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Hi ! I am undertaking the RAP for the BSc and will submit in May 2016 session but i need help regarding company selection because of the new requirements.
Can anyone suggest me an organization for topic 8?
Thanks
I hope you are doing well.
There is some new requirement regarding selection of the company and Registered Mentor. You will bring all issues to the attention of your Project Mentor.
you should not be worried about company and competitor. you can analyze either consolidated financial statements or Individual accounts.
It seems you are from Pakistan. Please visit Karachi/Lahore/Islamabad Stock Exchange to get more detail about Public listed companies or you can visit online https://www.psx.com.pk/
Once you select suitable company please discuss with your project mentor and get his / her valuable input on your selection.
Hope the answer of the question.
Regards,
Ali Farooq
OBU – Registered MentorHi. I choose mobile telecom for my Rap and my company is rogers. There is information available for telecommunications in general which includes wireless/broadband/radio etc.But since the topic is Mobile telecom* i need to focus on just that.Could anyone please tell me what does and does not come under this heading?Rogers communication has three primary lines of business through its three principal operating segments: Rogers Wireless, Rogers Cable ,Rogers Solutions and Rogers Media.I believe mobile telecom comes under rogers wireless.But are there other things that are also included under rogers wireless?If so, how will I be able to separate their revenues from mobile telecom’s.even the industry information is based on *Telecommunication industry* not Mobile telecom.Hence all sales and other financial information consists of other products not related to mobile telecom also.Under the industry information do i need to be specific to mobile telecom? do i state the general telecom information that is available?
Thank you for taking the time to reply.
I have chosen to write my report on AT&T and use Verizon as its competitor. The annual report for the year ended dec 2015 will be available to the end of feb 2016 so can i use the financial statements of 2014,13 and 12 in my analysis as i want to be done with the report by the end of feb.
Yes you can use annual reports from 12 to 14 if they publish in the month of Feb 2016. You may select any top five companies in telecommunication..
Regards,
Ali Farooq.
OBU – Registered MentorPlease see the attached link to an OBU facebook page where you will find a video by Graham Diggle, a senior OBU moderator and marker on choosing your RAP topic. No one can give you better advice than Graham as his involvement in the OBU RAP goes back about 15 years! 😀
Hi
I choose rogers and Bell canada for my company and comparator.Although rogers accounts are aviailable till year ended 2015 , bell’s accounts are not.They may come by march or april. Should I change the company altogether or rather wait?
Also according to the requirements we are supposed to choose either from
.mobile telecommunication , pharmaceuticals, or airline industry.I have chosen mobile telecom but the company(Rogers) provides other services also such as television, internet etc.Should I only use the revenue and other information only for the wireless part or should I pick the figures as is?Kindly reply ASAP.
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hi everyone
i also nee some help the mobile telecommunication companies that i want to base my RAP on , one has financial statements up to 2015 and the other they haven’t finalized their financial statement would it make sense to compare them based on FS of up to 2014.
NOTE ADDED BY TREPHENA
This topic forum should ONLY be about choosing a topic or company. We have specific forums about problems with dates etc so go to those. (You will probably find if you look in the right topic area that such a question has been asked and answered many times already!)
Hi everyone,
I need to ask a few things, I was referred to ACO in my last submission, and after clarifying myself I got out of that situation but I was asked to resubmit the project and no marks were allocated. I worked on topic 8
I want to ask do I need to make the project from scratch as in topic 8 there is a benchmark for industries to be chosen from, or can I resubmit my previously prepared project.
Further more in case I need to prepare new project do I need to re write the intro and all the definitions again as my pervious project has already passed through turnitin and it might show matched content.
Lastly I want to ask that before submitting the project can students them self pass the project through turnitin or is it considered to be a bad practice?
I’ll be anxiously waiting for your reply as I want to start working upon the project for May submission
Thanks again
Hi
I forget to ask one thing in my last post,
I want to choose airline industry incase I need to prepare new project, so would it be wise to worn upon etihad and emirates airlines? Or should I look for some other companies?
Regards
I believe you are required to submit a new RAP on 3 given industries by OBU. However, i will recommend to email OBU & confirm this as no marks were allocated. They must have mentioned this while clearing your ACO.
For new project you need to re do everything and ensure there is no copy paste from any other project, try to rephrase as much as possible then check your plagiarism at http://www.writecheck.com as recommended by OBU. You can self-pass turtin if you have access, there is no prohibition for checking plagiarism in info pack.
Etihad & Emirates as are fine.
Regards,
Hammad Ahmed Qureshi – OBU Registered Mentor.@1529432
You should use latest available and compare latest available competitor Financial statements. For example if you have 2015 FS for company A compare its 2015, 2014 & 2013 with their last years and for competitor compare Company A 2014, 2013 & 2012 & for company B same.
You may adjust their financial statements for example for year ended June 2014 of company B, you can deduct quarter ended June 2014 from annual financial statements until June 2014 and add quarter until quarter until June 2013 for aligning year ends to company A. You should do this if you feel that there are different rules, economic situation etc, which effected during difference of 3 months.
