APM*** June 2022 ACCA APM exam – Instant Poll and comments ***

Q1)a) ROI & RI b) BCG matrix c) Management information system Q2)a) Performance Pyramid b) Reward system Q3) a) CSFs b) KPIs c) EVA

APM PM 13:30 sitting - Couple of questions where it wasn't obvious what was being asked at first but overall a nice paper! Q1) - Complete the financial statements i.e. DPS, current ratio, ROCE, RI (left empty) - Evaluation inventory management system and performance reporting system - Balance scorecard appraisal - Behaviour impact BSC has on staff Q2) - Apportionment of overhead of sales staff. Calculate and comment on impact - Evaluate ABM and whether it should be implemented Q3) - Risk attitude and challenges to changes in engineers' compensation packages (Basic pay being reduced, fixed pay per visit and commission - Director shares and general reward scheme linking to SH wealth

APM I found struggled with. Linking the requirements and scenarios just got to me a good bit. Left question 3 until the end. Was well behind time and struggling with energy. Made a mess of addressing ABM and linking it with the case. Directors share based payment came up as reward scheme. Never ever covered it so overall disappointed with how section B went for myself. Wonder is anyone else in that boat? Balanced scorecard came up on question 1. I found it a bit tricky, the opportunity to recommend a maximum of two other tools was allowed, so couldn’t break down the marking scheme. Overall I don’t think I got much more than the low 40s. Fairly deflated. Hope others found it okay though

Really struggled with the time on this exam, I lost time on 50 mark question linking to the scenario. Then moved to q3 on ABM and started calculations, lost track on all the difficulties company was facing. And then little did I know 15min warning message came in and that was it. Didn't even attempt q2 sadly. The requirement through me out of sink. Very disappointed. I guess I need to keep reading for my retake in Sept. :(((

Found it really difficult. I ran out of time for question 3 so I wrote what ever I could in the last 15 mins. I think I wrote 4 lines for 3a and 3b.. I couldn’t link it to the scenario regarding the pyramid. I was waffling on about quality production Boston matrix I was thrown of I couldn’t remember any of the boxes cash cow problem child and link back to the scenario I find APM really in the exam but the study pack doesn’t seem so bad or even the video.. maybe it the time pressure

Same here. Think I spend 2 hours on that one and I had to re read the scenarios

tgoddard92 wrote:APM PM 13:30 sitting – Couple of questions where it wasn’t obvious what was being asked at first but overall a nice paper!

I had this version. Did much better on Q2 and Q3 but think I got the majority in Q1 anyway. Feeling as confident as I have in past papers but you never know.

I had same as above. Here is the breakdown of marks from what I can remember - dunno if anyone else like me try to add up to see if they got enough should probably just forget about it and wait for results!! I always look for these but this time I remembered myself Overall was ok… had to move on when ran out of time but don’t think there’s much more I had in my brain to write anyway so at least will be marked out of 100 to give best chance of passing. Did it in December and got 44% so hope this was the one …. Q1. Fill in missing figures on performance report and comment on inventory system (8 marks) Evaluate current performance report (15 marks) Balanced scorecard (17 marks) BSC and employee behaviour (6 marks) Professional marks (4 marks) Q2. Cost per unit & implications of calculations (9 marks) Activity based management approach (16 marks) Q3. Pay related performance adverse consequences (13 marks) Director share option scheme (12 marks)

Ran out of time and the exam had too much info to digest! Q1- ROI & RI/Divisional performance -BSG -Management information system - really strange for 12 marks!! Q2- performance pyramid -JIT Q3- Pay related to performance adverse consequences - Directors share option scheme

I did the APM exam in the morning and I felt that the exam is not as hard than normal. I attempted all of the questions but unsure if I’ve done enough. Fingers crossed I get to pass and good luck to all. The APM afternoon exam seems harder and complicated based from the comments above

Well, the first 50 marks question was about divisional performance evaluation based on roi&ri which reminded me SBL a bit, while I assumed that it will be something about performance report or system evaluation, took me lost of time to digest and start to write. Management information - 12 mark , left unattempted. Last question with Eva was nice but didn’t have enough time to finish it all. Second question with Lynch piramide, was quite expected, noticed that this model becoming widely used in the apm exams

What did you guys write regarding the directors share option scheme in question 3?

Aligns directors interests to shareholders interests as both want to maximise share price, less likely to make risky investments etc. Hoping that’s right …

tara19 wrote:Aligns directors interests to shareholders interests as both want to maximise share price, less likely to make risky investments etc. Hoping that’s right …

Sorry didn’t reply to comment properly

I sat the exam in the afternoon as well. I found it really difficult to link information from the scenario to the requirements. I really struggled with question 3, on evaluating the Activity Based Management. We had to relate it to the systems of the business, but I was struggling to think of ways to relate it? What did you guys write for this question?

I answered this too! :)

sat at 8:15am GMT cbe exam crashed when trying to chat but recovered after ~5-10min. got 50mark q: RI, ROI, BCG, management info systems q2: pyramid and rewards q3: EVA and CSFs, KPIs a lot of marks with very little info given. wrote something about everything, but hope it will be considered “applied to scenario”, that seems to be the key..

