitization on investment strategies.

#17.Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

Indian School of Business
The digital age is dramatically reshaping the rules for organizational success. The new context demands renewal of your capabilities and development of different mindsets. In this course, you’ll learn the different components of emotional intelligence at work. For example, you’ll learn how you can work effectively in teams, build cooperative relationships with your key stakeholders, exercise effective influence, handle difficult conversations, and create energy and enthusiasm to foster meaningful change. Our modules will begin with powerful stories that are illustrative of typical challenges faced by front-line leaders. We’ll analyze the case illustration using the ideas from emotional intelligence theory, and highlight the key lessons that you should take away in terms of mindsets and skills that you should master to distinguish yourself as a leader.

#18.Portfolio and Risk Management

Indian School of Business
This course teaches you the concepts of risk and expected return. This course presents an overview of the basic concepts and techniques used to construct financial portfolios. You will learn about the investment process and get a very good understanding of economic, industry, and company analyses. We will also look at understanding and interpreting major portfolio management and risk concepts. Through this course, you will discover the basic concepts of Modern Portfolio Theory. In the second half of the course we explore the frameworks to measure investment performance, as well as the various measures of investment performance. Finally, you will learn how to measure performance of equity, bonds and hedge funds. After completing this course, you will be able to appreciate the details that go into the creation of investment portfolios.

#19.Trading Algorithms

Indian School of Business
This course covers two of the seven trading strategies that work in emerging markets. The seven include strategies based on momentum, momentum crashes, price reversal, persistence of earnings, quality of earnings, underlying business growth, behavioral biases and textual analysis of business reports about the company. In the first part of the course, you will learn how to read an academic paper. What parts to pay attention to and what parts to skim through will be discussed here. For every strategy, first you will be introduced to the original research and then how to implement the strategy. The first strategy, Piotroski F -score will be discussed in detail. You will be taught how to calculate the F – Score and how to use this score in a strategy. This is followed by the next strategy, Post earnings announcement drift (PEAD).

#20.Trading Basics

Indian School of Business
The purpose of this course is to equip you with the knowledge required to comprehend the financial statements of a company and understand the various transactions that take place in the stock market so that you can replicate the strategies discovered by the extant academic literature. The first part of the course provides a brief introduction to financial statements and various common filings of firms. You will learn how to obtain information regarding a company’s performance from them and use the information to build trading strategies. Next, you are taught basic asset pricing theories so that you will be able to calculate the expected returns of a stock or a portfolio. Finally, you will be introduced to the actual functioning of asset markets, type of players in the market, different types of orders and the efficient ways and opportune time to execute them, trading costs and ways of minimizing them, the concept of liquidity. etc. This knowledge is required to develop efficient algorithm to execute various trading strategies.

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