SBL*** ACCA P3 September 2016 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

one word to describe : LONG

I think this was a fair paper, challenging but interesting. I am usually not a fan of "wordy" paper but I really enjoyed P3. There is nothing worst than a wordy paper which is also boring and uninspiring (Paper P1 June 2016, I am talking to you...). As usual, time pressure was the main issue, so I not sure I managed to make a sufficient number of valid point to get a pass. Q1: external analysis using Pestel and Porter 5 forces, Suitability and Acceptability with regard to the acquisition of a foreign subsidiary. Q2: project management, risk management and Mendelow matrix Q3: contextual features and boudaryless organisation Q4: I am not 100% sure, but I think it was about swim lane analysis, for which I have an irrational dislike, so I skipped it without even reading it.....

Yes, it was swim lane and POPIT model (2nd consecutive time tested this POPIT thing)

yeah Q4 is annoying, when i saw the swim lane thing, pfft, ignored luckily Q2 and Q3 is all doable, easy

I was having difficulty in understanding scenarios.

I am never exactly sure why do we always have such LONG questions in these type of exams. It takes so much time to read all the scenario and information given.... Time becomes of the essence then since you need to go through the long-winded question over and over again and then start thinking to formulate your answers. P3 is all about strategies - but again not sure what the exam strategy should be here to tackle this time problem?

Fair paper, the section A was very reasonable and 30+ marks is definitely achievable. I think meesed up a bit with Q2 though. What was everyone elses approach? I seemed to be a bit all over the place with it, writing about the fact there was no PID, no benefits management, no project sponsor appointed but I'm not sure if it was along the right lines or not. For question b i used the Mendelow matrix as a basis but there wasn't much in the scenario to use for the relationship between the contractors and the Anti-tram group so my answer seemed a little short. The boundaryless organisations question was out of nowhere, I'd never seen this on any past paper so was complete guesswork!

I didn't apply a model to 2a, didn't think it was needed to be fair. General evaluation was seemed easy enough to pick up and it had a second element to it about benefits realisation which helped break it down. I used mendlows for b as well. Tried to establish section they were placed in, where they should be and justification on why they belong there and how it would have benefited to be treated correctly

Did you people manage to complete all the parts of the 3 questions? I found this paper extremely lengthy and time consuming, didn't think it was possible to do each and everything properly to gain all the marks. I took quite a lot pf time to do q1 and then panicked but tried to write something for every part of the remaining questions. Do know if that is enough to pass.

I think the topics were easy! pestel, porter's 5 forces, part of SAF (suitability and acceptability only), strategic alliances (strategic partnership) and/or joint venture could have been mentioned too. All these in Section A. I chose questions 2 about project management issues, etc, then chose Q3 with Balogun and Hope Hailey's contextual features (only 5 out of 7 or 8). My problem was the bloody time management. They put a lot of unnecessary crap into case studies to burden your brain down with extra details you dont need to know, like when setting the scene about the country, the company's background etc , a lot of BS. They aim to not let students score very very highly. There is not enough time to read, ustand, make a proper plan and write a decent answer. This was my 3rd attempt :-(

Is it actually possible to get a full mark for a question?

Is is possible, but with all that long scenario in the question, I say it is impossible.... if you see what I mean.

All the cases were so lengthy as usual. This was my 2nd attempt. In last June 2016 sitting, I marginally failed because of spending too much time on question 1 and ended up writing theories for question 2 and 3 (no time to analyse the case) In this sitting, I change my sequence by answering Section B first. Still time struggling to complete Question 1 (c) suitability and 1 (d) but at least managed to write some points related to case. Hoping for the best now.

