IPA IP 2020 Question 7
A question IPA Japan published in 令和2年度 10月 ITパスポート試験 公開問題 問7, translated into English. ITPEC is based on the same exams.
Which of the following has the functions of quickly and effectively searching and analyzing various kinds of accumulated data, such as accounting, sales, purchasing, and customer data, and is intended to support decision making by management executives and others?
Explanation
BI tool — business intelligence software that lets managers search, aggregate and analyze accumulated business data to support their decisions.
A BI (Business Intelligence) tool works on the data a company has collected in its business systems, often gathered in a data warehouse: accounting, sales, purchasing, customers. Its functions include multidimensional analysis (OLAP: slicing and drilling down by product, region or period), reporting, dashboards and data mining. Users who are not IT specialists, managers among them, can see trends and problems quickly and base decisions on the data.
Answer (a)
Why not others:
- •(b) — a POS (point of sale) system records each sale at the register as it happens; it collects sales data, but searching and analyzing data across the business is not its function
- •(c) — an electronic filing system digitizes and stores documents so they can be filed and retrieved; it does not analyze data
- •(d) — a workflow system routes forms and approvals through an organization electronically; it automates procedures, not analysis for decision making
Key rule: Analyzing accumulated data to support management decisions is BI; POS collects sales data, electronic filing stores documents, workflow routes approvals.
System Strategy · AI-written, may contain errors
This question comes from the past questions IPA Japan publishes, translated into English by ITPEC Practice. ITPEC Practice is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with IPA or ITPEC. See the original paper (PDF) or Report an issue.