APMACCA Paper APM September 2020 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments

I said a snapshot of the FS to gauge profitability re the Government, so they can see if they are making money to transfer back to support the other university. Keep an eye on staff morale through staff surveys for the union, to stop them getting involved and become high powered. Monitor pass rates to appease the pressure group.

I used PEST in the uni question.

In Section A for the BSC question did you reccomend KPIs for all perspectives or just evaluate the ones provided and suggest additional ones ? i got confused the way i read the question , i undestood that we should just focus on those 2 perspectives

That's probably what they were looking for actually, makes a lot of sense.

I looked more at what were the key issues for the groups. So for the government I said gearing (probably not the best measure to use but I panicked with 10 minutes left) so they could see if the JV would be in any financial difficulties. For the trade union it said they would only get involved if staff had to work overseas so I said something about % of local staff employed by the JV uni. And for the pressure group they seemed to be mainly concerned with standards slipping at the current uni so I said something about % of deadlines met by teachers in regards to marking exams and classwork.

from BSC there were asking about those 2 perspectives - customer & learning and growth so I've recommended KPIs only for those 2 :)

they asked about those two and then also asked to suggest two measure for financial perspective and learning and business process perspective

I had Eva calculation and evaluation for 14 Mark in 1:30 U.K. Exam . It appears that the question are different, there was no balance scorecard in my paper.

Yes: Uk 1:30 Exam

I thouhgt that it said the CEO wanted us to evaluate the CEOs KPIs in Appendix 2 and then for those areas give no more than 2 KPIs ... i might have gone brain dead but thats how i read it ..

I may have misread it but I thought it was to suggest 2 alternative measures for the Customer and Learning and Growth perspectives.

Yeap that is what i unduerstood as well. I just gave a discreption of BSC and its perspectives then aligned the with the objectives and the focus only on the 2 specific ones , evaluating the CFOs proposition and giving an additional 2 for those 2 specific areas ... its just that it was 17 marks thats why i am worried i might have miss read it

It wasn't hard but I feel as though it focused too much on such a small part of the syllabus. 1 a) Some ratios to calculate b) Evaluate the performance reporting c) CFO recommended some BSC measures for Customer perspective and "Learning and Growth" perspective - had to evaluate and recommend 2 others for each, d) Issues with the implementation of BSC 2 a) Mckinsey's 7 S model in relation to a takeover - only had to discuss the soft elements b) Something about implementing a ERPS system, can't remember it much. 3 a) Problems and issues with joint ventures in relation to performance reporting and measurement b) Mendelow's matrix which was already done and you had to suggest performance indicators for each stakeholder group identified. It wasn't hard as I said but a lot of things in there that I'm weak on. I have real problems with recommending performance measures so fully prepared for a resit in December.

anyone remember the figure they calculated for EVA question

Posted this comment at around 1pm yesterday, it took over 24 hours to get through lol.

I too had positive EVA around 400k. High five :)

Not exactly, but it was positive of over 400k. Also had to comment on the use of it, so I said more akin to cash accounting and removes the subjective elements of accrual based accounting. Also commented on it as being a better measure than ROI and RI and their pitfalls

Yeah I totally forgot to include marketing costs from previous years in capital employed as it wasn't mentioned in the information within the EVA segment so got a positive 700k or so :D

I had 443,000 if I can remember correctly

i got 443 too - though i was scratching my head trying to work out the WACC when it was already given! as for performance report Q, anyone recommend whether the suggested report was "fit for purpose"

Did anyone understand what was needed in the soft S question? If yes what was your conclusion?

I think the 50 mark question required you to elaborate on the staff phoning the supplier to order shoes and not updating the system until they arrived. This showed the lack of inventory planning even though stock was very high compared to CoS (year on year); the indiscipline of the staff but the possibility that the supplier relationship was good and a degree of trust existed.

I'm sure many were after memorising them.

The exam seemed fair but as normal you needed to keep your wits about you when creating answers. It's the toughest of the finals.

I also got 443k. I said that generally it was not fit for purpose because it would not be able to show that the business whether or not they are reaching their objectives. There was too much financial information in there for it to be fit for purpose. Further there were measurement issues in the report for example the market share showed 3% for most years however if you read the commentary it was 2.55% in 2014 and then 2.75% in 2015 and then was forecast to be 3.1% in 2016 but this was all shown as 3%. I noted that there were good aspects of it, such as an attempt, albeit an irrelevant one, to benchmark, use of internal and external info, the use of forecast and historical data and the use of commentary. I noted these practices should be kept however they would need to use more non-financial information and information that actually tells them whether or not they are meeting their business objectives for it to be fit for purpose.

You needed to apply the 4 soft S's in the McKinsey model to identify whether the two business had been successfully integrated. The case study showed that they definitely were not integrating on any level and so that was my conclusion. I used the four headings to describe how they were not.