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

@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.

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!!!

This was one of my points also – staff who can’t/don’t want to participate might feel alienated and might cause division between team/lack of motivation.

Also said that there was a possibly that not many would even want to participate given they’d have to do alongside other work.

I have mixed feelings about this exam. This is the first ACCA exam I’ve attempted. And not sure if I should be preparing for it again or continue with other exams.

Wired exam indeed

Hmmm, surprised to see so many having issues with the exam, and it does indeed appear there are two versions of Eve Garden Centre. I got the one with industry analysis, marketing mix, responsible leadership, and acquisition of another garden centre.

What surprised me was how much the exhibits gave you. I read task 1a and instantly thought “Hmm, that looks like a porters 5 forces question”, only to discover that the exhibits actually give you a 5 forces analysis! And the marketing mix question question actually gives you the 7ps!

I answered the responsible leadership question based on what I could remember from the technical article I read earlier today. As for the acquisition question, I used the SFA model even though the marks didn’t quite warrant it, and the professional skills were only evaluation rather than scepticism (which surprised me, I was expecting to have to challenge the numbers more than I did). In the end I recommended the acquisition.

A weird exam for sure, but for me it gave me a lot of what I needed. This is a resit for me, and I will be amazed if I have not passed this time around.

nighteyes wrote:Hmmm, surprised to see so many having issues with the exam, and it does indeed appear there are two versions of Eve Garden Centre. I got the one with industry analysis, marketing mix, responsible leadership, and acquisition of another garden centre.

That’s what I did (SAF) but for supermarket proposal analysis :))
For appraisal task I was surprised by professional skill assigned. Thought it would be skepticism…Why did they give all the information on assumptions (revenue, taxes) then…

This exam was tricky and agree with others, the exhibits didn’t help much. There was no clear aim for the future I felt (or i can’t remember). Was about Eve, a garden centre chain with 6 sites in a 30km radius of city Megaville.
Task 1 5 forces analysing the industry eve were in. Spent too much time on this trying to analyse the industry and not Eve themselves. Qu on what were risks.
Task 2 Leadership characteristics and how this can help current culture and act in public interest.
How can they change their operations to reduce their carbon footprint. Didn’t realise I wanted to become an environmentalist and not an accountant but suggested using own waste in compost heaps and look at their water usage level to see how this can be changed – reduce peat use over time – no clue on anything else the exhibits had nothing.
Task 3 analyse the contract with the supermarket to sell garden furniture to them and challenges they might face. Just went through each heading on the contract and said what was good and bad about the detail e.g. eve were small family owned compared to large supermarket chain, can they cope with demand, their aims may not be aligned as eve are more focused on quality and customer service and their new aim of being environmentally responsible etc.
Qu on marketing mix (given 7p’s with what they are currently doing) and how this can be adapted to align with their new environmental aims and increase competitive advantage. Just took each heading and added additional ideas. No clue whether this was right.
Task 4 analyse acquisition proposal of new garden centre which was an npv and give recommendation (12 marks) just went through each line of npv i.e. revenue assumptions e.g. where did they get 5% increase yr on yr. Costs was only 3% increase. No tax or wc and questioned why they used a df of 12%. When I recalculated with tax and increased costs the npv was negative so recommended to look into their assumptions first but based on recalc, they shouldn’t invest.
May have missed some qu’s but you get the gist. Didn’t help I had a fire alarm go off in the middle of my exam in the office I was in (remote exam). Actually made me laugh I was willing to sit there and put my life at risk by not leaving incase got failed. Can’t bear the thought of retaking this exam ?

Awful exam, very little things in the scenarios were related to questions, I feel that it was mostly freestyle. I had EVE garden with KPIs in the first question. Put the as an answer in risk map and talked about quality check for the materials and inventories for the waste control. Criticized training program for requiring attendance after the work.

I would say this is poorly made exam by ACCA.

For the five forces I used the same headings as the exhibit, and tried to apply them to Eve. For the risks I identified Competition Risk (highly competitive market), Technology Risk (could get left behind if they don’t adopt online sales), and Intellectual Risk (shortage of skilled workers in the industry).

The Data Analytics question I left until last, but I at least questioned the suitability of DA to Eve’s business to hopefully gain some of the professional marks for scepticism.

The appraisal of the sales contract with Adam Stores was a bit wishy washy for me, there was not much to work with in the exhibit, but I believe I scored okay on it.