Otherwise, you need to write different year ends under limitation of bench-marking and information gathering, also you need to tell how did you overcome this.
Regards,
Hammad Ahmed Qureshi – OBU Registered Mentor.You should see primary / core services of the company if it meets your requirement then you can analysis on overall basis and do not require to separate them. If You think there is a limitation you can explain in the heading of “Limitation and tell how you overcome this problem”
OBU clearly mentioned about Telecommunications Industry:
Telecommunications Providers of mobile telephone services; including cellular, satellite and paging services. Includes wireless tower companies that own, operate and lease mobile site towers to multiple wireless service providers.You can select different competitor if possible because you need the same account.
Regards,
ALI FAROOQ OBU Registered MentorIs it acceptable to use a comparator company from a different country? I have had difficulty finding a company in Malawi especially in the telecommunications industry. The others are not listed on the stock exchange and hence refused to take part in the research.
Please help
Brigh
Yes, you can use company in any other company or multinational.
Regards,
Hammad Ahmed Qureshi – OBU Registered Mentor.I’m quite stuck on how to choose a topic. Especially if you need internal and external information. Surely you can only get internal information if you do it on the company that you work for?
Should I choose this Topic or that?
Decision of selection will be based on three things:
Topic itself:
You should be interested and have proper understanding of topic, its basics to comfortably pass OBU criteria of BSc Hons. RAP. In addition, unless you don’t have sound knowledge of any area such as Working Capital, you cannot select relevant models which you clearly explain & apply for doing a critical analysis necessary for A Grade in RAP..
Organization & Availability of Information:
You must be confident that organisation you are selecting is suitable for topic and you have bunch of information available on it. Further, if you use primary data it require different referencing and questionnaires compared to secondary. If you go for topics like 8 and 15, then you will also have to look at competitor information availability for doing critical benchmark analysis.
In overall terms, look more on the area in which you have expertise and organisation on which you can easily access much information. Information that you will use must also include third party as if you use too much internal data, it may lead to a biased analysis.
It is not necessary that you can get internal information only if you are employee of organisation. You can get it from any authentic and acceptable source if they allow you to disclose it and you will also have to make questionnaires & other references on how did you get information.
Regards,
Hammad Ahmed Qureshi – OBU Registered Mentor.If you can please let me know here your interested topics, i will post detailed specific guidance for each topic which will help you in selection.
Regards,
Hammad Ahmed Qureshi – OBU Registered Mentor.Hi hope you are doing well.
i suggest students to select the following topics
TOPIC 8: Evaluation of Business and Financial Performance Over Three year period.
AND TOPIC 19
AN ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION OF THE FINANCIAL AND OPERATIONAL CONSEQUENCES OF A MERGER BETWEEN TWO ORGANISATIONS OR OF THE ACQUISITION OF ONE ORGANISATION BY ANOTHER.Both are interesting topics and you are already familiar with them in your ACCA studies plus these topics will be helpful for you in future to get job as a Financial Analyst/Advisory Associate. Most of the companies are doing acquisition frequently these days all around the world. they are looking Financial Analyst who can join and contribute their role in acquisition.
Hope the answer of the question.
Regards,
Ali farooq
BSC Registered MentorTopic 17 has the highest pass rate – FACT! 😀
You use annual reports, corporate governance codes, sustainability reports etc (depending on the topic chosen). Neither T8 nor T17 require primary data collection. Unless you are good at statistics or operational research think very carefully about doing a topic that involves primary data collection.
I suggest that you look at the final part of my article on Evaluation and analysis on our homepage http://www.opentuition.com/obu
Evaluation is the key to passing so consider what this entails and the availability of your data and sources when selecting your topic.Good luck! 😀
@brightsambo -you can compare with a South African telecomms company or another African company e.g. Safaricom. ( It is no different from when using an airline as students usually have to use airlines registered in different countries). OBU has no problem with this as long as you discuss the specific problems in your limitations.
Remember to tailor your ratios to the industry. Customer churn is something you need to look at and discuss. You might also look at how well covered areas are particularly if using companies in different countries. If the infrastructure is not so well developed and signal strength poor it will of course impact on demand. Trends in revenue and profit per customer and costs per customer if available would be useful as well as the ‘usual’ ratios.
Hello everyone, i have chosen topic 8 for my RAP and Pharmaceutical industry. I want to avoid complications and save time as much as i can. I want to choose an international company with same year end and financials in the same currency.
Firstly i was thinking about GSK vs AstraZeneca but the problem is that GSK’s financials are in pounds while AstraZeneca’s financials in USD when both of them are UK based
then i was thinking about Pfizer vs Merck but then again merck’s financials are in Euro. Would appreciate your help much. Thanks
Rehan1o1- the currency issue is not a major problem – please see my post on the forum topic RAP Topic Selection dated 10 Feb for advice on this
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