*** ACCA Paper SBL December 2018 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

Thought exam was fine – bit annoyed with myself on certain bits but wasnt a tough exam based on expectations.

the exam was fairly easy. Missed up with a couple of questions, but hoping to make it.
question one used PESTLE, with one of five forces related and supported industry. NPV, question forgot to use the IRR and payback period as a comparison but managed to through some sensitivity analysis for both financial and non-financial aspects like 5 forces.
the press release was a relatively easy one.

both reports were easy.

the only one through me out was slid did not understand the requirements correctly so I did my best guess but the note was correct.

guys, do you remember how many marks were awarded for each section?

1a: key success factors. which model have you chosen for the key success factors? i decided to use porter’s diamond.

1b: merger strategy. do you think it is acceptable to use pestel here (i mean in terms of cashflow defficiences)?

2a: press release – how many marks were given for that? did they expect a “press release” style (i.e. no bullet points but paragraphs)?

2b: integrated report – can you remind what it was about? 🙂

3a: disruptive technologies – any ideas regarding this?

3b: slides – put some responses like setting up it committee / chief it director. how did you cope with that?

Breaking down paper:

1a – I used Porters Diamond will few PESTEL bits not touched on before conclusion
1b – SAF to assess whether to buy. Didnt bother calc payback etc, just talked about acceptability and funding etc

2a – cant remember question now
2b – integrated reporting – was ok bit wishy washy but intro covered medelow matrix then talked about each capital and how stakeholders could be managed

3a – disruptive tech. Broke down into two parts and just went with key themes and then how to explot opportunities – again, bit subjective
3b – slides are ok as not as much writing. Did issue impact mitigation as the notes

SBL opinion so far:
Scenario was set up as a company in the hotel industry that wanted to expand by acquiring (first time ever) another hotel chain in another country.

Q1
a) asked to asses why the Hotel was profitable so far – so I used Porter’s diamond and assessed all the factors that linked to the Hotel doing so well so far (in a competitive industry).
B) asked to asses if the acquisition was a good idea so I used Suitability, Acceptability and Feasibility criteria to assess this.

Q2
a) I remember asking us to write a report to the Board to alleviate the concern about the acquisition of the new hotel in regards to Social & environmental perspective/matters
b) Integrated reporting – why it is a good idea to be used by the company

Q3
a) Disruptive technologies – challenges for the Hotel and how they can use them in the future
b) 3 Slides on risks of a poor IT system – outcome and response

All in all the exam was quite fair, but very subjective responses could have been written.

Fingers crossed there will not be such a low passing rate and that all my answers make sense to the reviewer 🙂

Most probably missed a lot of points in the scenario. Don’t be fooled by the 4h, as it will take more than 45 min to read the scenario so that one would understand what is what. The requirements are extremely interpretable so, again, I hope I touched most of the points needed for a pass.

Good luck to us all!

Yep

3a was 14 and 3b was 12. Not sure of prof marks – cant remember!

Mark allocation:

Part 1a: Technical 16 + Professional skill 3 or 4 (not sure)
Part 1b: Technical 16 + Professional skill 3 or 4 (not sure)
Total marks for Part 1 = 39 (one of the two parts had 4 marks for professional skills)

Part 2a: Technical 10 + Professional skill 3
Part 2b: Technical 12 + Professional skill 3
Total marks for Part 2 = 28

Part 3a: Technical 14 + Professional skill 4
Part 3b: Technical 12 + Professional skill 3
Total marks for Part 3 = 33

4 Hours…still wasnt enough time to give the case study a proper reading.

For 1 (b) i did a balogun hope haley EVALUATION for the change in the proposed acquisition…

Time pressure..negative..90million needed immediately..

Scope..negative…big transformation required etc

Diversity…negative…need more women in management etc

Power…positive..management willing to sell etc

Preservation….negative…gym and leisure facilities?

Capacity…..positive…they have the finance(debt and equity in place)

Capability….negative…never done before (also need to send staff 5000 miles away)

Readiness..positive….staff want better wages and better opportunities etc….

Am I the only one that approached it this way? i understand most people did SAF.

I think there was so much subjectivity and alot of your own interpretation required in the exam as a whole…

@irishrazor said:
4 Hours…still wasnt enough time to give the case study a proper reading.

For 1 (b) i did a balogun hope haley EVALUATION for the change in the proposed acquisition…

Time pressure..negative..90million needed immediately..

Scope..negative…big transformation required etc

Diversity…negative…need more women in management etc

Power…positive..management willing to sell etc

Preservation….negative…gym and leisure facilities?

Capacity…..positive…they have the finance(debt and equity in place)

Capability….negative…never done before (also need to send staff 5000 miles away)

Readiness..positive….staff want better wages and better opportunities etc….

Am I the only one that approached it this way? i understand most people did SAF.

I think there was so much subjectivity and alot of your own interpretation required in the exam as a whole…

i did not use saf on the basis that the report would be addressed to the financial director.

i described the considerations, which may affect the cashflow (e.g. unpaid penalties for pollution, loss of revenue due to adverse reputation of the country, grandfathering penalties for the child labour, cost of relocation, unknown debt/equity ratio, gearing, covenants, basis for calculation the discount factor). used pestel model for structuring.

in conclusion i wrote that a more thorough analysis is needed before the final decision.

@thelastfinalist said:
Anyone else notice the opening paragraph said 75% of people used online booking and the CEO said 80%.

Wasn’t sure if this was relevant or not.

I read as 80% of the 75% using online booking go direct to the website rather than via OTAs

question 1, i used PESTEL for both.. i don’t know if that’s okay

2a press release, seemed okay… i didnt get too specific regarding problems in Veenia, as i thought it would not be appropriate for a press release.. i just stuck to the high qualities of hi-lite and how we would invest money and time to fix problems

2b – i went through the different capitals and how both existing and new hotels fared… but when i read the question again, i saw it was how IR could be used.. so i panicked and added an extra line to each capital, saying something like ‘so shareholders could see the human capital via IR’

question 3, was very rushed.. i did question 2 in an hour, but question 3 i struggled with the same timeframe
3a i used porters five forces and waffled, like i did for most of the exam
3b was a disaster.. i didnt study this part, so just made a few points about having passwords and maybe an internal audit and blah blah

overall, i reckon i probably failed