With our annual ranking on analytics courses offered in India, we aim to provide a roadmap to analytics professionals in excelling their skills. It remains one of the most asked questions by analytics professionals on which are the best courses offered in the industry. With this ranking, we try to clear the existing confusion in prospective students mind. According to research, there are more than 200 analytics courses in India, and picking the one that suits a student’s requirement can be challenging.

While we have been doing a combined ranking of full time and executive courses till now, this year we have brought a separate ranking for both, keeping in mind the target audience. On one hand, where full-time courses may suit those willing to give more time in completing these courses, executive courses work the best for working professionals. Keeping in line with their busy schedules, these courses are designed in a way that lets them make the most of it—weekend scheduled, online classes, case-based studies, being a few.

For this year’s study, we received 15+ nominations and these institutes have been ranked on six parameters i.e. course content, pedagogy, external collaborations, faculty, brand value and other attributes like placement assistance, LMS, events, virtual labs and others. These have been rated on a scale of 1-5 (where 1 is for Worst and 5 is for Best) for all 6 parameters individually to arrive at an overall ranking. Apart from these parameters, the study also considered students as well as expert feedback before arriving at Top 10 Executive Analytics Courses in India – Ranking 2017.

Check our latest ranking for 2020

1. PGP in Business Analytics and Business Intelligence – Great Lakes Institute of Management

• Headquarter: Gurgaon
• Cities of Operation: Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune
• Mode of Delivery: Both classroom sessions and online learning.
• Duration of Program: 1 year
• No. of hours: 440 hours – 240 classroom hours + 200 hours of online/ classroom learning (including capstone project)
• Cost of the Program: INR 3.95 Lakhs + Taxes

PGP-BABI continues to be our top ranked course for 3rd year. Delivered by Great Learning, which is an online and hybrid learning company that offers high-quality, impactful, and industry-relevant learning programs to working professionals.

Course Content (Rating 4.9): The course curriculum is divided into three stages—business foundation that covers basis of management along with statistical method, analytical techniques that covers in-depth study of analytical tools and techniques such as R, Tableau, SAS, and finally the application & industry exposure which includes industry led modules in various domains of analytics including retail marketing, financial and risk analytics etc.

Pedagogy (Rating 4.8): PGP-BABI uses a combination of learning methods that include classroom teaching, self-learning through videos and reading materials, team-based problem solving, and sessions with industry experts. Some of the distinguishing features are blended learning module, corporate collaboration, and capstone project that allows you to apply your learning to real industry projects and add it to your portfolio.

Faculty (Rating 4.8): The faculty to student ratio is 1:6 with 18 faculties holding PhD and 62 with industry experience. Two of their faculty members, Dr. PK Viswanathan and Dr. Bappaditya have been featured in the top ten academicians of the country, while Dr. RL Shankar has been featured as “The Professional Simplifier”.

External Collaboration (Rating 4.7): They have collaborated with over 100+ industry experts who design, deliver, and endorse their program. They are instrumental in mentoring their candidates through the capstone project, resume workshops, and career enhancement sessions. Their alumni earn dual certification from Great Lakes Institute of Management and Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

Brand Value (Rating 4.7): Great Lakes, within a short span has emerged to be one of the top ranked business schools in India. With a lot of accreditations to its name, it has become the youngest B-School in India to have received accreditation by Association of MBAs (AMBA, UK) for its PGPM and PGXPM programs. Its PGP-BABI program has been the leading executive courses in analytics.

Other Attributes (Rating 4.8): They have a dedicated team for customer success to engage and aid alumni for career success. The Great Lakes Job Board can be accessed by all participants even after they have graduated from the program. They conduct resume workshops and industry sessions. They conduct virtual lab events and have a LMS, Olympus that is scalable and comprehensive technology platform that encapsulates all aspects of blended and mentored learning.

The overall rating for Great Lakes Institute of Management is 4.78

2. PGPDM in Data Science and Machine Learning- University of Chicago

• Headquarter: Bengaluru
• Cities of Operation: Bengaluru, Gurgaon
• Duration of Program: 10 months with 1-year access to Jigsaw LMS
• No. of hours: 450+ hours (96 hours of in-person training + 40 hours of live online + 200+ hours of recorded videos +100+ hours on capstone project)
• Mode of Delivery: Both/Blended
• Cost of the Program: INR 3.35 Lakhs + Taxes

Though a recent entrant in the space, this program wins due to 3 reasons – exceptional brand value associated with University of Chicago, extensive industry collaboration and course content that encompasses all aspects of data science.

