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I work for the UK segment of a global public company. The UK Segment is small in comparison to the US and ROW companies. I feel I could ‘kill two birds with one stone’ by using my own company for Topic 5. I would then also benefit from knowing more about my employer. I would only use secondary information from the annual statements + info online and refrain from using primary information as I would be unlikely to be able to get this anyway.
Would it be necessary to make note of my employment for the company in my RAP?
I know if using your own company you are supposed to receive sign off from management. But if I am only using publically available information do I still need to do this?
Or would it be best to just use a different company?Appreciate any thoughts.
Thanks
You will need to reference your data and the marker needs to be able to access this. Normally this means the published accounts. So are the financial statements for this small segment available publicly? Possibly via Companies House…. however how will you be able to substantiate some if the information through your evaluation. Students think that because they have done financial analysis in exams or at work they have the capability of doing of Topics 4, 5 & 8 however the approach in the RAP is very different. You are not expected just to do number-crunching but also you need to look at how the company has arrived at the current position it is in via management strategic decisions (which in turn are based on management’s assessment of the company’s business environment) and link these in your commentary. These strategic decisions are often laid out in the annual report and so the commentary can be linked to them.
So perhaps the question you need to ask yourself is would you be able to do a good, sufficiently detailed and well referenced SWOT and PESTLE analysis without any primary data (e.g. interviews with key managers ) for although the annual report may set out key strategies these will be at the group level and possibly not include a small segment which seems relatively insignificant from the detail you have given?
Hi, I am planning to do topic 5 for the November submission and I am having a very hard time choosing the organization. I’m unsure how to determine exceptional performance by a company. do you have any recommendations?
Hi Trephena . Hope you are doing great.
I am planning to choose topic 5 and since am not being able to find a suitable competitor for my main company i have decided to take the industry sector averages.
Now my question is if i am considering the industry sector averages , and getting that from a website , is it mandatory to mention which companies have been chosen to take the average since i am just getting the indutry averages but no mention of the companies they used to draw those average figures.
Please if you could help me in this regard.Thanks.
NoorThe important thing is to have some benchmarking against which you can assess your company’s performance e.g. an actual company or industry averages
If there is no direct compactor company then this needs to be explained in the limitations. The new Info Pack p.45 requires you to justify your information sources so you would need to justify your approach in selecting the benchmarks by setting out their validity and any limitations relevant to the situation
Hi trephena , I failed at previous sbmission due to wrong indrustry choosen,now I choose topic 5 . I selected US based company Tesla , it is ok.
And any important things i need to consider this time.
thank youPlease ensure that you look at the mentoring website as OBU has some good resources and advice on resubmissions. Although the topic title may have changed subtly, most of the common pitfalls for Topic 8 also apply to Topics 4 & 5, so these comments tend to apply to all 3 topics. Those who fail usually do so because the analysis and evaluation is weak as students misunderstand the requirements and think that analysis and evaluation just means ratio analysis and stating lots of numbers.
One of the key elements to understand is that the models are integral to the whole report and not an ‘afterthought’. A successful company will have implemented good decisions and strategies and these in turn will have been based on its critical appraisal of its business environment so you will need to explore these via your SWOT and PEST and create strong links between them to your analysis and evaluation.
The actual ratio calculations are relatively minor and it is the implication of these and linking how the strategies have contributed to performance which is what you need to highlight. Another common error is to try to treat the 3 years as separate periods. Just because the financial statements may start on the 1 Jan and end on 31 Decembe,r does not mean that the board sits down on 1 Jan makes decisions and starts their strategies at that point and they end at the year end – the 3 year period is continuous as what was decided in one year may have repercussions for several years. So although you do your calculations on an annual basis, it is the actual trend that is more indicative and normally what you need to focus on. However the market ratios can be evaluated over a shorter time frame as the share price may not always be totally reliant on the decisions the company has made, but may also be dependent upon how analysts view the company prospects in the market and those of its competitors.
Tesla would seem to be a suitable choice for Topic 5. However as a general comment please understand that I am not an expert on each and every company and therefore students are advised to do some preliminary research and discuss the choice of company with their mentor
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