General Queries Topic 8

Dear All

Could you tell me how I should make a structure of SWOT analysis and ratios of my main company A and comparator B either 1 or 2 below?

1. In order, with subheading like ratios of company A then ratios company B, then SWOT of company A then SWOT of company B, not mixed them up.

2. By ratios , eg, sub-heading Gross profit margin (GPM) , then mention that increase or decrease then as a result this is A’s strength or B’s weakness …..i.e. mixed SWOT and ratios
OR
by SWOT and explain the strength for example with ratios result of whether GPM has increased or decrease as the reason

Thank you for your all help in advance

@pinkmonkey – there is no need to apply the models formally to both companies, you only apply them to the main company. However it is good if you can bring in SWOT and PEST factors where relevant to explain the differences in the companies’ performances in your text within the ratio sections. The markers do not just want to be told that Company A’s gross profit was x% more than Company B – they want to know what brought this about (and often it comes down to management strategies based on the SWOT/PEST) so you need to explain this to them.

Please, pretty please, can you NOT keep opening new topics but use the search facility? – we probably have one already on models and it would be Soooo much better it you could post to an already existing relevant forum as it keeps our forums tidy :-D.

Thanks
Trephena.

The ‘search’ function in this website proves to be futile.

No results found no matter what I typed in.

So I have to ask this question unaware of whether it has been answered before.

I googled for annual reports for several american companies, but their latest annual reports are for year 2013. Indeed, very few companies have the 2014 annual reports.

As to the choice of organisations, I have following questions:

1) What size of a company is easy to handle? I don’t want a company to be too large.

2) I prefer the co. and its comparator to be within the same country. Is that better than if they are in different countries?

PS. Can I use colors in the headings and graphs of my project paper? I saw in the information pack that it had to be black and white.

Dear Trephena

I just wonder still that I should create PESTEL from 5 forces as you have not mentioned your thought whether I should do or not.

I would appreciate it if you could give me your thought.

Kind regards

Thanks very much for your generous reply.

And I now know where to find the answers for Topic 8.

is this necessary to do cashflow analysis? what I can write in this part? any idea for recommendation of topic 8?

Thanks

Hello,
As I am carrying out the analysis for the years 2012-2014, how important is to compare the year 2012 with 2011?

Also would identifying any figures in the notes to accounts that drive the change in the accounts, and explaining why there is a change in them be considered as good analysis? For eg. (a real estate company whose policy is to move properties from developmental properties to inventory upon completion), there has been a huge decrease in the inventory due to transfer of properties from developmental properties in year 2, and subsequent sale in year 3 (for which I have sufficient evidence from the news articles), resulting in lower inventories. Will this be sufficient analysis for the change in current ratio?
If not, what alternative thinking should I follow?

Thanks a lot!

@nazu – this has been answered in our FAQs so please refer to these on our homepage
http://www.opentuition.com/obu

@moioi – I have answered this previously so please look at my previous answers by clicking on my avatar and then click on my forum replies. If you scroll through you will find my answer

is it okay to copy and past, and proper reference it. or we have to write in our words and proper reference it. e.g. definitions of swot , or ratio’s and their limitation in part 2, and in part 3, like in annual report the reason for fall in gross profit is given, so i have to write it in my own words, or just quote it from their and reference it ?

@zeest – Please note this has should have been posted to the Forum – ‘OBU Marker-speak – what your marker feedback really meant – as that is what you are asking about. I will move it in a day or two but PLEASE ensure that you select the most appropriate forum so that queries and answers are in a logical place for other students to refer to and benefit from.

1. Your marker wanted good explanations rather than comparisons in terms of mere figures (just talking about how much something has increased or decreased alone is not real analysis). Anyone can calculate figures but for the RAP you are expected to go beyond this. I suggest that you look at my article on Evaluation (if you haven’t already read it) and also read the question on this in our FAQs both of these may be found via our homepage
http://www.opentuition.com/obu so that you learn how to adopt the correct approach.

Note: If you want to pass you do what the marker wants NOT what you want.

2. You failed the two elements of Assessment Criteria 6 i.e. both Information Gathering and Referencing. I do not understand your comments although the marker feedback would seem to mean the following.