Hi, I wrote basically What ABM is and where it’s most uselfel for, (business with higher overheads and wide product lines, helps makes decisions on each product etc. said with only two products, the boots, it was overkill, and iis crucial needs good systems to identify the cost drivers . It’s needs a lot of time to put in etc and no staff have the time yada yada And basically linking it to the scenario but saying all the various Failures show the company isn’t ready for ABM and the fact it had no spare cash to update its systems ABM simply wouldn’t work. if expanded further the warehouse cost I think it was a lot of data the company already has is incorrect as a lot of manual intervention etc, basically so how can in handle a new implementation of ABM, they have bigger issues to solve long story short This is in reply to your question hopeful, but might not be the same question, this one was about a winter boots company, one that only Had two boots as it’s products and a whole range of issues with their business

I sat the afternoon exam, struggled with the ABM question and simply ran out of time. The spreadsheet just isn't as easy to use as excel and I lost time on correcting formulas where the arrows keys kept taking me to the wrong cell! I ended up writing a lot about implementing ABM and then went back to the scenario and realised the note where it said the company doesn't have the funding for ABM! Qn 1 was fair question but just spent too much time on this one.

How did you calculate RI & ROI?

t33oto wrote:Hi, I wrote basically What ABM is and where it’s most uselfel for, (business with higher overheads and wide product lines, helps makes decisions on each product etc.

Reading what you wrote and thinking I wrote the opposite... I said it would help them and they should adopt it went through each activity of the sales office and how it could be organised better.. note sure that will be right but hopefully a few marks

Khan.1995 wrote:How did you calculate RI & ROI?

Did 3 different ways, profit, traceable profit, and controllable profit.

Feel the same. The marking scheme seemed really strange for some questions. 17 marks on the balance scorecard proposal seemed odd when we could only speak about 2 of the proposed KPIs and justifications. Maybe I missed something? Thought the same thing for 16 marks on ABM approach Up to 10 marks on pros and cons on ABM for the scenario maybe? Seems like a stretch? Then another 6 marks on suggestions of other solutions? I wrote about BPR and Six sigma as an alternative since they didn't have funds to invest in IT systems. God knows if that is what they were looking for.

Thé exam was really spécial. It felt easy but it was actuelly hard. I got the same questions as mentionned before. Time pressure is really a challenge honnestly!!! Q1) – Complete the financial statements i.e. DPS, current ratio, ROCE, RI (left empty) – Evaluation inventory management system and performance reporting system – Balance scorecard appraisal – Behaviour impact BSC has on staff That was really hard in terms of Time and took me almost half of thé exam Time So it is Not easy to do well for the other questions. There was a lot to say regarding thé current performance management system. Béhavior impact of bsc on staff was ok as it was about explain une What gets measured gets done. Thé bsc appraisal was hard for me especially as there was a lot of marks there. Q2) – Apportionment of overhead of sales staff. Calculate and comment on impact – Evaluate ABM and whether it should be implemented Thats was weird as thé company didnt have money to Invest in a new IT system. I said it was good for them to implément it because it will help in pricing décision ( lot of compétition in thé industry So they need to remain compétitive), also will help with quality management So i made a link with TQM and thé quality issue they recently had with their shoes ; finally i made a link with kaizen as they can reduce costs gradually by for eg starting with rfid tags and then improve thé following Year. They had big issues within the warehouse So rfid could help. I hope it is what they wanted. I tried to make a link with thé information. Q3) – Risk attitude and challenges to changes in engineers’ compensation packages (Basic pay being reduced, fixed pay per visit and commission – Director shares and general reward scheme linking to SH wealth Here for engineers i talked about demotivation, résignation, quantity over quality. For directors i Said it was good to align but as it was Not an obligation then again it could be ignored. I am just waiting for the results as îll get them on vomi days haha

I don’t think that’s wrong. I still wrote how it’s helps in principal, as the earlier part of the question did show a more accurate allocation of overheads, when you had to do abc vs absorption costing If you had fair reasoning you still get marks, others seem to have wrote of other solutions to still help them other than ABM, so assuming that’s all valid as well As I couldn’t understand why they went into so much detail about just how terrible the company was set up “, but suggesting other ways does seem like what it may have been asking for but not sure either

Yeh BSC through me off what I did was 1.write general info about bsc and how it was so much better than the current PMR in reaching goals 2.how each of the 2 CSF/measure heading, now supported business goals and example KPI’s for each. (One was customer satisfaction &the other learning and innovation or something like that.) 3.The 2 CSF\ measure headings had 3 metrics each under them essentially they weren’t detailed enough to be KPI’s. Like one just said customer surveys, so for each one basically added KPI, and said how it supports the business objectives 4 I read the question as you can add only 2 additional measure headings/CSF and then KPi these. I think the bar in new suggestions was mentioned , so you couldn’t rattleUp marks just suggesting new measures/CSF/kpis and had to critique the existing CSF/measure headings and come up with KPI to help align with business goals Could be totally off but as was so many marks was the only logical way I could think to get that much marks

