General Queries Topic 8

Hi

Can I start to write and complete the research by myself ? If so what would be and where could i find the best guidance and sources to do this.?

For example my research is Topic 8 , financial position of 3 years of a big pharmaceuticals company .

How can I start ? Where do I start? Wikipedia?

Many thanks

Barbara

@barbara2012

This is the latest link to the exemplars

https://business.brookes.ac.uk/undergraduate/2015/acca/files/rr-exemplars.pdf

Could you please either post any future questions to an existing forum (use the a key words in the search facility to find them) or to my Forum ‘PLEASE HELP KEEP OUR FORUMS TIDY!!! rather than opening a new forum (I have posted your other query to Inquiries – Topic 8 for example)? In response to your question I suggest that you start reading the lastest Information Pack from the OBU site and then use the search facility on our forums to find further information.

You MUST have a mentor for any submission from now onwards (this is an OBU condition for P30 onwards).

We approve the Learning Luminarium
https://learningluminarium.com/

as they have both a good track record and have student recommendations (see the Forum ‘Advancing the Quality of the OBU-OT Experience’) so you may like to consider them – however you are under NO obligation to do so, this is merely a suggestion of assuring you of guaranteed quality evidenced by high student pass rate and a previous RAP prizewinner

Otherwise I suggest you look at the OBU mentor list as all registered mentors are on the this list. You cannot submit a RAP now unless you have used a mentor from this list..

@barbara2012 – You may start the RAP whenever you wish but you will only be able to submit it if you have met all the requirements that are laid down (see the latest Information Pack). If that means that you need to pass certain papers first, then obviously you will not be allowed to submit until those papers are cleared. One other thing students often overlook is that they MUST have completed the online ACCA Ethics Module by 31st March if they wish to submit in P30. As the ethics module pass lasts indefinitely you might like to get this out of the way sooner rather than later so that you are not hindered by this requirement.

Regarding mentors: You may find that mentors are only prepared to take you on for the next session (unless you are able to negotiate this upfront and they agree to this) so that is also something that you may like to take on board. Alternatively if you really want to ‘go it alone’ if you can persuade an ACCA graduate to complete the online mentoring course and therefore technically become a listed mentor, there is no reason why you cannot use such a person as your mentor (the course is fairly basic, costs £85 and counts as 6 CPD hours).

The main role of a mentor is to certify that you have done the work yourself and that you have done the Presentation to them. Some mentors will do little more than this but other more experienced ones offer a service much more tailored to their students’ needs including a read through service where, because they have been in the business for many years they can more or less assess it on a similar basis to the actual markers and suggest very constructive improvements prior to submission that can save you the hassle of a fail and subsequent resubmission. Anyone who goes for this needs to ensure that the mentor has an excellent track record otherwise they are wasting their money (as of course no mentor can guarantee that your work will pass).

(Our approved mentors The Learning Luminarium are sufficiently experienced and qualified to understand the marking requirements well and offer this service as part of their Platinum Package).

@barbara2012 – You really need to ensure that you are fully familiar with the Information Pack as it provides advice and guidance as well as the rules and regulations. Also consult articles in Student Accountant that have been produced by OBU markers, moderators and examiners. These articles often offer invaluable advice on how to approach topics and areas of the RAP and as they are straight from the ‘horse’s mouth’ you should pay particular attention to them.

You should try to source your RAP from reputable articles and reliable information. As well as the annual report , so look for articles in the business press e.g. the finance pages of the Times, Daily Telegraph, BBC website etc. As you are using a US company then you need to seek out the US equivalents e.g. Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/ ; the Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/ and any other industry relevant journals. You may use Wikipedia to find sources (see the references at the bottom of the Wikipedia page) but you are advised not to cite it unless this is unavoidable as it is not considered to be a valid and reliable source from an academic point of view. The same applies to other anonymous sources e.g. blogs and the like.

The RAP and SLS must be written in Microsoft Word or similar, spreadsheets produced in Excel and the Presentation in PowerPoint (or equivalent). All work is submitted electronically

Anwers:

1. You need to focus on the country in which your company resides. In multinational companies, they have operations globally but we need to focus on one entity (either parent, subsidiary or associate).

2. No , you don’t need to resubmit your SLS again even you change topic and company in re-submission. I confirmed this from OBU.

@trephena

Hi,

I just have a couple of questions:

1. If the financials of the company and comparator are presented in different currencies, is there any need for translation? and shall I include this under limitation section?

2. Do I need to reference any information taken from the annual reports while discussing the reasons for changes in ratios/trends? Or the marker is already aware of the source and hence referencing is not necessary?

Thank you

@warda – This is something we probably cannot answer on this website. You will need to read the Information Pack to see if your company fits the criteria required in terms of availability of information and having a suitable comparator. Any company that does not fulfil these should not be attempted. Discuss your selection of a company as part of your first meeting with a mentor

@barbara2012 As you are doing Topic 8 there are little or no issues regarding Ethics in information gathering. Such issues relate to primary data collection where you are involving others in your research (and then there are then issues of ‘informed consent’, the storage of personal data, confidentiality and potentially psychological stress, ‘intrusive intervention’ and coercion – with regard to those interviewed or surveyed). All you need to do is a paragraph relating to the fact that you have completed the ACCA Ethics Module (which you have to have done by March 2015 anyway to be able to submit in May 2015) and that as a professional you are bound by professional ethics. Then you can more or less rephrase what I have written above in relation to no issues arising such as those with primary data as you are relying exclusively on secondary sources..

Your second paragraph relates to Limitations of your data which is an entirely separate issue to ethics. You should be able to objective criticisms about using financial statements, SWOT, PESTLE techniques etc if you research articles on the web.

@dominicanian – the idea of using a comparator company is to put the performance of your chosen company and its financial results into a business context, so the two companies should have similarities otherwise the differences in their performances can be mainly due to their size and other reasons are less obvious. Comparing a small company with a large company is therefore not ideal as the analysis could be compromised and consequently weak. I would not advise using companies that are so dissimlar unless there really is no other company that is a similar size. There could also be problems in choosing a scale in producing sensible charts and graphs if the differences are too great (note: I have seen marker comments suggesting both companies should be shown alongside each other when doing comparisons rather than doing a separate graph for each company, so you should endeavour to comply with this requirement).

Any disparities that are likely to influence the data or skew the results must be noted in the Limitations of the data section of your RAP. So if you are forced to have a comparator that is not ideal you need to justify why you are using it and then consider how potentially you analysis could be impaired by this and suggest any steps that can be taken to minimise the effects of the disparities.

Please people, surely someone must know? @trephena

Legend. Thanks a million!