Lengthy paper. Didn't quite get it finished. Went for Qs1-3 like most people. Did anyone else point out in Q1 that Flick was a heartland business? I mentioned this in suitablity of acquisition. Also mentioned some ratios and market growth was poor. For acceptability talked about customers not wanting foreigners, goverment wanting green products and how the shareholders wanted expansion. Anyone similar?

quite interesting

Q2 - Mentioned lack of project sponsor, no project manager, no business case - risks not identified at start, lack of communication throughout, no clear goal setting - Gantt chart or gateways could be used. To rectify issues mentioned post implementation and post project review to identiy benefits realised and improvement next time. For stakeholders mentioned Mendelow and how the council and tram protest group were dealt with poorly - communication. Environmental agency dealt with well and got good feedback. Q3 - Time - needed to act quick for competitive advantage. CEO needed to create timescale. Scope - Large change so needed to be managed - customers needs to be considered Preservation - talked about keeping customers and demotivated staff Power - CEO had full power - similar to simple structure - not good for moral and could lose staff Readiness - Mentioned the employees had the skills. Were they ready to actually change? Probably not as unhappy. May leave company so needs serious consideration. Thoughts?

@lloyd777 said: Fair paper, the section A was very reasonable and 30+ marks is definitely achievable. I think meesed up a bit with Q2 though. What was everyone elses approach? I seemed to be a bit all over the place with it, writing about the fact there was no PID, no benefits management, no project sponsor appointed but I'm not sure if it was along the right lines or not. For question b i used the Mendelow matrix as a basis but there wasn't much in the scenario to use for the relationship between the contractors and the Anti-tram group so my answer seemed a little short. The boundaryless organisations question was out of nowhere, I'd never seen this on any past paper so was complete guesswork!

Q2 was the last question I attempted and started to lose focus. I have also followed a similar, messy, approach. I did not have enough time to give the last bit (Mendelow) a try, unfortunately.. Lost 9 easy marks there. Also skipped the bit about boundaryless orgs, completely forgot about it...

@david1988 said: Lengthy paper. Didn't quite get it finished. Went for Qs1-3 like most people. Did anyone else point out in Q1 that Flick was a heartland business? I mentioned this in suitablity of acquisition. Also mentioned some ratios and market growth was poor. For acceptability talked about customers not wanting foreigners, goverment wanting green products and how the shareholders wanted expansion. Anyone similar?

Yep, I made the same points too.

I did Q4. Did anyone do it? Could you comment on it!

Anyone attempted Q4? I can see a lot of dislike for swim lane charts here, but I think the question was actually quite easy! Tangible benefits were just a couple of calculations that were easy and you can always figure something out with intangible benefits..any thoughts? Q1 - very lenghty and time management was a massive issue for me. I also picked Q4, mentioned similar things as @david1988 - just confused around benefit realisation review when Iron Way said it's not their problem - benefit realisation review should be done by who initiated the project - so the council - am I right in saying that? or at least agreed beforehand whose reponsibility is that? Overall, happy with the paper, but could have done much better if i managed my time differently..

About Q4 except financial savings I wrote about higher customer satisfection due to less waiting time, manual work replaced but IS, lowering departments leading to minimazing of gaps and disconnection, higher cooperation and less hands-off

What a disaster.. I had an awful start of the day due to crazy traffic and roads being shut which resulted in me sprinting in torrential rain to the exam hall to make it by the skin on my teeth! Anyway so I decided to do Q2 first, for the first time in an exam ever- what a mistake, spent far to long on a relatively easy subject. Then I went onto Q1, I was already under pressure with the time, the crazy long scenario didn't help, I felt like I couldn't take in the scenario and couldn't reference properly... anyway ran out of time the last section on Q1, so lost easy marks. I did Q4, which at the begin of the exam I didn't read properly and didn't realise it was a swim lane... which I probably would have started with and been able to gain easy marks there. I didn't study POPIT as I stupidly assumed it wouldn't make a re-appearance. All the questions other than POPIT were relatively straight forward but my shockingly bad time management and frantic panicking from the beginning well and truly gave me an overall poor performance. Plus on top of it all the scenarios were all soooo long for every question, I would have thought with the length of Q1, we would have maybe just gotten a smaller one for some of the options! At least I don't need to worry about passing as it is well and truly a fail - moral of the story stick to the time allocation and practice past exams under time constraints.... resit in December for me! The sooner these exams are out my life the better! I have no idea how anyone manages to study for more than 1 at a time! Rant over... sorry!

