CIPS Quiz Questions and Complete Solutions

Acceptance testing A form of testing used to determine if the requirements of a specification or contract are met Accrual An adjustment made to a set of financial accounts to reflect activity that has occurred but for which cash has not yet been received or paid Annual planning cycle Planning involves a number of activities, such as analysis of opportunities, setting aims, exploring options, producing detailed plans and reviewing the plan against expectations. A cycle of activities as the result where each activity might need the previous activity revised before the final plan is accepted Approved supplier list A list of approved suppliers who have the skills (for example, technical, functional or financial) to undertake the work Arms-length relationship The relationship between two parties each of whom has no obligation to the other Asset value The value of everything an organisation owns Bargaining power The ability of a company or individual to influence another Benchmarked prices The price paid for a product or service either in the past or by other users in order to set a standard for future reference Bill of materials A comprehensive list of components, items, materials and parts to create a product, essentially a recipe for the production of an item Break-even point The level of output of a business at which revenue equals total costs Breakthrough result The achievement of a particularly important and significant result Business case A document that sets out the justification for undertaking a project on commercial grounds Business requirement The activities that meet the need of, and provide value to, the business (also called business need) Business requirement definition (BRD) Sets out what the product or service needs to achieve if all stakeholders are to be satisfied Buying off-contract The purchase of an item without a contract when a contract for that item already exists Call off The purchase of an item using a framework agreement that has already been through a procurement process Capability The ability of a supplier to meet an organisation's specific business requirements Capacity The output of a business Cash flow The net amount of cash received and spent by an organisation in a given period of time Change management The process, tools and techniques for dealing with the people aspect of change to achieve the business outcome required Collaborative agreement This is a long-term agreement between a buying organisation and a selling organisation which sets out how each party proposes to share information, costs, risks and results by working together on a product or service Company annual reports Reports released once a year as a way of communicating with shareholders about the performance of a company Competitive assessment/ 'teardown' The act of disassembling a competitor's or supplier's product into its component parts so that its costs can be estimated Competitive bids Suppliers' submissions in the process y which an organisation selects from a number of competing suppliers to award a contract Consumer markets A marketplace involving individual consumers rather than businesses or companies Continuous improvement The ongoing activities involved in improving a process product or service Corporate goals The targets set by an organisation or company that will achieve the organisation's mission or objectives Cost estimating The process for arriving at the approximate cost of a product or service