APM*** ACCA Paper APM June 2019 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

Question 3 Wtf! I'll definitely be resitting in September. I was so happy when I saw question one it was fairly straight forward but didn't finish it in time. But that pleasure was quickly sucked away by 2 and 3 I went brain dead.

There should be cold place in hell for who ever created question 3 part b, first 2 thought was going well then when I saw that was like hitting a wall.

WTF Q3 is lengthy! I was run out of time and unable to complete Q3 (b). Q1 (a) suggest kpi, explain (b) target costing (c) outsourcing (d) source of information of quality cost? (Can’t remember) Q2 (a) 4 characteristics of service industry and quality of service and resource utilisation (B) building block model and comment on the KPIs given Q3 (a)should move from current system to ABB? (B) complete the table and comment on the activities why actual vs budget difference

What did everyone get for the budget variance in Q3? I had 1,875 and struggled to explain it lol basically said the number of items same as budget but 100 less receipts but struggled to articulate the effect that had! I thought Q2 was the disaster question personally!

3(b) just when I thought things were going well. Not a notion tbh

Did i misunderstand Q3b? I thought we just had to calculate the ABB for 20X6 then determine why July 20X5 actuals had a variance to budget as actuals were $18,000 based on 650 receipts of 100k items but budget was $19,875 for 750 receipts of 100k items?

What did everyone write for question 2 about the characteristics of services? Kaplan study text didn't really cover this in much detail so struggled to write a meaningful answer

But the taggers tag per item and the budgeted items were 100k per month and actual items also 100k per month it was only the number of receipts that was different

Hi! How did you get to 1,875?

mills267 - I used the same method and assumed three taggers. Seemed like a harsh question to throw in - from the level of feedback from other exam candidates, it seemed like this was the least anticipated topic to cover. How did everyone do on target costing? building blocks? Quality costs etc.?

I calculated total good inwards budget for the year ($238,500) then divided by number of planned items for the year (1,200,000) to get budget per receipt then multiplied by 100,000 to get budget for the month

I had $ 300,500 budget per year ???

I didn't even get to read Q3 all the way through as I completely messed up my timings! I did well on q1, but didn't do the target costing, hoping I got at least 30 marks. Q2 was strange, I found it hard to relate the points but hoping I got 15 out of 25, therefore need a miracle somewhere to get the last 5 or so. What was the recommendation for q3 to move to ABB or not? And where was the transfer pricing, corporate failure, ROI, RI etc,, all the things that I knew well!

Target cost was $140 with desired profit margin of $35 (20%) and i think estimated cost per unit over 2 year life was $145 so I recommended collaborating with outsourcing firm to determine what the value add processes were and focus of improving those to get to target cost I recommended ABB as a overheads were high proportion of total cost and weren't primarily volume driven

I think i need 45 in first 2 sections as question 3 was mental could not chosen harder topic

Question 3 was pretty crazy and I might as well gave up about 12 marks on the b part. I think I did ok on Q1 and Q2, let's hope they are enough to carry me to pass (plus part of 3a)

For 2b did anyone recommend additional rewards linked to competitiveness, flexibility etc for those that were not already included? For 2a did people use the Service sector characteristics as headings or the performance measurement problem as i was flicking between the 2 and don't think that helped A miracle is needed as 3b is a zero mark write off

Q1 KPIs re staff: Staff turnover Courses attended Awards and publications in specialist magazines No of innovations per period KPI’s re investors: Profitability, gearing and liquidity rations Div cover Interest cover Eps Gearing B/ target costing had around £3 gap or so C/ guality cost Conforming - appraisal and prevention in design phase - main company Non confirming - internal failure cost - outsourcing company Non conforming - external failure cost - split? Because main company is finishing the product? Ie installing software? D/ problems with information source re quality in outsourcing firm - they will need to unstall erp system to monitor quality as quality crucial to main business 2.b/ contradicting bonuses for dentists (no of patients vs quality) 2a/ mainly comparing how different it is to tangible product 3a should pick ABB as many changes in business (incremental not fit anymore, also suggested rolling) ABC will be costly and they have no more finance

Did anyone recommend additional rewards on question 2, such as rewards linked to competitiveness, flexibility etc? Did people use the service characteristics as headings on 2a or the measurement problems? Found myself switching between the two Need a miracle as i got 0 on 3b :/

Q1 KPIs re staff: Staff turnover Courses attended Awards and publications in specialist magazines No of innovations per period KPI’s re investors: Profitability, gearing and liquidity rations Div cover Interest cover Eps Gearing B/ target costing had around £3 gap or so C/ guality cost Conforming - appraisal and prevention in design phase - main company Non confirming - internal failure cost - outsourcing company Non conforming - external failure cost - split? Because main company is finishing the product? Ie installing software? D/ problems with information source re quality in outsourcing firm - they will need to unstall erp system to monitor quality as quality crucial to main business 2.b/ contradicting bonuses for dentists (no of patients vs quality) 2a/ mainly comparing how different it is to tangible product 3a should pick ABB as many changes in business (incremental not fit anymore, also suggested rolling) ABC will be costly and they have no more finance

Couldn't have said it better myself. Felt the same way

This was a difficult exam. Question 2b Was it about explaining Building block model or simply describing whether the rewards set in the given model would encourage the dentist to perform the standard. Was there need to explain the benefits of building block model or just talk about the appropriateness of the rewards themselves whether motivational, controllable and understandable?