Course Content (Rating 4.9): This is the most comprehensive data science program, with a curriculum spanning analytics, machine learning, deep learning and AI. University of Chicago Graham School & IBM tied up to provide a detailed and cutting edge analytics and machine learning course.

Pedagogy (Rating 4.5): The PGPDM is application-oriented in nature, integrating business strategy, project-based learning, simulations, case studies, and specific electives addressing the needs of the industry. It is delivered in three ways—In-person classes with University of Chicago, industry professionals & Jigsaw faculty.

Faculty (Rating 4.7): They have a faculty to student ratio of 1:1, with a batch size of between 30-50. All the University of Chicago faculty have PhD and multiple years of experience in industry and research. It is first analytics course in India to bring faculty from a college in USA, which is amongst the top three.

External Collaboration (Rating 4.7): The program offers best of both worlds with instructors from University of Chicago, industry experts from Jigsaw and analytics practitioners from IBM coming together to deliver a great learning experience.

Brand Value (Rating 4.8): Jigsaw Academy has been a pioneer in Indian analytics education and its collaboration University of Chicago, US, has added to its brand value. With projects and hiring from the likes of IBM, Fractal, Analytics Edge etc., they have an alumni base of over 40,000 students.

Other Attributes (Rating 4.5): It provides extensive placement assistance with exclusive job postings, mock interviews, question banks and live contests. Multiple industry speakers across all contact sessions, live capstone projects, soft skill training, LMS are some of its other features.

The overall rating for University of Chicago is 4.68

3. PG Diploma program in Data Science in association with IIIT- UpGrad

• Headquarter: Mumbai
• Cities of Operation: Online, Global
• Duration of Program: 11 months
• No. of hours: 500 hours of online learning
• Mode of Delivery: Online. 90% of the lectures are asynchronous in nature, delivered by industry experts and leading faculty, 10% of learner time is spent clarifying academic doubts.
• Cost of the Program: INR 2.25 Lakhs

UpGrad, founded by media stalwart Ronnie Screwvala, has successfully launched programs in data science, big data engineering, software engineering, digital marketing, product management, and entrepreneurship, in collaboration with leading Indian and foreign universities such as BITS Pilani, Cambridge University, and IIIT Bangalore, among others.

Course Content (Rating 4.7): The program offers the right blend of statistical know-how, technological expertise, and business knowledge. It has been designed along with IIIT Bangalore and multiple industry leaders. It covers areas of data management, statistics and exploratory data analysis, machine learning, big data analytics.

Pedagogy (Rating 4.5): The learning experience has been designed keeping in mind the working professionals. The teaching style is case-led, wherein faculty and industry experts use a series of industry-relevant examples to teach complex data science and analytics concepts.

Faculty (Rating 4.6): 67% of its faculties are with PhD and 94.4% with industry experience. Of the 18 faculty members who have worked closely with UpGrad to design the course, 14 are working in or have worked in the analytics industry.

External Collaboration (Rating 4.6): The program has established flagship partnerships with analytics leaders such as Uber, Genpact, Fractal Analytics and Gramener. Further, it has been built in collaboration with 30+ analytics industry experts from leading corporations.

Brand Value (Rating 4.4): Along with a collaboration with IIIT Bangalore, Upgrad has partnered with more than 50 companies such as the likes of Star TV, Disney, Google, Microsoft, to develop program content and provide mentorship to students.

Other Attributes (Rating 4.6): Career support is provided as a part of this program along with relevant preparatory material to help learners understand the industry landscape, build their resumes, and prepare for interviews. It also conducts a series of offline events known as the ‘Basecamp’. UpGrad’s proprietary technology platform hosts all the recorded video content, reading materials, assessments, projects and live sessions in a systematic manner.

The overall rating for UpGrad is 4.57

4. Executive Program in Data Science using Excel & R- Talent Edge by XLRI Jamshedpur

• Headquarter: Gurgaon
• Cities of Operation: Online/Global
• Duration of Program: 5 months
• Mode of Delivery: Online
• Cost of the Program: 70,000+taxes

Talentedge is an Ed-Tech firm and amongst the first to have brought the ‘Live & Interactive’ anywhere learning in digital format. It offers courses jointly with world leading institutes and corporates, enabling working professionals to plan their future course of action and fast track their careers.

Course Content (Rating 4.5): The program content and structure is designed entirely by XLRI and provides hands on exposure to popular business analytics tools like excel and R.

