IPA IP 2022 Question 19

Topic: Business Strategy Management

A question IPA Japan published in 令和4年度 ITパスポート試験 公開問題 問19, translated into English. ITPEC is based on the same exams.

Company A, a manufacturing and sales company, set strategic themes by using the concept of the balanced scorecard. Which of the following is the most appropriate strategic theme based on the business process (internal business process) viewpoint?

Explanation

Improvement of the parts commonality ratio — a theme about how the company's own work is done belongs to the internal business process viewpoint.

A balanced scorecard breaks the strategy into themes, goals and indicators from four viewpoints:

ViewpointQuestion it asksTheme among the options
FinancialHow do we look to shareholders?Expansion of sales
CustomerHow do customers see us?Expansion of customer loyalty
Internal business processWhich processes must we excel at?Improvement of the parts commonality ratio
Learning and growthHow do we keep improving?Strengthening of employees’ technical skills

Sharing parts across products cuts design, purchasing and inventory work in manufacturing, an improvement to the company's internal processes.

Answer (d)

Why not others:

  • •(a) — sales are a financial result, the financial viewpoint
  • •(b) — loyalty is how customers relate to the company, the customer viewpoint
  • •(c) — building employees' skills is the learning and growth viewpoint, the base for the other three

Key rule: BSC viewpoints: financial (money results), customer (customer relations), internal business process (how the work is done: quality, cost, lead time), learning and growth (people, skills, systems).

Business Strategy Management · AI-written, may contain errors

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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.