*** ACCA P3 June 2018 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

I agree that Fin. figures for “VLease”(not sure about the exact name of acquiree) were exclusively for SAF. But I think fin figures for FLC and 1stLease could be used to identify S’s and W’s. Anyway I used them, couln’t be the case with everyone. Maybe there were already enough SWOT in the text that I have missed.

I also didn’t do SO as you mentioned it was made clear that we shouldn’t.

For Q2B i criticised off the shelf system over bespoke system as the customers want to know which oraganisation was raising its funds. Hence bespoke system would be beneficial as it is developed using the requirements of the customers. Am i correct?????

Q1:

A weakness of the company, as I thought and analyse is the same nature of business that the organisation was doing. Pulling funds and financing other companies, especially private, is quite risky business.

Generally, the questions, even were a little tricky, were giving you the ability for self-analysis. For last time, P3 was quite good.

Trying to remember what I wrote but here is some of what I can remember

Threat of buyers
I just spoke about the obesity issue and people looking to eat healthy. Also mentioned about the geographical area and the fact that people only really ate the food from that region

Threat of new entrants
I just spoke about the % of the market and how hard it would be to get in due to the restaurants already there. Think there was something about the Government stopping new people but I cant remember

Threat of Suppliers
I spoke about how the restaurants in the markets already have a hold over the farmers because they buy their produce and are involved with the factories that produce the likes of the burgers so they would find it hard to get companies willing to supply them.

Rivalry
I went into detail about the restaurants and the food they do.

Substitute’s
I mentioned that people might not go out and start to cook at home if they want to have a healthier lifestyle

Can anyone please answer my question For Q2B i criticised off the shelf system over bespoke system as the customers want to know which oraganisation was raising its funds. Hence bespoke system would be beneficial as it is developed using the requirements of the customers. Am i correct??

For weakness in Q1 i stated that allowing customers payment holidays increases risks of unrecoverable debts due to the fact that customers would most likely require the payment break when they have cash flow issues.

Answered Q3 of section B as felt confident with the benefits management process

Thanks Megand. I justified bespoke software rather than off the shelf because:

– The customers wanted to know when organisation was raising its funds hence bespoke would be beneficial as it is developed by customers requirements.
-By developing bespoke software would mean that the organisation would be the supplier (Owner) of the sofware. Hence no escrow agreement would be required as the supplier would not cease trading with the organisation. This would reduce cost.
– Due to bespoke software being developed through customers requirements this would reduce maintenance cost such as users training as some of the staff would be aware of how to operate the software.
-The charitable organisation was lacking IT Support, Hence this would have an impact on the functionality of the off the shelf software as it requires technical support to avoid technical hardware/Software faults.

Hope this is correct and i have justified well! Please do reply if i am correct?

@eneltonsatria said:
I may be wrong, but i think the question seems to require us to justify why off the shelf > bespoke? Or could it be the other way too?

You are right. COTS is always better than bespoke in terms of cost, quick implementation,less errors. Examiner always prefers COTS or COTS with some part of customized.

@rachaelcrossan said:
Hi everyone,

In Q1 part c , I didn’t see the separate table of figures therefore I didn’t do any numerical work for this part. I wonder if I will lose many marks for this? Also , everyone is saying they used SAF for this part whereas I used the BCG and Ashridge portfolio matrix to evaluate. Does anyone have any idea if this is appropriate?

Thanks,

Yeah i do believe BCG and Ashridge can answer 1c. Did you also explain any similar points like the ones for SAF ie. Using financial datas? If yes, youre on the safe side.

I don’t know what the wrong or right answer is, if your decision of either off the shelf option or bespoke is justified with reasons why then will gain marks. Let’s just hope we’ve passed 🙂 so pleased no studying for a while, good luck on results day.

I think it is a general communication from ACCA. Have received also