[hannah0725]

Hi they are still available, please leave your contact details.

K regards

[hannah0725]

Has anyone received P5 mock exams for Jun15 sitting? If so, can you please share? Many thanks in advance. una_yean@yahoo.com.

[hannah0725]

@hannah0725 said:
Dear Trephena and other mentors,

I have the following questions and I hope you can help..

1. I found it difficult to put business and financial performance together as the structure of the report looks messy. So in part3, I have subtitled two types performances and using PESTEL analysis for business performance and ratios and revenue anaysis for financial performance. Is this good method to divide company’s financial and business performance in two sections?

2. Does all the factors in PESTEL need to be analysed and evaluated rather than describing what the company has done and what they were trying to do but were not doing well? I found it was easy to analysis financial data but PESTEL factors are difficult.

3. In subtitled two types performance part, I have already analysed/described what happened to the business and what caused that. For example, something like below.

”Net profit margin was dropped from 3% in 2010 to -12% in 2013, by analysing this margin, we can assess the ability to expand the business through additional debt or other investments. However it does not look feasible. ”

Now my question is how I can expand this in findings and I also need to conclude the findings, does that mean I need to go through every factors of PESTEL and also all the financial analysis to draw a conclusion? I believe I have a problem with structuring the report.

4. I was trying to conclude my findings in the conclusion, then again because of the above mentioned problem of structure, I ended up using many small paragraphs. Please advise how I can improve my conclusion of findings.

Many thanks for your advice in advance.

Dear @Trephena, can you please advise?

In addition to the questions above, i have a question on referencing.

If I want to put the reference for two years’ revenue figures (these revenue figures are not from the 3 years’ annual report that I use, they are from previous year’s annual report i.e. 2008) in a long paragraph to support strength of the company in SWOT analysis, how can i do that? Do I need to put the reference just after the figure or at the end of the long paragraph?

And this is slightly different question from above, how can I reference information from annual report? Can I put the reference as below?
e.g. Annual Report and Financial Statements of XX for the year ended 31 December 2008

If I use information from annual report for multiple times, do i need to reference every single time in full? It takes too many word limits. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[hannah0725]

@Trephena, thanks for your valuable advice and appreciate that.

[hannah0725]

Dear Trephena,

Please review on the below marker’s comment and advise what I can do to improve the quality of resubmission.

Quote:

3. Evaluation of information, analysis and conclusions…….. Fail
Reasons for fail and advice for improvement:
You have undertaken a great deal of work and shown an admirable understanding of this company and its travails as well as the indutry in general. However this is graded as a fail because of the poor referencing virtually throughout your RAP. It is impossible to ascertain which is your work and where you have obtained findings and analysis from other sources. Hence it cannot be assumed it is your contribution.

4. Presentation of project findings………………….. Fail
Reasons for fail and advice for improvement:
You provided a lot of financial information in narrative form. This can be difficult to understand and is much better presented in graphical form. There were only 3 charts/graphs in your whole RAP. It would look much more professional and understandable if you used these graphs a lot more.

6. Information gathering and Referencing………………………… Fail
Reasons for fail and advice for improvement:
As noted above you have shown an excellent understanding of the indsutry but you must properly acknowledge your sources. Please see OB guidelines. You do not need to widen your sources a great deal – utilise the ones you have but you must properly reference them.

Unquote:

1. I do not get what marker meant by “poor referencing”. I have used my own company in the report and I am familiar with the industry and most of analysis is from my experience and knowledge. Does poor referencing mean I have not properly followed the referencing guide or I have not referenced properly from the source that I have.

2. I understand the marker’s point, I have improved by inserting a few more charts to eye-catch the analysis to the reader, however I still have to keep the narratives since those are the evaluation of the financial information and I found that it is not easy to change the format to the graph/chart afterall they give better visual effect, but cannot be used instead of narratives completely. Any good suggestions?

3. Similar to my point1 above, what kind of referencing is proper referencing?
I admit that I have not followed the referencing guide properly being with constraint in timing for the RAP (finished in 3 weeks), e.g the title of the books are not in italics and did not put the download date while most of my references are from online sources. Does this mean that I have not used the proper referencing, if so I know what it has gone wrong and I have properly followed this time. Just wondering it can be something else.

Your advice is much appreciated.

[hannah0725]

Dear Trephena and other mentors,

I have the following questions and I hope you can help..

1. I found it difficult to put business and financial performance together as the structure of the report looks messy. So in part3, I have subtitled two types performances and using PESTEL analysis for business performance and ratios and revenue anaysis for financial performance. Is this good method to divide company’s financial and business performance in two sections?

2. Does all the factors in PESTEL need to be analysed and evaluated rather than describing what the company has done and what they were trying to do but were not doing well? I found it was easy to analysis financial data but PESTEL factors are difficult.

3. In subtitled two types performance part, I have already analysed/described what happened to the business and what caused that. For example, something like below.

”Net profit margin was dropped from 3% in 2010 to -12% in 2013, by analysing this margin, we can assess the ability to expand the business through additional debt or other investments. However it does not look feasible. ”

Now my question is how I can expand this in findings and I also need to conclude the findings, does that mean I need to go through every factors of PESTEL and also all the financial analysis to draw a conclusion? I believe I have a problem with structuring the report.

4. I was trying to use SWOT analysis to organise my findings in the conclusion, then again because of the the above mentioned problem of structure, I ended up using many small paragraphs. Please advise how I can improve my conclusion of findings.

Many thanks for your advice in advance.

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