I hated Question 3b (13 marks) I don't get what the heck was going on after rereading the case 3 times, and I'm drowned by all the figures, relevant information and all the 100,000 items in a receipt 20X5, 20X6, 20% and x% labour 000s / hr 0 Marks or maybe 0.5 mark for putting the headings 20x5 20x6 Variance

I’m probably saying the wrong thing here but was the charge per tagging $0.18? And was the heating and light cost put to other? Question 1d the sources of information did you guys write about the disadvantages of using only financial information i.e backward looking, not full picture??? With a minute to go I saw that instruction 9 on 3b had some pretty important information but by then it was too late Could someone help (:

Hello everyone, I thought this paper was pretty well, I did following answers to questions if I correctly remember-: Q1 (a) report to present KPIs for current CSFs and their connection with strategic objective of company I divided the mission into two - three parts and then find the 2 recommended KPIs of those 3 CSFs and their connection with those parted mission objectives which were as follows - To provide return to capital providers For this part of objective the CSF was financial return which can measured through EPS and EVA or Market share - To be world-class suppliers For this part of objective the CSF was world-class software development team which can be measured through number of skilled staff worked efficiency and number of innovations through skilled staff. - in its area of expert For this part of objective the CSF was quality of imagine devices meet market standards which can be measured through customer satisfaction rate and customer survey by scoring rate system etc. Q1(b) was about target costing I calculated the target cost by taking profit margin of 20% on target price of $175 was gave $140. For estimated cost we needed to calculate the price all costs per unit were added for inspection cost it was annually which needed to multiply by 2 years life of product hence it was divided by 250,000 for per unit, There was rate of failure cost too which was 2.5% on each inspection cost and I took this rate on inspection per unit and added to all costs and got Estimated cost of $161.25 or something I don’t remember! Also calculated 15. % cost gap related to target cost. There was cost gap and needed to be closed even after product was redesigned! This means the inspection was still there even product was getting redesigned Also told target costing benefit for the company and how it is calculated. 1(iii) this was about quality cost and which cost was responsible of external supplier (Xena) and what we were responsible for, I wrote answer by telling there are two types of cost which are cost of non conformance and cost of conformance Non-conformance are due to internal which are prevention and appraisal whereas conformance are due to external(means after production) which are internal and external failure costs. Prevention , appraisal and external costs were responsible for the company as they have responsibility of delivering the product to customers whereas for internal failure costs the external supplier was responsible as product design was given to them by our company and hardware should of market standards before delivering it to customers. 1(iv) for this I wrote the external supplier wanted the information from our IS for financial purposes, There are two sources of information which are external and internal External information are not confidential but internal ones are As our company was already sharing information of hardware design and other quality information with external supplier. By sharing financial information will affect on our capital providers as our company was already taking debts from venture capital Leak of their information will effect on our financial sources and other information such as software will also can be copied and the external supplier can duplicate our software and make themselves the imagine devices as we were already sharing information with our supplier of hardware etc This was the question 1 I could do For Q2 (a) we needed to analyze the key characteristics which were perishable, heterogeneity, simultaneity and intangibility creating problems in measuring performance in respect to resource utilization and quality of service , it was pretty general knowledge in this part as e.g, dentist are our key resource but are intangible in nature hence it’s hard to measure their performance etc For 2(b) the measures were already given and we needed to evaluate them and will they motivate our staff or not? I wrote about dimensions connected with standards in reward criteria to achieve in order to achieve over all bonus of 2% up to 6% on salary if all of these are achieved and with their disadvantages on performance etc. Now comes tricky question 3(a) was fair as we needed to find out which current budgeting was used and is it alright to move to ABB, I wrote the current budgeting was used was incremental one as in 18 years there were only 10 stores of CRC and was steady but now there is rapid development as each year there are 4 stores being opened and currently huge store opening outside of town This means large amount of activities are now being used and creates costs There was also in deliver and out deliver items etc ABB will be useful in this environment as it will also remove unwanted activities such as RFID which was introduced and couldn’t understood by staffs and still manual work was done by staffs etc ABB is also helpful in keeping activities which are most valued by our customers high are ranked higher in budget to lookafter etc. For 3(b) we needed to complete the analyst work which was the leased RFID in deliver items ( something it was called) and its actual costs was given I calculated that part only and got adverse something like that , got not enough time on it though So wrote the theory for variances and their usefulness for the business as it improves and measured the performance etc around 7 points I could write. That’s all I could do in my skills for this paper Hope everyone passes with flying colors and may God bless everyone with passes :) !

