SBL*** December 2022 ACCA SBL exam – Instant Poll and comments ***

The scenarios were so short, and it was hard to extract answers

Weird exam! Managed to complete all the tasks but not happy with the quality of my answers !! How was it for everyone else? Share your answers ..

Same here i am not satisfied at all with my answer it was weird

I had the same feeling.

Anyone remember weightage of marks of each question?

I had the Eve gardening company. Tasks that I remember- Evaluation of the financial position, financial performance and recommended KPIs; Evaluation of the value chain and to recommend improvements; how can heat map can support risk mgm; evaluation of the talent management proposal; propose changes to operations to adress the soil issue; and effective and responsible leadership supporting in maintaining competitive advantage. I found it quite a difficult one, as I was more prepared to do by myself the value chain, evaluation of risks n so on, I did not expected to receive them directly. I found it difficult to find solutions when this company seemed to perform quite well….I did not use any of the theory, altough I was thinking afterwards that maybe the capitals should have been used for the creation of value? How did it seemed to you?

I actually think that my answers were quite superficial, as I consider that I had no actual points to stick to.

In regards with the risk question what did you do?

What did you guys write in the risk heat map question? Eve garden

I proceeded with explaining how TARA can be used to determine appropriate action required for a specific risk, as the risk heat map had impact and probability of occurrence (likelihood). How did you respond to that question?

Tough exam

Risk map- I made paragraphs with each possible use Eve could had of the risk map. I wrote how it can support into responding to risk (mentioning TARA), how mgm can implement controls, how they are able to respond quickly to risk, how they can prioritise the risk based in the map, whatever crossed my mind.

Briefly described it. Later described how the placement of a risk in any of the heat map quadrant could impact the approach(TARA) to managing the risk. Like extreme avoid, highly probable with negligible impact reduce, low accept and medium with high impact and low probability of occurrence transfer. It sure wasn't a friendly exam.

I replied in the same way, breaking down the risk profiles using Tara and responses. Was an odd exam, but I think I said enough valid points to get 50% at least!

@sammaher18. I believe he/she was referring to one 6mks question on changes to be made in Eve's operations that would reduce environmental footprint.

oh were there 2 different Eve case studies? Mine went 1) Analyze the competitive position of the company + identify risks and recommend what the board should do about them (think around 12/14 marks?) w/ the 5 forces analysis as one of the exhibits 2) Some stupid "characteristics of effective and responsible leaders for Eve" followed up with "how they help with the culture at the company" esque questions (14) + how Eve can reduce their environmental footprint in context of a specific exhibit (6) and you didn't really have much to write about 3) How aspects of the marketing mix can be changed for a competitive advantage (marketing mix was an exhibit) 4) Evaluate the investment appraisal of a gardening centre for sale (12) Forgot 1b and 3b

I dont remember the task, but it was a B part of a task, about preparing a memo, I think, to the marketing manager about changes in operations that needs to be done in order to adress the issue with the soil which was not environmentally friendly. I proposed stopping the commercialisation, promote the company as eco-friendly, return all products to suppliers and announce them, in order for Eve not to be associated with companies that damage the environment. it might sound dumb but I had no other ideas….

How about internal controls to reduce waste?? Waste in what exactly?? And areas of improvement in Eve's value chain...??

I missed out on this one. Kept this question for the end. I did complete the risk question but by the time i tried answering internal controls to reduce waste my time was up.

Saber132 wrote:oh were there 2 different Eve case studies? Mine went 1) Analyze the competitive position of the company + identify risks and recommend what the board should do about them (think around 12/14 marks?) w/ the 5 forces analysis as one of the exhibits<br>2) Some stupid “characteristics of effective and responsible leaders for Eve” followed up with “how they help with the culture at the company” esque questions (14) + how Eve can reduce their environmental footprint in context of a specific exhibit (6) and you didn’t really have much to write about<br>3) How aspects of the marketing mix can be changed for a competitive advantage (marketing mix was an exhibit)<br>4) Evaluate the investment appraisal of a gardening centre for sale (12)<br>Forgot 1b and 3b

That is weird, I did not had investment appraisal nor mk mix… maybe there were different questions….

zamanii wrote:How about internal controls to reduce waste?? Waste in what exactly??

Fully agree, those two were the weirdest!!!

I put something very short on Tara for the heat map question too. I hadn’t practiced much on heat maps so I didn’t know what to put. I used the soil exhibit in the question about improving environmental emissions or something. I felt like this was screaming out? I did feel like I was repeating points over the qs though

zamanii wrote:How about internal controls to reduce waste?? Waste in what exactly??

For internal controls to reduce waste I recommended quality checking the products when they arrive from suppliers, monitor waste in each of the locations regularly, train people (altought this is not a control measure…. I think) For the areas of improvement in the value chain I considered all categories one by one. i had improvements, only that I did not do the first part, which was to assess or something like that, the value chain.

mirmubashiralikhan9@gmail.com wrote:I missed out on this one. Kept this question for the end. I did complete the risk question but by the time i tried answering internal controls to reduce waste my time was up.

Thanks, but I've been curious. To reduce waste in what?? Well, in order not to leave it blank. I picked some things from the heat map.. physical controls to reduce inventory theft. Fire alarms to minimise fire outbreak. Strong HSE policy and procedural guideline to mitigate staff HSE risks... Quality control systems to ensure inputs and outputs meet the required quality.

How will the proposed talent management programme be helpful and problematic to Eve's continued success??

zamanii wrote:

mirmubashiralikhan9@gmail.com wrote:I missed out on this one. Kept this question for the end. I did complete the risk question but by the time i tried answering internal controls to reduce waste my time was up.

I have no idea, I was thinking in general. it was so vague! Good idea you had, I did not thought about that.

This was an awful exam. So unlike other past papers. Very poorly made, very niche questions, barely anything on strategy and the key syllabus areas (16 marks on financial performance wtf? This isn’t financial reporting and there was barely even anything to pick out of the financial statements), and exhibits that didn’t even relate to half of the requirements! So many marks on leadership, environmental friendliness etc and the exhibits didn’t mention anything about the leadership in the company or talk about anything to do with waste management!? Honestly bizarre and like others have said I was really clutching at straws and racking my brain to even think of random points to put down. A lot of the requirements had more marks than there were points that could reasonably be made. Very disappointing and I will be feeding back to ACCA for sure when they send the post exam survey.

@Dam101 Yeah. Only marginal improvements.. However, a two year comparison didn't seem enough but then.. we had to stick to what was given to us. I suggested very funny KPIs like % of customer satisfaction via periodic surveys and reduction carbon emission.. Again, these were just to fill in the blank spaces.

For proposed talent management programme, I explained general advantages given in the exhibit and correlated them to the exhibit on porter 5 forces on how it can help the company overcome such intense competition and what ever i could find on that exhibit. pointed out that industry is price sensitive, buyers have low switching cost along with readily available substitutes (extracted from exhibit on porter 5 forces) and an increase in price due to implementing this programme might lead to loss of customers. Emphasised on the liquidity crunch the company faces (determined in the evaluation of financial performance question) and difficulties it could face if the talent management programme is implemented.

This is honestly my view of the exam. There were too many marks with so little information in the exhibits. I sat 4 mock exams and none prepared me for the disaster that was this exam. Highly disappointed!!!