220-1102 Question 297
Single answerBusinessA technician is replacing several aging laptops for a company's accounting department. Management wants to reduce support costs and make device replacement easier if a laptop fails. The department uses a standard set of approved applications and stores most files in company-managed cloud services. Which business practice would BEST meet these goals?
- A
Allow each employee to choose a laptop model and install any applications they prefer
- B
Implement a standardized corporate image and hardware baseline for all accounting laptops
- C
Configure each laptop individually based on the employee's preferences after deployment
- D
Use local administrator accounts for employees so they can reinstall needed software themselves
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
The best answer is to implement a standardized corporate image and hardware baseline. In A+ Core 2 business-related scenarios, standardization is a key practice for controlling costs, improving support efficiency, and simplifying lifecycle management. When systems are built from a common image and similar hardware platform, technicians can follow documented procedures for deployment, maintenance, and replacement. This also supports better compliance with company policies, software licensing control, and asset management practices. Common business best practices reflected in CompTIA A+ objectives include using standardized workstation configurations, maintaining consistent documentation, and reducing unnecessary variation in managed environments.
- A. Incorrect.
This is incorrect because allowing users to choose different laptop models and software creates a nonstandard environment. In business settings, that increases support complexity, driver variation, training needs, spare-parts issues, and troubleshooting time. Although employees might prefer customization, it works against the stated goal of reducing support costs and simplifying replacement.
- B. Correct.
This is correct because standardization is a core business best practice in managed IT environments. Using a common hardware baseline and a standardized corporate image makes deployment, patching, troubleshooting, asset replacement, and user support faster and more predictable. If a laptop fails, IT can replace it with a similar device and quickly restore the user's approved applications and settings according to company policy.
- C. Incorrect.
This is incorrect because manually customizing each laptop after deployment increases labor, introduces inconsistency, and makes future support more difficult. It may seem helpful for user satisfaction, but it does not align with the business goals of lowering support costs and streamlining replacement. A standardized deployment is more efficient and scalable.
- D. Incorrect.
This is incorrect because giving employees local administrator rights increases security risk and often leads to unauthorized software, configuration drift, malware exposure, and support issues. While users might be able to reinstall software more quickly, this undermines centralized control and standardization, which are important business and security practices.