Learn Business Skills – Intro to Business Course
This 100% online business course takes students beyond the jargon to develop fundamental business skills and fluency—from landing a job to raising funds, managing people to marketing products. Students even develop a basic business plan on their way to earning transferable college credits.
A New Way to Learn Business Skills
In this Intro to Business course, students will:
- Explain the core business disciplines: accounting, finance, management, marketing, operations, and information systems
- Describe how organizations finance their operations by raising capital and leveraging the time value of money
- Identify challenges, opportunities, ethical considerations, and the role of technology in modern business
- Understand how to create an original business plan to innovate within a business or start their own
Intro to Business Course from Outlier by Savvas
Interactive, Mastery-Based Learning
Students enjoy cinematic lectures from top-rated instructors—all in a custom interface built by game designers and education experts to maximize student engagement and retention.
Ultimate Flexibility & Visibility
This turnkey asynchronous course adapts to your scheduling and staffing needs. Plus, educators get complete visibility into student progress with real-time monitoring, grade pacing, and forecasting.
Real College Course Worth Real College Credit From a Top 50 University
Students have reported successfully transferring their credits to academic institutions across the country—from community colleges to the Ivy League.
Discover the magic of learning with Intro to Business
Watch the Trailer
Students learn the art of creating value
-
Key Concepts
-
Learning Outcomes
-
Assessments
-
Educator Support
-
World-Class Instructors
Key Concepts Covered
-
Business, Marketing, and Finances
- Supply and demand
- The profit function
- Economic systems and market structures
- Marketing segmentation, targeting, and positioning
- The 4 Ps of marketing
- The marketing funnel
- Financing a business
- Growing your money
-
Management and Accounting
- The role of management
- Organizational structures
- Motivation, rewards, and incentives
- Control and evaluation
- The accounting equation
- Debits, credits, and double-entry bookkeeping
- Financial statements
- Ratio analysis
-
Operations and Logistics
- How operations and logistics work
- Production
- Localization
- Facility design
- Resource planning
- Routing and scheduling
- Quality management
-
Information Technology, Ethics, and Macroeconomics
- Types of information systems
- Knowledge management
- Data security and privacy
- Automation, AI, and machine learning
- Ethics
- Shareholders and stakeholders
- Monetary and fiscal policy
-
Personal Planning and Entrepreneurship
- Resume development and career planning
- Personal finance
- Business ownership
- Entrepreneurship
- Contemporary issues in business
Course Learning Outcomes
-
Course Learning Outcomes
- Identify and explain the function of business and the core business disciplines: accounting, finance, management, marketing, operations, and information systems.
- Define and apply key terminology used in business contexts to enhance business fluency.
- Describe how organizations finance their operations by raising capital and leveraging the time value of money.
- Identify different management styles, incentive programs, and people skills essential to the organizational structure of a business.
- Explain how accounting, financial statements, and ratio analysis keep a business functioning smoothly and efficiently.
- Describe how operations, logistics, and supply chain management maintain quality control and efficiency within a business.
- Identify challenges and opportunities, including ethical considerations and the role of technology (e.g., Artificial Intelligence) in modern business contexts.
- Understand how to create an original business plan leveraging the core business disciplines to innovate within a business or to start their own.
Assessments
-
Quizzes and Exams
- Course quizzes and exams consist of multiple choice, true/false, select all that apply, matching, and open-response questions. All are autograded by the LMS, so educators can spend more time with students and less time grading.
Educator Support & Dashboard
-
Access All Course MaterialEducators and administrators have full access to the Partner Dashboard and all course material from Day 1.
-
View Course MilestonesEasy-to-use tools show milestone dates and deadlines for the cohort, as well as the full weekly course schedule.
-
Monitor Student Progress in Real TimeCoach students throughout the course—from registration to the final exam—with complete reporting on their current course grades, assessment scores, and engagement with course material.
-
Download Student Grades & ProgressEducators and administrators can download student grades and full progress report details in CSV format.
-
Review Student Submissions for Graded AssessmentsEducators and administrators can view student-submitted answers to assignments, quizzes, and exams.
World-Class Instructors
-
World-Class Instructors
Your students will learn from one of Poets & Quants’ Best Business Professors Under 40: Dr. Jim Alvarez Mourey, Ph.D. He passionately weaves his experiences as a first-generation college student, an accomplished marketer, a seasoned researcher, and a renowned business teacher at DePaul University, Chicago into every aspect of this course.
Frequently Asked Questions About Intro to Business
-
How are Outlier courses structured?
Outlier courses are divided into a series of chapters and sections. Each section contains cinematic video lectures and active learning (our interactive digital textbook) that help students learn the course content. Students demonstrate their knowledge on graded assessments, including mastery-based quizzes they can retake up to 5 times.
-
Are there any course prerequisites?No.
-
Are there any student eligibility requirements?
Students must be at least 13 years old. Students who enroll in an Outlier course should be ready for the academic rigor of college-level coursework and carefully consider their existing responsibilities and dedication.
-
What technology does my school need to take Outlier courses?
Each student must have access to technology that meets the technical requirements noted in this Help Center article.
-
What is the minimum/maximum enrollment?
All Outlier courses have unlimited enrollment, with no minimum or maximum. So they easily adapt to your scheduling and staffing needs.
-
What support is available for educators?
Your educators get complete visibility into student progress in the Partner Dashboard, including:
- Progress monitoring based on the course syllabus and schedule
- Grade pacing and forecasting based on students’ performance
-
Is the course completely online?Yes, Outlier courses are 100% online and asynchronous. Your students can learn during any class period—anywhere in the universe with Wi-Fi and a laptop or desktop computer.