*** ACCA Paper APM September 2018 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

1b) sorry hard to gather qualitative data not subjective.

Q1a. Evaluate the performance system using Balanced score card and suggest two additional measures for Customer Perspective, Internal Perspective & Innovation & Training

Financial Performance – Measures revenue, operating profit, dividends paid and roce. The shareholders’ objective was business growth and they also depended on dividends paid. The re-calculation for Roce was 28.5% and 31%. However, Roce is not a good measure for Fearties because it is a service business and may have have a low asset base because it’s because resource is its staff. Dividend paid was also a good measure because most of the family members depended on it. I cant remember the rest of what I wrote. I also suggested EVA.

Customer Perspective – Number of repeat customers and brand awareness (The question sspecifically said that management kicked against customer survey scores)

Internal Perspective – % of staff with certification and I can’t remember the 2nd one

Innovation – No of training days & I can’t remember the 2nd one

b) Problems with using non-financial measures – 1) Difficulty in benchmarking, internally and externally 2) It is highly subjective as it is based on opinions 3) Due to previous focus on financial measures, the mgt information system will need to be changed to enable collection and processing of non-financial information

c) Current management style is budget-constrained because they are overly focused on cutting costs as can be seen in their poor pay package to customer-facing staff, the pay was below the standard of Beeland

I suggested a non-accounting style, especially with the introduction of BSC which had mostly non-financial measures bla bla

d) Something about reward system and appraisals.

I went off point and talked about the elements of a good reward system
1) Strategic perspective – Reward system must be aligned with overall organisational objectives
2) Reward objectives – To recruit and retain (they currently had problems with this)
3) Reward techniques – Ensure rewards are fair within the organisation and also externally by meeting the benchmarked standard…which they currently failed to meet
4) Reward Competitiveness – Ensure external requirements are met e.g relevant legislation or industry requirements

Because I felt I had written rubbish, I proceeded to define what an appraisal is, applied the scenario and talked about the current annual appraisal system being too infrequent and how the employee has to be appraised based on factors he can control.

Question 2. Corporate failure using K-score (very similar to a past question – Culam). This question was a disaster for me, I couldn’t quite put my thoughts together in a coherent manner.
I talked about the unsuitability of the K-score for Freeze because the K-score was based on all the failed companies on the Kayland stock exchange which spanned accross various sectors while Freeze was in the oil industry. Also, the data on which the K-score was developed is historical and may be outdated.
Thor is a privately-owned company while the K-score was based on listed companies, Also Thor had a different currency which was translated to Jayland dollars….the risk of foreign currency retranslation can lead to errors bla bla
I cannot remember what my K-score was

Financial Gearing – I got 0.1 for both Freeze and Thor
Operational Gearing – Freeze was less than 1 and Thor was 3+
My interpretation was a disaster

Question 3 – BPR implementation and how it will help the company reduce costs and improve lead times
Implementation of BPR will result in a flattened hierarchy…information flow will be more efficient and information will be available on a real-time basis which will lead to faster decision making…..and therefore, improved lead time
The traditional organisational structure will be broken into process teams
Team members will be given more responsibility which will increase staff motivation
The difference between the current manufacturing and outsourcing was 0.35 or something like that. In addition to the supplier’s costs, we had to add the cost of shipping and the import charges

3b) Impact on Information system…

Introduction ERPS, real-time information, can’t remember the rest

3c) Impact on ethical standard….The new supplier is 17,000km away…I mentioned the impact this will have on the environment, talked about ensuring the supplier conforms to the labour laws in their country etc etc

I really really really really hope I pass. I am so desperate! Fingers crossed and heart beating for the next one months till results are out!