Q3a - think i didn't write enough to explain why CRC should adopt ABB Q3b - Don't even know what the heck is going on after reading the question 3 times, i'm completely drown by all the 100,000 items in receipt, %, relevant details, figures back to the question. Q2 (a) speaks about using Service Business characteristics using Heterogeneity, Perishability, Intangibility and Simultaneity and the problem with performance measurement, quality service and resources utilization. I gave headings such as below, then apply the four service characteristics deem applicable for each problem headings. 1) Problems with performance measurement (hard to measure efficiency) 2) Problems with Quality Service (difficult to justify across dentist and patient demand) 3) Resources utilization (some patient needs more time e.g = more resources) Q2 (b) Overall is unmotivating for dentist to pursue e.g Profit on overall company perforamnce will encourage goal congurence in ECD, eliminate dysfunctional behavior, but individual wise will not be motivating as some work harder than the others will still get the same reward e.g Encourage not to fail 10%, but does not take consideration of exceed expectation/needs - whats not measured will not get done. (there's no no. of failure resovled been measured) e.g 25% increase patient per day is not well justified - given scenario on competitors and fall in no. of patient in ECD. Dentist will be time pressured to rush the treatment, and hence patients requireds more time will seem as troublesome.

I think the examiner was a bit mean on Q1. The company wasnt listed so measurmentslike EVA and EPS could not really be used. The managment were the owners of a private company. I just went with gearing for financial risk and NPV for future projects, mentioned value based managment might be worth looking at for other elements

Does anyone read past exam of any year with ABB. I don't think such question would be in the history of ACCA. The examiner just wanted to surprise candidates.....

Hi All, Record my answers in case I forget. 1 (i) CSF1-TSR,EVA. linked to VC return, objective"expertise" as will need to invest in R&D, so use EVA to add back R&D expenditure to evaluate also add disadvantages of EVA CSF2-Market Share, No.of software digital patents linked to objective"world-class","expertise" add non-financial and external indicator to evaluate competitive CSF3-% of qualified products of total products, tech advance(forget..) linked to quality, and mkt competition (ii) Explain Target Cost, linked to cost gap,market-accepted selling price and maintaining profitability. If cost gap too big, abandon If cost gap is small, reduce cost Calculate cost gap Then outsource is acceptable, selling price negotiation wieh Xela acceptable analyze cost structure FC and VC, as Rev must cover FC. However, Target Cost not take cost of quality into account. The quality is still needed to be monitored. (iii) Conformance quality cost prevention appraisal Non Conformance quality cost internal failure external failure Responsibility should be divided per controllability each cost controlled by which conformance quality cost also may be shared (iv) impact on operational level: - collect data - reconcile - 3 points... impact on strategic level: - quality control - lack of trust - time waste for wrong data - IT system not compatible to each other - performance management. duty on which - 6~7 points... 2(a) - Explain the 4 - each Link to scenario difficulty of performance measurement and management - each link difficulties in pricing system, demand system, subjectivity,...I forget - each performance measurement problems, misinterpretation,ossification, myopia, sub-optimisation,gaming 2(b) - standards set have fulfilled achievable and fair - discuss ownership - each criteria on motivation to improve quality of services and increase utilization - net profit unfair to individuals, suggest 40% relate to whole, 60% individual - treatment average %, not take competitor into account, 10 years, historic data, not motivate dentists improve - treat time, measure fixation 3(a) Moving can have benefits, but still problems Planning and coordination: - acquire, changed objective from expand to integrate - incremental budget can only help to achieve expansion... Responsibility: - retail industry cost complex, after acquire food more complex, suitable for ABC - Cost driver, clear accountability for cost reduction Integration: - Old IT, can't hold ABC, time consuming - If new IT, execute cost outweigh benefits Monitoring: - ABM operational level can do balabala, strategic level can do balabala - comprehensive overview Evaluation of performance: - RFID, increase sorts of data, monitor efficiency - have many stores, evaluate each store 3(b) budget, some allcoate to goods inward,outward but some cannot variance explanation: increased items... time limited, just write all I can

Not relating to the exams, but I want to hear from you guys, about APM as an option paper. I am not in an audit field, therefore I think the best option would be AFM and APM for me. However, I have had many negative comments about this paper. I have been advised to for AAA instead of APM. What would guys be suggesting? Thanks in advance