Best Business Certifications of 2023

Business professionals often change positions to gain a better salary, more desirable benefits and new opportunities and attaining business certifications is a great step to take toward that change.

Defining a “business certification” can be difficult. To narrow the field, we reviewed general business and management credentials, customer resource management (CRM), supply chain, sales and purchasing certifications. Most of the certifications we selected are vendor-agnostic — not tied to a specific system or application — and we researched several credentials from SAP, SAS and similar companies that specialize in business applications.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) has been around since 1969, helping business workers develop careers in project management, mainly through professional development and certifications.

The CAPM is ideal for up-and-coming project managers. You need to show proof of a high school diploma, GED or global equivalent. The single exam has 150 questions, costs $225 for PMI members or $300 for nonmembers and is available through Pearson VUE. By the time you take the exam, you need to have attained 23 hours of project management education. The certification is valid for five years, and you must retake the exam to maintain the credential.

PMI has other certifications aimed at the business community, such as the Project Management-related credentials: Professional (PMP), PMI Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA), Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP), Program Management Professional (PgMP) and PMI Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP).

If you’re interested in analyzing business needs and coming up with solutions, take a look at the CBAP by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). The CBAP is an advanced certification aimed at managers and leaders with more than five years of business analysis experience. More precisely, you need at least 7,500 hours of business analysis experience over the last decade and 900 of those hours must directly relate to four of the six BABOK Guide knowledge areas. On top of that, you need at least 35 hours of professional development credits (earned over the last four years), plus two references.

The CBAP exam has 120 multiple-choice questions, based on scenarios and case studies and is available through PSI. The exam costs $350 for IIBA members or $505 for nonmembers and a $145 application fee is required. To maintain the CBAP, credential holders must earn at least 60 continuing development units within three years of achieving certification.

The IIBA offers related credentials, such as the Entry Certificate in Business Analysis (ECBA), Certificate of Capability in Business Analysis (CCBA), Agile Analysis Certification (IIBA-AAC) and Certification in Business Data Analytics (IIBA-CBDA).

>> Learn More:  5 Best Human Resources and Talent Acquisition Certifications

APICS is all about supply chain management. As part of its goal to develop qualified operators, supervisors and leaders, it offers the Certified Supply Chain Professional (CSCP) and a few other certifications. The CSCP covers supply chain concepts and technology, plus strategies for end-to-end operations, from supplier to company to consumer.

To earn the CSCP, you need a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, at least one other approved certification and at least three years of related business experience. You also need to pass an exam that costs $1,365 to $1,900, depending on your APICS membership status.

The PMP from PMI is among the most recognized and sought-after certifications for both business and IT. The requirements are stiff. Option one requires a high school diploma, associate degree or global equivalent; 60 months experience leading projects; and 35 hours of project management education. Option two is a four-year degree, 36 months leading projects and 35 hours of project management education.

You must pass a 180-question exam to earn the PMP, which is available through Pearson VUE. The exam costs $405 for PMI members and $575 for nonmembers. You maintain the PMP certification by earning 60 professional development units every three years. 

Are you SAP savvy? SAP, a European multinational software program, stands for “systems, applications and products.” The software is used by companies around the world to manage business operations and customer relationships across several lines of business, including human resources, marketing, sales, manufacturing and supply chain. [Read our guide to marketing certifications.]

The SAP Certified Application Associate – CRM recognizes a consultant’s skills in understanding and using SAP CRM software, including how it integrates with other SAP solutions like NetWeaver. SAP recommends that candidates have a combination of experience and training before sitting for the certification exam; training courses are available if needed. The exam has 80 questions and costs between $208 and $519, depending on how many attempts you want. You can take the exam through the SAP Certification Hub.

If you’ve ever worked with or considered using a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, you’ve likely heard of Salesforce. From help desk and lead management to sales and customer service, Salesforce is an all-in-one CRM platform that scales with a business’ needs as it grows. The platform has become so popular since its launch in 1999 that it’s considered an industry leader and one of the best CRM solutions available. 

