Purpose: The purpose of the article is to gain more insight into factors that can explain students' success in business subjects. The focus is on the connection between performance in introductory courses in business mathematics (BM) and business statistics (BS) and success in various business subjects. Design/methodology/approach: Use of a regression model with administrative data from a business school in Norway over a period of 10 years. Findings: The findings show a strong correlation, especially in quantitative subjects. The results suggest that statistical skills are more strongly related to academic success than mathematical skills. Research limitations/implications: The data are collected from only one school. No information on undergraduates' personalities and behaviours is available. Originality/value: There are limited published studies that have explored the relationship between success in statistics and later achievements in business courses. This is useful knowledge for planning the content of the bachelor's programme.