*** ACCA P3 June 2017 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

@acca3336 said:
Rogman228 for risk mitigation i wrote that the event manager should invite at least 2 celebrities guests (it was mentioned in the scenario) to mitigate the risk of inviting only one and not showing up.
Then i wonder why i failed this paper twice hahaha

Haha that is a bit funny xD. But at least you applied what you were saying to the scenario, that’s the right track. I just think the guy who was worrying about injuries to participants was a better example. But sure look you get zero for writing zero so you wrote something down to backup your point better than doing nothing at all. The alternative is you write nothing and you are guaranteed to get nothing for that.

@chullbulla said:
For q2 . Part b I thought that its realed to SOP as was last few minutes. I mentioned about fixed assets and long term loanetc in part b instead of part a. Will I get any marks? Also I panicked last minutes and even forgot the ratios formulas for example for ROCE i used REVENUE/CE instead of PBIT/CE and messed up calculation. But based my commentbon that will I get any marks?

You’re not alone there my friend I also left part (a) until after (b) here and mentioned SOP instead of the supplier in the financial analysis. But I realised my mistake, crossed out SOP and added some extra brief comments.

I got most calc formulas right and talked about their implication.

Even if you got the calc wrong it’s only like half a mark for getting the figure right at most. What they mean is far more important. I was told markers have their own ‘OFR’ button (own figure recognised) which they use to consider your incorrect figure into the marking system so you don’t receive double punishment for getting the figure wrong.

As long as you made sense with the concerns your incorrect figures raised, then you will still score the best part of the marks.

Q1.a. combination of PESTEL and idnetifying strength and weakness. a weird combination. Tried my best to apply the knowlgde in scenario.
q1.b. porter five forces.
q1.c. combination of CSFs, KPIs, integrated reporting. Weird combination again.
that was tough.

q2.a analysis of present and previous FS of a supplier, a software company.
q2b. knowledge level question

q3. a. knwoledge level question
q3b. tough one
business case, PID, project plan, risk analysis. picking points from scenario is too difficult.(my opinion)

q4. a.advice electric company how to attain, priced based, differentiation, lock-in (another weird combination). got scared.
q4b. forgot

Here’s a 300 % answer relevant to IR from part (c).

Can’t remember where I got this note from, think it might have been a technical article or a P5 textbook from Kaplan.

“The integrated report also provides a vehicle for
illustrating progress through relevant measures of strategic performance.
Failure to meet set targets can be commented upon and remedial actions, if appropriate, can be outlined. Central to this will be a discussion of the CSFs and the KPIs which have been identified to measure business performance. KPIs will have associated performance objectives which can be reported in the integrated report.

Thus, the report not only restates the KPI and its associated performance objective, it also reports on whether that performance objective has been met and, if it has not, discusses reasons for failure and the actions which are being taken to ensure that this objective is met in the next reporting period.”

Ok exam

what were the political factors of MPF?
my points were , customers were too concerned of foriegn investment, also fat managers. likelihood of some regulations from governemnt side on those factors. But, i am not sure whether I will get any marks for my points on political factors.

two legal factors already given in scenario. so, for legal factors I wrote from them.

Four hints in Q1 that I remember from the top of my head:

1). Some (but not all) of SFP’s customers were also shareholders of the co-operative. This affects level of their committment when hard times strike, which is the case in the scenario.

2). The co-operative ran both supermarket business and smaller shops. It was explicitly stated that consumers start to turn away from supermarkets, so SFP was the only market player who had a back-up strategy so to speak (+ its smaller shops were located all over the country)

3). Government proposed a 5% mandatory pension contribution. It was stated in the text that payroll expenses of SFP are SIGNIFICANTLY higher than expenses of their competitors. If follows that CF would be heavily affected (adverse effect) had the legislation been adopted.

4). Retail sector was very concentrated with a lot of competing supermarket chains. The biggest one ONLY enjoyed 13-14% of market share If I remember correctly. Retail market grew considerably year on year, so this is “growth” stage and as we all know competitors are eager to enter the market during this stage.

@gmpo12 said:
Four hints in Q1 that I remember from the top of my head:

1). Some (but not all) of SFP’s customers were also shareholders of the co-operative. This affects level of their committment when hard times strike, which is the case in the scenario.

2). The co-operative ran both supermarket business and smaller shops. It was explicitly stated that consumers start to turn away from supermarkets, so SFP was the only market player who had a back-up strategy so to speak (+ its smaller shops were located all over the country)

3). Government proposed a 5% mandatory pension contribution. It was stated in the text that payroll expenses of SFP are SIGNIFICANTLY higher than expenses of their competitors. If follows that CF would be heavily affected (adverse effect) had the legislation been adopted.

4). Retail sector was very concentrated with a lot of competing supermarket chains. The biggest one ONLY enjoyed 13-14% of market share If I remember correctly. Retail market grew considerably year on year, so this is “growth” stage and as we all know competitors are eager to enter the market during this stage.

Some excellent points indeed.

I actually mentioned their poor technology as a weakness when discussing the payroll thing as well as they’ll probably have to invest in better technology to make the deductions to 100% accuracy but that might have been me trying too hard to link the factor back to a strength or weakness as per the requirement.

@silentman said:
I have not calculated the ratios on answer booklet just comented on them as per their percentage can i will get the marks for them and i have calculated only 7 ratios for 15 marks

Yes though you may lose some marks for not showing the workings.

I figured the marking scheme was as follows:

5 ratios

1/2 mark for each 2016 ratio
1/2 mark for each 2015 ratio

2 points/comments made on concerns from each ratio at 1 mark per point made.

So in summary 5 ratios give 5 marks then 2 comments on each ratio at 1 mark each.

Just my guess of course.

Ok exam overall….however it should be 4 h ?

Do you remember how exactly was the question about pricing in Q4..As it was written i thought that it was about taking into consideration customers competition cost and company s objectives..

@chullbulla said:
For Q2 I thought that part b also require the analysis of SOP 🙁 my mistake so I wrote some analysis under part b which can easily fit in part a, will marker show any mercy or will mark as zero? any idea any one? that can be a crucial point between my pass and fail

I think as long as you wrote the question number (1,2,3 or 4) clearly at the top of the script you should not be worried about it. Examiners are not robots, they are human and should be able to figure how you mistakingly labelled part A as part B in the heat of an exam.

Everyone makes mistakes in exams, nobody ever gets 100, so relax. 50% of us will get away with any error we made in the heat of the moment this morning. Keep the faith.

@afaith10 said:
but what I think they are asking is that they did the analysis for SOP instead of the software company. Which it seems many people did (including myself – I was so tired, and I remember thinking why is there some of this stuff in a non profit?) My ratios were still the same, and other than one or two comments directly relating to SOP (the money they lost on the deposit, and the fact that they should not purchase the software unless they can raise the money..) the analysis from the numbers (ROCE, Net Assets, Receivables, Payables, Gross Profit vs Operating Profit) were all the same..so I guess what we are asking is will this mess up the whole 15 points, or just a few?

I’d be surprised if it does it ruin all 15 marks that would be very harsh indeed. I would say you could still at least pass with 7.5 marks if you fell into that trap, but got your ratio correct and made one or two general comments on them that could still apply if there was a name switch.