(a) Referencing: markers hate ‘lazy referencing’ this means they frown upon website addresses /URLs in the body of the report but the address is needed in the list so that the marker can access it. So as an example if referencing my article you would put (Open Tuition, n.d.) in the exact place in the text to show what you are referencing and then in your list you would put Open Tuition (n.d.) – Evaluation & Analysis, Open Tuition, https://opentuition.com/obu/tackle-evaluation-analysis-rap-part-1/ [Accessed 15 April 2015]. You must always have the same designation in the text as in the list so that the reader can find them e.g. it would not be permissible to put (Trephena, n.d.) in the text and then Open Tuition (n.d.) in the list as the reader would wonder what happened to the reference Trephena, n.d. and where the Open Tuition one was in the report as it would not be obvious they are the same (remember with electronic searching they can probably check these things easily). These are the sorts of things the marker meant by being ‘consistent’.

(b) Information Gathering – the marker probably felt that you were overly relying on the Annual reports for your evaluation which is too narrow for a balanced analysis. They want to see evidence that you have researched more widely by using articles and part of the proof of this is by referencing properly and showing that your work has used a broad range of sources. Markers will probably check some of your references to locate the original source and therefore you need to include sufficient information for them to do this. If they can’t find them then it means the referencing is inadequate and likely to lead to another fail for referencing.

I can only deduce from the moderator (senior marker) comments that you probably used Porters but only did 4 of the 5 forces. It looks as if you are approaching the word count limit and they are suggesting (as I do too) that you are better off ensuring that your evaluation and analysis is done in sufficient depth and editing out superfluous material and background details in Parts 1 & 2 to ensure that you comply with word count requirements. The business analysis is normally centered round the models and then leads on to the financial analysis which incorporates the ratio analysis but also should bring in the models as the two should be integrated – THEY DO NOT STAND ALONE as I explain in the Evaluation article (read or re-read the article as I cannot explain everything again here)

Your query “do i need to do an investigation of business decisions and strategies resulting in changes of figures in ratio analysis i.e. financial analysis?” – Yes, absolutely this is what the marker and moderator think is currently missing and needs to be addressed. Read the CEO/chairman/directors reviews for the 3 year perios and look at what decisions they made and how these impacted on the performance. Also consider the effect of the SWOT & PESTLE factors on these decisions and results

Hi, can someone please help me. For capital employed can I used (total assets minus current libilities ) formula.
For my PBIT can I used PBT and add interest on it.
Lastly the organizational I am doing most of my ratios results coming different compare to some other sites results. Will that be OK.

@hannah0725 said:
Dear Trephena and other mentors,

I have the following questions and I hope you can help..

1. I found it difficult to put business and financial performance together as the structure of the report looks messy. So in part3, I have subtitled two types performances and using PESTEL analysis for business performance and ratios and revenue anaysis for financial performance. Is this good method to divide company’s financial and business performance in two sections?

2. Does all the factors in PESTEL need to be analysed and evaluated rather than describing what the company has done and what they were trying to do but were not doing well? I found it was easy to analysis financial data but PESTEL factors are difficult.

3. In subtitled two types performance part, I have already analysed/described what happened to the business and what caused that. For example, something like below.

”Net profit margin was dropped from 3% in 2010 to -12% in 2013, by analysing this margin, we can assess the ability to expand the business through additional debt or other investments. However it does not look feasible. ”

Now my question is how I can expand this in findings and I also need to conclude the findings, does that mean I need to go through every factors of PESTEL and also all the financial analysis to draw a conclusion? I believe I have a problem with structuring the report.

4. I was trying to conclude my findings in the conclusion, then again because of the above mentioned problem of structure, I ended up using many small paragraphs. Please advise how I can improve my conclusion of findings.

Many thanks for your advice in advance.

Dear @Trephena, can you please advise?

In addition to the questions above, i have a question on referencing.

If I want to put the reference for two years’ revenue figures (these revenue figures are not from the 3 years’ annual report that I use, they are from previous year’s annual report i.e. 2008) in a long paragraph to support strength of the company in SWOT analysis, how can i do that? Do I need to put the reference just after the figure or at the end of the long paragraph?

And this is slightly different question from above, how can I reference information from annual report? Can I put the reference as below?
e.g. Annual Report and Financial Statements of XX for the year ended 31 December 2008

If I use information from annual report for multiple times, do i need to reference every single time in full? It takes too many word limits. Any suggestions?

Thanks.