I honestly had the worst exam experience after sitting remote from home and being ignored by Invigilators for almost an hour to use my toilet break, totally knocked my flow towards the end of my paper. Same questions above, genuinely have no idea at this stage how I have done, but interested to know if anyone was on a similar tangent? Q1) i) Complete financial ratios and comment on inventory system ii) Evaluate current performance report iii) Balanced scorecard iv) BSC impact on employee behaviour i) Unsure if i covered this properly, ratios seemed okay, although felt slightly confused by allocation of marks. In regards to inventory management system, discussion was mainly around increase of held inventory and decreasing current ratio despite lower sales etc. Also touched on note regarding inventory being held containing a mix of Raw / WIP and Finished Goods but this question was a little weird for me. ii) Seemed okay in this question, various pro's and cons but linked to embedded requirement as to whether it fully satisfied the needs of the board - related to non-financial elements of the mission statement which from memory was customer satisfaction, innovation and quality products. Also discussed purely internal focused report, which would not help directors (users) to respond to emerging threats in the business environment / requirement for external information too. Used Purpose, Audience, Layout and Information to evaluate pros/cons and structure my answer. Hoping this was a bit better executed than i! iii) Struggled with this one although tried to break down by discussing what the balance scorecard is /how it works, and how it could be used to improve performance measurement of the non-financial elements which the current report was lacking as was purely financial (linking to mission / breaking down into CSF). I tried to link as best as I could to the scenario for measures related to Innovation and Learning and Customers perspective of BSC. In relation to CFO comments, I suggested two other PM for each which I can't remember exactly although know one was 'repeat purchases for customers' and another was regarding 'cross training of factory staff' - that from the scenario worked on 1 element of the 5 stage paint production process and factory staff. I then discussed the pro's and con's of the model - criticising the CFO expectation of immediate roll out as steps involved for implementing BSC. On reflection, i think for the measure section, i missed the criticism element which even though I can't fully remember,unsure whether the measures suggested were broad targets and specific KPI were required etc - at this point unsure but hope I picked up a few marks where I could! iv) Unsure again on this one, when I finished, I knew i should have linked it directly to the 'deal with people' element of implementing BSC but we live and learn! I think my answer here was fairly general. Q2) i) Engineers’ compensation packages - discuss adverse impact (Basic pay being reduced, fixed pay per visit and commission selling products / warranties) ii)DSOS i) Felt like this went okay, was generally application based and took a 'common sense' approach to be honest! Helped that my partner is an engineer himself, so praying I picked up some marks here! ii) From my memory I thought the commentary said that the directors did not want to take risks, although above I read a comment that they were too risky! I possibly misread here which would be super annoying but, my answer was generally discussing the requirement of alignment of the interests of the shareholders and the directors etc. Touched on the 'agency theory'. ** this is now when I had been waiting to use the loo for over an hour and was slowly loosing ability to concentrate** Q3) i) Calculation (Activity based costing related) ii) Discussion of ABM and whether it should be implemented i) Did not even attempt - 9 marks, so annoyed but opened the spreadsheet and really struggled understanding the question and data - possibly down to my circumstance as usually pretty strong with costing but let myself down here! ii) Again, this was a useless question for me. Managed to get some detail down as to what ABM is / strategic / operational then had some brief comments about benefits etc, helping chose products / customers / identify activities that dont add value... had like 10mins on the clock at this point and saw the comment re. no funds to invest in systems... instantly concluded that wouldn't be appropriate to implement unless they had detailed systems to obtain accurate data to link to activities - shot in the dark but possibly picked up 1 or 2 marks (I hope). Praying I have got through this one, interested to hear if my answered aligned at all to anyone! Good luck all and hope you've got the results you wanted :)

I am reading relatively few comments about ROI/RI BCG and pyramid. What did you write on BCG? There were 18 marks but so little in the evidence!

ale.crr wrote:I am reading relatively few comments about ROI/RI BCG and pyramid. What did you write on BCG? There were 18 marks but so little in the evidence!

I think BCG involved suggestion of performance metric and their interpretation with ofcourse link to the scenario. There were three divisions. The upper row of BCG matrix calls for profit growth related measures while lower half focuses on cash generation. Plus you'd have liked to include how this mapping helps the company like cash generated from cash cow helps to invest in the stars. ROI and RI had three different ways which included marketing, R&D and head office costs. Not sure how we should had calculated this but someone has said it takes into account traceable and controllable profit. Performance Pyramid had a wheel type measures. We just had to link each measure to the headings inside the pyramids and say how it effects external effectiveness or internal efficiency.

I had this question too, find it difficult to relate the inventory management well I think there was lower sales, investment turnover is reduced too I didn't write much as I wished. The balance sc was tricky had to rechecked to be sure what the examiner want, not the other perspectives just extra 2 more for the ones listed already. I really mess up with the 3 questions ran out of time didn't do the calculations, it was hard to link ABM with limited time couldn't write much, one of the product had no TQM its a waste the cost driver could be reduced or just eliminated, the system is old they could not sponsor well, commitment need to come from the board. Overall paper wasn't that bad but was strange, hard to link with scenario. The syllabus is so Hugh one can hardly think easier content could come out of it, time management is a shame.