@aniavoo said: Anyone attempted Q4? I can see a lot of dislike for swim lane charts here, but I think the question was actually quite easy! Tangible benefits were just a couple of calculations that were easy and you can always figure something out with intangible benefits..any thoughts? Q1 - very lenghty and time management was a massive issue for me. I also picked Q4, mentioned similar things as @david1988 - just confused around benefit realisation review when Iron Way said it's not their problem - benefit realisation review should be done by who initiated the project - so the council - am I right in saying that? or at least agreed beforehand whose reponsibility is that? Overall, happy with the paper, but could have done much better if i managed my time differently..

What did you put for part d of Q1? The strategic alliance part. I talked around knowledge of markets and dealing with fierce competition, decent market share currently, sharing skills and resources. 3 positives there. Negatives were loss of competitive edge if need to share LED technology, loss of reputation if Flicks wasn't great - not enough info in the scenario to state either way - further research required. Also talked about creating future potential competition as you are sharing all your ideas.

Did 3 & 4 and because question 1 is so long took too much time to read and too much time to answer the question. I consider myself is a fast reader and typer, although it took 2 hours to answer the first one .. 3 took 45 mins. 4 I still could not remember what I wrote on the paper ... ACCA suppose to consider using a computer-based exams, if the questions are that long. Otherwise, they could increase the time of the test. If you have such cases in real life. It would take at lease two days to study them carefully and reply on them. Replying on such cases on 3 hours and filling out more than 10 pages is nearly impossible using your hand.

@david1988 said: What did you put for part d of Q1? The strategic alliance part. I talked around knowledge of markets and dealing with fierce competition, decent market share currently, sharing skills and resources. 3 positives there. Negatives were loss of competitive edge if need to share LED technology, loss of reputation if Flicks wasn't great - not enough info in the scenario to state either way - further research required. Also talked about creating future potential competition as you are sharing all your ideas.

I believe that was the time when I looked at the clock and the only thing that came to my mind was "oh f**k" so I mentioned very little, mainly disadvantage of having to share profits and since investors are hungry for growth and dividends, that may not work...so your answer looks much more promising!

Definitely too time pressured exam!

@juve113 said: Hi guys, Just out of curosity as i think i made a mistake - do you have to show your calcs for financial ratios? I feel like i should have but i didnt... D:

I never showed my calculations either. If the figure is correct shouldn't be an issue. Not like we had lots of spare time to be showing all our workings. Time pressure was unreal.

Ridiculous paper. Time pressured and so boring. The exam and the subject has such great potential to be interesting, yet somehow the examiner utterly ruins it with the style of the questions. In question 1, did we really need to know about the owner settling into his seat as the plane flew over the mountains? What utter rubbish, it's like the examiner started writing a bad a novel and halfway through realised its supposed to be an exam paper. Really unimpressed with this paper and this subject. I do not feel I did well, and I don't think it should be this difficult, as in reality it adds very little real world value to an accountant. It's not like business people think "oh, a stakeholder, I should consult mendelows matrix to ensure I am effectively dealing with them". What a joke, these things are common sense which an accountant is supposed to have, we shouldn't need to learn stupid models and matrixes for them.

When you resit P1 and take P3 you feel like a tractor run over your head and neck. Plus I am an accountant so I need to work quite hard due to monthly reporting (frist two weeks)... I was exhausted this session :( Any way I did Q4 I liked it. But as it was last exam question I could not focus on requitements of last part. Ithink B was about ignoring cost saving... and I wrote about that :/

@drey7000 said: In question 1, did we really need to know about the owner settling into his seat as the plane flew over the mountains? What utter rubbish, it's like the examiner started writing a bad a novel and halfway through realised its supposed to be an exam paper.

that made me ROFL! But I think you are right, since we are not supposed to write unrelevant things in our scripts, the examiner shoudn't either.