If you’re looking to leverage the platform at an administrative level, Salesforce offers a certification program to increase your knowledge of the platform. The program requires you to take several classes and workshops before completing a proctored credential exam. The classes and exam typically cost a few thousand dollars.

Salesforce suggests that anyone seeking this certification should already have a decent handle on the platform, since the certification seeks to build upon their understanding of existing features and functions. Once you complete this program, the company also offers the Advanced Administrator certification to further your knowledge of the platform.

HubSpot is a CRM platform that helps businesses handle their marketing, sales and help desk needs. While the platform covers various specialties, the HubSpot Inbound Marketing certification teaches how to use content creation, social media and other inbound marketing methods to your advantage. 

This is a free certification course consisting of seven lessons, complete with 24 videos and seven quizzes, which takes almost five hours to complete.  

Oracle is a leading cloud database software company that helps apply the nebulous digital concept to numerous business functions. More than 2.2 million people have earned their OCP credentials and our initial research found more than 1,000 job openings for the designation.

With numerous certification paths spanning the platform’s cloud-based and on-premises software and hardware solutions, Oracle offers free learning courses in a wide range of specialties. Once you’re ready for an exam, you must purchase a voucher at prices ranging from $95 to $245. These vouchers are good for six months, giving you enough time to hone your skills with the Oracle platform before committing to a test.

The American Purchasing Society is the membership organization behind the Certified Purchasing Professional (CPP), Certified Professional Purchasing Manager (CPPM), Certified Green Purchasing Professional (CGPP), Certified Professional in Distribution and Warehousing (CPDW) and Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant (CPPC) programs.

If your career involves the creation, use, retrieval and disposal of business records, check out the Institute of Certified Records Managers (ICRM), Certified Records Analyst (CRA) and Certified Records Manager (CRM) programs.

On the global front, the Institute of Management Consultants offers the Certified Management Consultant (CMC) certification and NASBITE’s Certified Global Business Professional (CGBP) focuses on global business management and marketing, supply chain management and trade finance. [Check out these accounting and finance certifications.]

Finally, the Business Relationship Management Institute has two certifications: the Business Relationship Management Professional (BRMP) and Certified Business Relationship Manager (CBRM).

Kim Lindros and Andrew Martins contributed to this article. Some source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.

Runway launches new ‘Watch’ feature as CEO says Hollywood AI discourse ‘needs to be more nuanced’

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As Hollywood strikes by actors and writers continue, with the impact of generative AI on their industry and jobs a central concern, Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela knows his gen AI video startup — most recently valued at $1.5 billion — is under fire from those on the picket line. 

But when I visited the company’s surprisingly spartan Manhattan headquarters last week, Valenzuela told me that while he doesn’t want to dismiss the concerns of writers and actors around their likenesses being generated by AI, or their film-industry jobs being replaced by AI, he believes the conversation around Hollywood and AI “needs to be more nuanced.”

“I empathize with the artistic community who might feel threatened or who might have questions,” he said. “At the same time, when you speak with the creators or filmmakers, you start understanding that it’s different from a singular point of view that this is going to replace everything, because it’s not — it’s going to augment a lot of other things as well.”

Hollywood’s pushback on AI hasn’t kept the New York City-based company from its efforts to build a community of artists and filmmakers and to support and promote their AI-generated output. In March, Runway held its first annual AI Film Festival, and today it launched a new feature on its website and iOS app called Watch — which allows users to share and consume longer-form videos created with Runway tools. 

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“A lot of what we’re working towards is both democratizing and making these tools more convenient, but also showcasing the stories being made with those tools,” said Valenzuela. “We really need to highlight the great and positive outcomes with technology. One of those efforts is by showcasing them in the Watch section.” 

Runway’s offices are located in an unpretentious Tribeca building just a block below noisy Canal Street, abutting a graffiti-filled alleyway. Upon entering, there are no immediate physical clues that the office is in fact the home base of one of the industry’s hottest gen AI startups, which drew a fresh infusion of $141 million last month from Google, Nvidia and Salesforce, among other investors. 

