ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Big data and data analytics
Zenith Retail's board reviews a dashboard showing that online sales in the northern region fell 12% last quarter compared with the previous quarter. The board asks the analytics team only to report what has happened, with no explanation or forecast. Which type of analytics does this request represent?
This is descriptive analytics. It summarises historical data to show what has happened, here a 12% fall in regional online sales, without explaining the cause, forecasting the future or recommending any action, which would be diagnostic, predictive or prescriptive respectively.
- ADescriptive analyticsCorrect
- BDiagnostic analytics
- CPredictive analytics
- DPrescriptive analytics
Explanation
Reporting what has happened, such as a fall in sales, is descriptive analytics. Diagnostic analytics would investigate why sales fell, predictive would forecast future sales, and prescriptive would recommend actions.
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