To sharply reduce sales lead times, the firm should deploy a customer relationship management tool. A CRM system helps organize customer information, automate follow-up processes, track sales opportunities, streamline communication, and improve coordination across the sales cycle. By reducing manual delays and improving access to customer data, a CRM can make the sales process faster and more efficient, directly supporting stronger sales effectiveness and productivity. Increasing the research and development budget would not address sales-cycle speed. Preparing a media campaign may generate interest or leads, but it does not necessarily reduce the time required to move prospects through the sales process. Additional quality assurance measures are more relevant to process quality and defect prevention than to reducing lead times in sales operations. Because the objective is to improve the speed and efficiency of handling prospects and customers, the most targeted and practical solution is the deployment of a CRM tool. Therefore, the correct answer is to deploy a customer relationship management tool.

Thechi-square statisticis used to compare frequencies of categorical, mutually exclusive outcomes. In data- driven decision making, it is appropriate for analyzing differences between observed counts.
New and used car sales represent mutually exclusive categories, making chi-square the correct choice.
Therefore, the correct answer isB.

Big datamust be analyzed using powerful analytic tools due to its volume, velocity, and variety. In data- driven decision making, traditional tools are often insufficient for processing massive, complex datasets generated from digital platforms, sensors, and transactions.
Big data requires advanced computing power, specialized software, and sophisticated algorithms to extract meaningful insights. Inferential statistics and small datasets can often be handled with conventional statistical tools.
Therefore, the correct answer isC, big data.

To guide budgeting decisions, data-driven decision making emphasizesbenchmarking against comparable organizations. Using theaverage cost per project spent by other similar countiesallows the county to assess whether its planned expenditures are reasonable and competitive.
Benchmarking provides external context that internal historical metrics cannot. While median costs or project counts describe internal performance, they do not indicate whether spending levels are appropriate relative to peers. Comparing average costs across similar counties helps identify inefficiencies, cost-saving opportunities, and realistic budget targets.
Therefore, optionAis the most effective analytic method for cost-based decision-making in this scenario.

Cumulative incidence is the proportion of a population initially at risk that develops a condition during a specified period. It is commonly used in epidemiology to estimate the probability or risk of disease occurrence over time. In this question, the correct Year 2 cumulative incidence rate is 11.84 percent. This represents the proportion of individuals in the university population who developed the condition during that second year, based on the underlying at-risk population used in the original problem. Cumulative incidence is different from prevalence because it counts only new cases that arise during the stated interval rather than all existing cases. It also differs from incidence rate measures that incorporate person-time. Because the answer options are all percentages, the task is to identify the correct calculated proportion for Year 2. Based on the provided choices, 11.84 percent is the correct cumulative incidence value. Therefore, the correct answer is
11.84 percent.