Other than a few art posters and a shelf filled with books about design, I was also surprised that the Runway offices don’t show off much evidence of the company’s artistic bona fides.   

Originally from Chile, Valenzuela earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and business management, and then a master’s degree in arts and design in 2012. In 2018, he became a researcher at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts’ Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), which is sometimes described as an art school for engineers — or an engineering school for artists. 

That year, Valenzuela also founded Runway with Tisch colleagues Anastasis Germanidis and Alejandro Matamala Ortiz after the trio bonded over a mutual interest in using digital tools for design. Today, in addition to its initial text-to-video generative AI offering, Runway provides image-to-video, video-to-video, 3D texture, video editing and AI training options.  

While Valenzuela said he has always experimented with artistic mediums and techniques, the things he has exhibited have been digital art. One early interactive art project called “Regression,” exhibited at a museum in Chile in 2012, makes it crystal clear that the concept of text-to-video has been on his mind for over a decade.

“It was an old typewriter from my grandpa,” he said. “I connected and built a network of the keystrokes of the typewriter. Imagine a pedestal with a typewriter and a set of white walls. Every keystroke was connected to one another and went to computer software I wrote so that every time you wrote, videos were projected — you were typing words in a physical device and everything you were typing was being recorded in this infinite piece of paper.”

The videos were not generated back then, of course, but rather pre-existing videos Valenzuela assembled. “But that was the type of thing that was interesting,” he explained. These days, he says he doesn’t practice making much traditional art: “My art right now is building Runway.”

In June, “Genesis,” a cinematic, 45-second-long sci-fi movie trailer posted by Nicolas Neubert, quickly went viral, with millions of views and coverage on CNN and in Forbes. It was Gen2, a new gen AI video creation tool.

“Genesis was so great,” said Valenzuela. “I think that’s exactly the type of creative outputs that we’re trying to provoke. It’s great to see those kinds of things being put out there.” He added that it’s “incredible” to know how fast the process was for the creator, but also that the amount of work that was behind it was still significant.

“I think the biggest takeaway is that this trailer, and the many more that we’ve seen coming out, are not just generated with a word, which is what most people think,” he said, pointing to the language models that “have overtaken the public discourse, where everything is reduced to chatbots where you prompt something and you get something out.”

Instead, he explained, “you’re making videos, you’re making art — you’re making something that’s visual. It’s all about iteration and doing it multiple times until you pick the one that you like, and then double down on that.” Then, he said, you get to a point where you have a story that you piece together and create something “as beautiful and as weird as he did.”

But that whole process, Valenzuela said, “might be misunderstood — as if AI is some sort of automated system that creates everything for you.” Unlike his 2012 interactive art project, it is not possible to simply type a few words and get a fully fleshed-out trailer or movie.

“That’s a very reductionist view of how filmmaking works, but secondly, how art works,” he pointed out. “Just because you have a canvas and paint, you’re not going to become an artist. You need to paint a lot.”

When I asked Valenzuela if it feels strange being in the middle of the conversation around the intersection of art and technology, he said that it does — particularly since the three founders come from exactly that background. What feels different these days, he said, is the mainstream conversation.

“It’s great to see that this has piqued the interest of more people, that more people are questioning what the role of technology like AI is, and the role of art,” he said. “We’ve been working on this for so much time, and we have so many insights on how to best drive both the technology and the conversations forward. I think we need to do that more broadly now that it’s become more mainstream.”

What he wants, Valenzuela emphasized, is for people to experiment with Runway’s tools before passing judgment.

“There’s a lot of human agency behind it, perhaps way more than if you used any other tool,” he said. “We need to get more people to use it, because the misconceptions might come from a place of never actually having used something like this because the technology didn’t exist six months ago.” These days, he added, he spends most of his time “just getting people to experiment with it,” as though it were a new camera.