Pedagogy (Rating 4.4): The classes are conducted through live lectures that is beamed online via internet to student desktops/laptops or classrooms using Talentedge’s Direct To Device platform. The pedagogy comprises of lectures, case studies, interactive sessions, project work and class exercises imparted by XLRI’s faculty.

Faculty (Rating 4.5): Lectures are imparted by eminent faculty from XLRI and Industry experts. One of their prominent faculties is Dr. Soumyakanti Chakraborty, Fellow (IIM Calcutta), B.Tech (Calcutta University), XLRI Jamshedpur

External Collaboration (Rating 4.4): They have an external collaboration with XLRI, one of India’s leading management school based in Jamshedpur. They also have many corporate alliances with industry.

Brand Value (Rating 4.6): XLRI is acknowledged as India’s oldest business management school and with its single vision of Magis, i.e., pursuit of excellence, it has been focusing well on three areas academic excellence, personal values and social concern.

Other Attributes (Rating 4.2):  They have a periodic evaluations built in through the duration of course which may be in the form of quiz, assignment, project or other objective/subjective assessments as relevant and applicable to the program.

The overall rating for Talent Edge is 4.43

5. Executive Program in Business Analytics (EPBA)- MISB Bocconi

• Headquarter: Bengaluru
• Cities of Operation: Mumbai
• Duration of Program: 10 months with 2-year access to Jigsaw LMS
• No. of hours: 650+ hours (189 hours of in-person training + 60 hours of live online + 300+ hours of recorded videos + 100+ hours on capstone project)
• Mode of Delivery: Both/Blended
• Cost of the Program: INR 6.4 Lakhs + Taxes

The Executive Program in Business Analytics launched by MISB Bocconi, the world’s only offshore presence of Università Bocconi, and and India’s best-ranked data analytics training institutes, Jigsaw Academy.

Course Content (Rating 4.4): With an average work experience of almost 15 years for the batch, the EPBA is amongst the most sought after programs in the country for senior professionals. In line with its target audience, the curriculum of this program is more focused on breadth rather than depth. This program will train you for a leadership role in analytics rather than an entry level role.

Pedagogy (Rating 4.4): The EPBA is focused on bring top class faculty to India to teach the analytics program. The teaching includes in-person classes with Bocconi faculty, industry professionals and Jigsaw faculty.

Faculty (Rating 4.6): They have a faculty to student ration of 1:1, with a batch size of around 35. All SDA Bocconi faculty have PhD and multiple years of experience in industry & research, and have been involved with startups and corporate giants. It is the first program in analytics to bring faculty from a European and global top 10 university to India.

External Collaboration (Rating 4.5): The course is offered in collaboration with SDA Bocconi, Milan, that is ranked among the top 10 business schools globally. The professors from Bocconi, Milan fly down to teach. They also have tie-ups with Axtria, Analytics Edge, Tata Motors, Smart Cube, Kainoos, Data Semantics for projects and hiring.

Brand Value (Rating 4.4): Jigsaw Academy has been a pioneer in Indian analytics education and its collaboration MISB Bocconi has made it one of the preferred choice of students, universities and companies. With projects and hiring from the likes of IBM, Fractal, Analytics Edge etc., they have an alumni base of over 40,000 students.

Other Attributes (Rating 4.2): It provides placement assistance, exclusive job posting, mock interviews, question banks, live contests. It also provides Amazon cloud based virtual labs for R, Python, and Big Data available 24×7 to all students. It also has live capstone project and soft skills training for presentations.

The overall rating for MISB Bocconi is 4.42

6. EPGP in Data Science, Business Analytics & Big Data – Aegis School Of Data Science

• Headquarter: Mumbai
• Cities of Operation: Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Online
• Duration of Program:11 months (9 months training + 2 months capstone project/internship )
• No. of hours: 800 hours
• Mode of Delivery: Weekend Classroom/ Weekend Online live interactive
• Cost of the Program:Weekend Classroom- Mumbai- 4.5 Lakhs, Pune-3 lakhs, Bangalore- 3.6 lakhs, Weekend Online live interactive – 2.75 lakhs

In 2015 Aegis and IBM collaborated to launch, India’s first Data Science Program known as Post Graduate Program in Data Science, Business Analytics and Big Data. IBM has set up Business Analytics Lab and Cloud Computing Lab at Aegis Campus.

Course Content (Rating 4.5): The core course includes Statistics and probability, R and Python for Data Science, Hadoop, big data with Apache Spark, machine learning for data science, IBM Watson analytics, business use cases of big data and data science and much more. Whereas the elective course comprises of Scala, Qliksense, marketing analytics, social media analytics, machine learning with Microsoft Azure, MongoDB, Apache Hive, Apache Pig, fundamental of financial statement analytics, big data on AWS: Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR), amongst others.

