Business intelligence is its own key-concept heading under Business Acumen, and the items test both the list and the balanced scorecard's exact definition.
The list
The BASK groups analytical processing, business intelligence portals, predictive analytics, advanced analytics, trend analysis, scenario planning and the balanced scorecard as business intelligence techniques and tools.
If a question puts predictive analytics, scenario planning and the balanced scorecard together, the heading is business intelligence techniques and tools. The near-miss headings:
- Financial analysis terms: balance sheets, budgets, cash flow statements, P&L, overhead, ROI.
- Business terms: competitive advantage, revenue, net income, fixed and variable costs, KPIs.
- Data analysis techniques: an Analytical Aptitude heading covering data cleansing, data mining and visualization. This is not a Business Acumen heading, and mixing it in is the trap.
The balanced scorecard
SHRM's glossary: a performance management tool that depicts an organization's overall performance as measured against goals, lagging indicators, and leading indicators.
Three things, and you must name all three: goals, lagging indicators, leading indicators. Distractors offer strengths, weaknesses and threats (three of the four SWOT elements), budget, forecast and variance (that is budget variance reporting), or revenue, overhead and net income (financial statement line items the BASK names elsewhere).
Scenario planning
Scenario planning describes several possible futures rather than one forecast. When a stem asks HR to lay out labor supply under several demand conditions instead of a single projection, this is the answer.
- Data cleansing is an Analytical Aptitude technique for preparing data.
- A cash flow statement is a financial analysis term showing cash movement.
- A service level agreement is a business term describing agreed service levels, not a planning tool.
Carry this in: "several possible futures, not one forecast" is scenario planning; "goals, lagging and leading indicators" is the balanced scorecard. Those two phrases answer most of this unit.