“If you want to understand how it works, use it,” he said. “This thing is not magical on its own. It’s not going to create a movie; you need to have control over it.”

That experimentation and nuance, he added, applies to the entire way AI as a technology is perceived. “It’s a very nuanced world and I want to make sure we don’t trap ourselves and industries that we care a lot about, like filmmaking, into one story about how we collectively think about technology,” he said. “We’re in a moment right now where [AI] is going to change a lot of things. We need more diversity of thought, we need more people with different backgrounds, we need more people from different disciplines speaking about it, and not just one set of people.”

That sounded similar to Valenzuela’s own story of bringing art and technology together. “I’ve never been a fan of siloing disciplines — like ‘you’re a painter’ or ‘you’re in sculpture,'” he said. “You’re whatever you want to be. Anyone can be an artist if you’re using something to express a view of the world.”

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Commvault announces Metallic: Salesforce Backup, Recovery & Sandbox Seeding – Unlimited Storage on Salesforce AppExchange

Metallic: Salesforce Backup, Recovery & Sandbox Seeding – Unlimited Storage is currently available on AppExchange.

Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT) today announced it has launched Metallic: Salesforce Backup, Recovery & Sandbox Seeding – Unlimited Storage on Salesforce AppExchange, providing customers with dedicated protection for their Salesforce cloud data, expanding on native capabilities to offer extended retention, data isolation, sandbox masking and seeding, rapid recovery tools and more. Metallic: Salesforce Backup, Recovery & Sandbox Seeding – Unlimited Storage offers broad-ranging coverage across Salesforce Sales Cloud, Financial Services Cloud, Service Cloud and Health Cloud to help safeguard data from deletion, corruption and ransomware attacks.

Metallic: Salesforce Backup, Recovery & Sandbox Seeding – Unlimited Storage is currently available on AppExchange at https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N4V00000HDcS6UAL&tab=e

With a multi-layered security approach, Metallic: Salesforce Backup, Recovery & Sandbox Seeding – Unlimited Storage provides enterprise-grade protection, including robust security standards and built-in zero-trust access controls for production and sandbox environments. In addition, it features ease of management with a single pane of glass approach, enabling businesses to comprehensively protect their Salesforce data alongside their other critical workloads.

“Availability on AppExchange leverages Salesforce’s central marketplace to create a fast and direct method for Salesforce developers and admins to access solutions that secure, protect and defend their environments in the face of cyber threats,” said Param Kumarasamy, Vice-President of Product Management, Commvault. “Our solution provides the critical tools that protect these environments, as well as a wide breadth of workloads, helping customers reduce downtime and rapidly recover from attack while leveraging advanced, hardened and proactive security controls.”

“Salesforce plays a critical role in our day-to-day operations and the potential of losing that data was too high a risk for us. We needed a solution that went beyond the standard data management package to take us to the next level of protection,” said Jason Kehl, Senior Vice-President of Engineering & Data Science, Vectra. “This app was the answer. With a single platform design that makes it seamless to manage not only our Salesforce data, but all workloads across our infrastructure, as well as the highest level of security offered by any cloud-based data management solution, we can rest assured that our data is in good hands. The addition of Metallic on AppExchange means that Salesforce has thoroughly tested and approved the solution, providing another layer of confidence.”

“Metallic: Salesforce Backup, Recovery & Sandbox Seeding – Unlimited Storage is a welcome addition to AppExchange, as it accelerates business transformation for customers by delivering hardened security, robust coverage and comprehensive control, all through a single, simplistic platform in a data protection as a service environment,” said David Lee, Vice-President of Product Management, AppExchange. “AppExchange is constantly evolving to connect customers with the right apps and experts for their business needs.”

Metallic: Salesforce Backup, Recovery & Sandbox Seeding – Unlimited Storage enables customers to learn more about this solution, watch demo videos, download product-specific resources, read reviews, register for a free 30-day trial and more. Users can also request additional information on Metallic solutions.