Pedagogy (Rating 4.3): The program is delivered using an innovative, experiential learning methodology that includes classroom lectures by Aegis faculties, IBM experts and industry experts engaged in real life data science projects providing the theoretical and in-depth conceptual knowledge.

Faculty (Rating 4.4): They have a faculty to student ratio of 1:4 with 17 faculties with PhD and 41 with industry experience

External Collaboration (Rating 4.5): In 2015 Aegis joined hands with IBM to offer full time and executive post graduate program in data science, business analytics and big data and PGP/EPGP in cyber security. Another collaboration is with NVIDIA DLI to conduct and impart training on artificial intelligence and deep learning. It also has partnership with MTNL, a leading Govt. of Indian telecom service provider and collaborations with the various companies.

Brand Value (Rating 4.3): With its candidate’s placed in 45+ companies such as Accenture, Aditya Birla, Suzlon, Fractal, IBM, HDFC, Ford Automotive, and more, it speaks of the brand value it has.

Other Attributes (Rating 4.4):  It has a career management center that provides all students placement and paid internship opportunities. Aegis-IBM has setup state of the art lab for the participants and the faculties, which helps them to work on various data science tools, platforms, IBM specific software and projects.

The overall rating for Aegis School of Business is 4.40

7. Post Graduate Diploma In Data Science- Times Pro

• Headquarter: Mumbai
• Cities of Operation: 20 cities pan India including Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Lucknow, Delhi
• Duration of Program: 6 months
• No. of hours: 380 hours
• Mode of Delivery: Classroom/ Online

Times Professional Learning (TPL) is a unique training & education initiative from Bennett, Coleman Co. Ltd. (the Times Group) that aspires to solve the skills puzzle in India by adopting dynamic learning methodologies. TPL has an expertise in providing training solutions in the area of Big data, Data Sciences, Data Analytics & Artificial Intelligence.

Course Content (Rating 4.4): PGDDS program is designed for experienced professionals who want to gain a deep understanding of how to use data as a strategic asset. This program teaches students both to understand the role of evidence-based data in decision-making and to leverage data as a strategic asset.

Pedagogy (Rating 4.3): The program is delivered by a team of leading faculty members and industry experts, Industry practitioners in live classroom instruction along with hands-on sessions. The program is designed on a schedule that minimizes disruption of work and personal pursuits.

Faculty (Rating 4.3): The faculty to student ratio is 1:15 with number of faculties with PhD to be 7 and those with 14 with the industry experience.

External Collaboration (Rating 4.6): They have partnered with NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute (DLI) that offers hands-on training for developers, data scientists and researchers looking to solve world’s most challenging problems with deep learning.

Brand Value (Rating 4.2): Times Pro is an initiative by the Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL) group, which has 45 leading brands across sectors and a turnover of approx. U.S. $1.5 Bn. Its collaboration with NVIDIA, a market leader in deep learning and AI also speaks for its brand value.

Other Attributes (Rating 4.3): They provide placement assistance to candidates who have completed the course with them. They also have well equipped labs at each center and provide laptops to students during the course duration.

The overall rating for Times Pro is 4.35

8. PGDM/MBA in Business Analytics- REVA University

• Headquarter: Bengaluru
• Cities of Operation: Bengaluru
• Duration of Program: PGDM – 1 year, MBA – 2 years
• No. of hours: PGDM – 560 hours, MBA – 960 hours
• Mode of Delivery: Hybrid program with weekend classes and online LMS support
• Cost of the Program: PGDM- INR 2.8 Lakhs, MBA- INR 3.8 Lakhs

RACE, an initiative of REVA University, was created to develop visionary enterprise leaders for corporates. It offers a range of techno-functional programs specially designed to suit the needs of working professionals to enhance their careers. RACE currently offers both long and short-term analytics programs for working professionals.

Course Content (Rating 4.3): The program covers descriptive, predictive, prescriptive and cognitive analytics in real-life scenarios. The PGDM/MBA in Business Analytics in association with IBM is a 12/24 months’ modular program in business analytics, in association with IBM.

Pedagogy (Rating 4.3): They have a 100% outcome driven/skill based program designed for working professionals to enhance their career in mid and senior positions in business analytics. The program is completely practical and lab based using either proprietary or open software used in the analytics market today.

Faculty (Rating 4.4): The faculty to student ratio 1:4, and the number of faculties with PhD is 3, while with the industry experience is 10.