Going back to the acquisition of the garden centre (Task 4), given that the professional marks were for evaluation and *not* scepticism, I decided to mostly take the figures in the financial appraisal at face value, and based my recommendation accordingly because there was no indication from the Finance Director that there may be any mistakes, and no implication that the appraisal came from a junior employee. I did challenge the sales projections slightly, but other than that I recommended going ahead with the acquisition based on the positive NPV (which for me was still positive even with 3% growth to match the costs), strengthening of the brand, growth of the business, and the company’s prior experience with acquisitions. The only issues I pointed out were the potential dilution of the customer base with another store, potential culture issue with incumbent staff at the new store, and the fact that taking out a loan to fully finance the acquisition will increase Eve’s gearing. I did this within the SFA framework.

I will be very unhappy if the examiner actually wanted the financial figures to be fully challenged, because that is not what the exam asked for. And I agree with others, the discount rate used doesn’t appear to be right – where did 12% come from? The interest on the loan to finance the acquisition was 7.5%, and tax is mentioned but does not appear to be accounted for.

The only thing I didn’t do for Task 4 which, in hindsight I perhaps should have, is calculate the payback period.

dk1981 wrote:

RGRG wrote:The exam was hard…
I had the version with Eve’s marketing mix, appraisal of investment, proposal from supermarket.<br>It was stated that company is doing well, so it was really hard to find something to recommend on marketing mix task (adapt current mk mix strategies), it looked good already!<br>Task for environmental footprint (15 marks!) – only relevant information was given is short soil article and demand on eco friendly products…couldn’t come up with 6 points to collect marks here(<br>Question about data analysis is worst, I struggled to get exhibit, no information through the whole scenario was given indicating any problems/benefits/strategic value of data analysis.<br>It also seemed that NPV calculation was incorrect in last Task 4 (weird assumptions on revenue growth, open increase, no taxes were taken into calculation etc), but professional skill assigned was evaluation…How to collect marks on evaluation of another store buying with positive npv and stating in exhibits that business growth is achieved by acquiring new stores? Wtf

I’m glad you also got a negative NPV with the inclusion of tax, that’s what I had also 🙂

I got Eve garden with forces, marketing mix. For the investment appraisal I thought that was the owner of Eve wants to sell his business …. Then I just commented on the appraisal spreadsheet figures and assumptions..

I also got the Eve garden ques something like this.

Task 1(a) & (b) – 16%+4% prof skill
Evaluation of the financial performance & financial position
Recommendation of KPIs

Task 2 & 3:
Characteristics of responsible and effective leadership
–I missed out this technical articles about responsible leadership, so I just use my logic thinking to write an effective leadership should have make others to be participative as well in Eve’s planning and objective, and mention they show a transformative leadership style in this case etc..

How can leadership can help Eve’s business culture
-As Eve is a family oriented business, I just write that family dominated Eve’s decision making, Exhibit also have info about centralisation, I just mention what is the impact of centralisation affect the company culture, not remember for the rest..

Evaluation of talent management programme
-This part I just mentioned some staff may feel dismotivated if joining this programme due to overtime etc, cost of hiring trainer and significant cost of programme, Exhibit got info about employees could choose their selection for the programme, I just said dismatch to their job role and not right programme etc..

Evaluation of Risk heat map
-I only think of lack of probability and impact shown based on risk heat map given, some given risks with low risk, I said this should be high risk and explain, and insufficient risks identified etc.

Environmental control to reduce waste (6%)
– I suggest to use environmental external consultant here to provide consultation on waste management to Eve, use environmental friendly soil etc, btw not much info provided in exhibit, so I only think of relevant points here.

Task 4:
Value chain analysis + recommendation how to improve (16% + 4% prof skills)
-not really read on value chain and I just refer to exhibit and find out the weakness such as lack of information to be included based on value chain diagram given and write the recommendation of what I point out, not so sure was my answer is correct for this part.

Overall I was abit confuse which exhibit to use at the beginning and I tried to digest the exhibits when drafting time, but could not link all exhibits so I just list out all relevant info into my answer sheet and tried to answer based on that info.

I hope the professional skills could help me gain the maximise marks, as some of my answers are not much linked to many exhibits, I just use my logic to answer the requirements given.

Not really like this exam style, unlike from what I have practiced from past CBE exams.

Oh thank God…I almost panicked cos I didn’t recognize some of the questions others were mentioning and thought I didn’t look at everything. Yeah I guess there were 2 sets of exams