External Collaboration (Rating 4.5): The program is offered in association with IBM. Other partners include Jigsaw Academy (online partner), Predictive Analytics/ Let’s learn analytics Ltd. (Delivery partner) and Datawise Inc. (Delivery partner).

Brand Value (Rating 4.1): RACE is a part of REVA university established under the Government of Karnataka Act 80 of the year. The founders of REVA University, with a missionary zeal, visionary outlook and philanthropic approach coupled with four decades long entrepreneurial leadership are recognised as leading edupreneurs creating world class education. 

Other Attributes (Rating 4.2): They provide 100% placement assistance with lateral placement opportunities. Each participant gets an industry mentor who helps in improving their learning and explore placement opportunities. They also conduct hackathons and analytics competitions.

The overall rating for REVA University is 4.30

9. Executive PGDM in Business Analytics – IFIM Business School

• Headquarter: Bengaluru
• Cities of Operation: Bengaluru
• Duration of Program: 15 months
• Mode of Delivery: Hybrid model (live streaming of lectures + classroom teaching)
• Cost of the Program: INR 3.75 Lakhs

IFIM Business School, Bangalore, offers a range of options for executive education including an extremely well received AICTE approved 15 month EPGDM-Business Analytics offered in collaboration with IBM.

Course Content (Rating 4.1): Business Analytics course of IFIM imbibes skills, technologies and practices that are at par with the industry requirement. Since it caters to different industries and numerous domain at work, the curriculum offered at IFIM brings in a holistic knowledge to the student, and has been designed by industry experts with the vast knowledge in data mining field.

Pedagogy (Rating 4.3): The best practices in terms of pedagogy includes live case studies, practical hands on exposure to various tools and software such as RStudio, Hadoop, SPSS, Tableau, Advanced EXCEL, SQL Cognos, Power BI and Open Source predictive analytics tools like Rattle, KNIME (Text Mining & Deep Learning) and Open Source Text Mining.

Faculty (Rating 4.4): With a faculty to student ratio of 1:15, they have a total of 6 faculties with PhD and 13 with industry experience.

External Collaboration (Rating 4.3): IFIM has created a business analytics course for students and working professionals to learn and apply analytics solutions and solve real-world problems with IBM and open source tools.

Brand Value (Rating 4.2): IFIM Business School, Bangalore was founded in the year 1995 and has over the years grown to be amongst the top ranked business schools in India.

Other Attributes (Rating 4.3): The Institute has a dedicated Placement team which handles the training and placement related needs for different courses. It recently organized its 10th International Conference on Digital Business: New Frontiers in Management with its specific theme on Business Analytics & Big Data in Digital Business.

The overall rating for IFIM is 4.27

10. Predictive Business Analytics – Bridge School of Management

• Headquarter: Gurgaon
• Cities of Operation: Gurgaon
• Duration of Program: 11 Months
• No. of hours: Online- 440 + hours, Classroom- 260 + hours
• Mode of Delivery: Blended
• Cost of the Program: 4.2 INR Lakhs + Taxes

Bridge School of Management is a venture of HT Media Ltd., India’s second largest and most trusted media company. The Predictive Business Analytics program is offered in partnership with Northwestern University, USA and provides placement assistance to all successful graduates

Course Content (Rating 4.2): It offers a blended program to suit working professionals. The Predictive Business Analytics course at Bridge is strategically designed to provide strategic knowledge of Analytics and give hands on experience on using tools and mining insights.

Pedagogy (Rating 4.3): Pedagogy is a blended format with flipped classroom model. Students take face to face sessions over the weekend with industry practitioner faculty, and the sessions are delivered with the help of case studies, live -industry examples, numerical and practical coding sessions.

Faculty (Rating 4.3): The faculty to student ratio is 1:20, with 20 faculties with relevant industry experience. All the of them are industry experts with 10+ years of experience, from corporates like AMEX, RBL, SBI cards etc.

External Collaboration (Rating 4.3): They have collaborated with Northwestern University (School of professional Studies), USA

Brand Value (Rating 4.1): Being in the industry for last few years, they have been able to place candidates in companies like HCL, Policy Bazaar, American Express, Indigo, Hero, Luminous and many more. Backed by India’s leading media company HT Media and Global Education group-Apollo Global (USA), it has been delivering innovative learning environment for the working professionals.

Other Attributes (Rating 4.3): They provide 100% Placement Assistance. Each batch goes through a series of tool learning along with a live project.

The overall rating for Bridge School of Management is 4.25