Forums › ACCA Forums › ACCA SBL Strategic Business Leader Forums › *** P3 December 2015 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***
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- December 11, 2015 at 6:50 pm #291158
Very time pressured – the same approach as in previous sessions papers from the exam kits. I pray for 50+ mark, but if I was an expert, I really don’t think I could manage to write complete answers for more that 75 points within the time allowed…
December 11, 2015 at 8:30 pm #291208@chris165 said:
Err the shareholder’s comments were meant to relate to the CSR shown by the charitable donation and had nothing to to with the divestment of the property business. At least I hope?yup, we know that the guy has a pristine capitalist motive here, and thats his ethical stance, question asked for “why” this stance, why is he not supporting the allocation of funds to a charity? now in the sh’s statements he did not specifically mention that he was against this donation, he said this is not the right way to make use of the SH’s funds, i mean in all possible scenarios he could have a personal grudge with that charity, we dont knw and this is not an ethics paper :P,
the funds for the CSR strategy from Sarah will only be possible after a divestment of the property, therefore i did mention that the Institutional SH might be concerned about the reputational risk involved here, knowing the fact that in this country banks have been regularly accused of causing recessions through lending, and in the property business, most of these are financed through bank loans and stuff, there is a reputational risk here to the Brothers Bank of attracting further criticism especially when they are looking to improve their social image as mentioned in the case.
that property business they acquired had a profit-making year b4 acquisition and had 2 continuous loss making years post-acquisition (whatever the calculation was here, i forgot the numbers)
now divesting such a business will only contribute to further recession, and this can severely damage the reputation of the bank with handling of the business very carelessly and trying to hide this by promoting charities…
December 11, 2015 at 8:33 pm #291210ohh btw it wasnt the institutional sh himself, i just remembered, it was some one on their behalf in the meeting, like a proxy, this could may be a point in someway used !?!?
December 11, 2015 at 8:37 pm #291212anyways i could be all wrong & messed up, just had like 10 or so minutes to do this part,
Hopefully we pass and make the 50% 😀
December 11, 2015 at 9:33 pm #291224@xil2600 said:
Used different perspective on Q1 than previous posters – was thinking about BCG, SAF and Ashridge, but it seemed to easy to just outline benefits & advantages. So did a bit different way:Q1(a) – SWOT for QTS & QTSBA combined – outlined strengths, weekneses and opportunities and threats in relation to acquiring A2K. Then used TOWS to outline how acquiring and merging A2K with QTSBA would: a) bring trainers, which are scarce resource, b) cost synergies – admin, sales&mark, back office, c) e-learning team, which QTSBA lacks, d) new perspective on courses (humorous and challenging, compared to QTS’s structured offering) – could broaden the niche/expand category, e) bringing mgt team and empowering trainers/e-learning – quick fixes, f) improving profitability through synergies outlined above – A2K had lower profitability than the group, therefore had to be quickly improved otherwise would dilute current results etc. – Wrote quite a bit on Q1(a) – went over about 10 mins, so had to speed up the rest to make up the time.
yes, i think that was the right approach for q1, TOWS, yes yes its a very relevant model to be used, Damn it!!! why on earth did i not think of this ?! i thought about it but i just didnt use it !!!!! arghhhhh !!!! i used very briefly in 1 or 2 areas including SAF, but TOWS makes a lot of sense here! ^*)&(&*^%*^&(& !!!!!!!!!!!!
December 12, 2015 at 10:04 am #291320It was fair. I thank God. Only briefing on the benefits and advantages on Q1a, Balogun Contextual features on Q1b and Cultural web & Mintzberg configuration on Q1c. I didn’t finish Q1c but was able to list all the points. Pass is guaranteed by the power of Almighty God…
December 12, 2015 at 11:09 am #291335Like some of the comments given, I did not use a model for question 1(a). I just used the scenario and answered the question. I had half an hour to read and answer question 4 and I did not finish the exam. The paper was just too much reading.
December 12, 2015 at 3:52 pm #291370This paper i don’t know to explaon it. Q1 was a last to attempt after 3 & 4 i had an hour to lead and attempt the question.
When I noted how big the senario is i was confunsed and failed to understand the story.I did not finish the question and my head stop ticking as a failed even to understand what was going on . I gave up in the process i think i will not make.
Looking to attempt the the march2016
December 12, 2015 at 5:20 pm #291383For the 2nd Ques, part b, for design process, I applied Lewin’s Iceberg Model.. not sure if that is right. Did anyone apply this model?
December 12, 2015 at 6:18 pm #291396Totally agree
December 13, 2015 at 5:14 pm #291510in question 1(c) i just written about A2k culture not written about post acquisition culture will i be able to get marks?
December 13, 2015 at 10:31 pm #290383Respect to any non-native English speakers who take this exam. I can only imagine how horrible it would be for me to do this in another language.
I did F5 yesterday and have F9 tomorrow so didn’t spend as much time as I would like practicing questions for P3. As such I didn’t manage my time very well and ran over by 10-15 mins on Q1
I thought I had a good grasp of the models though however they didn’t come up as much as I would like.
Q1a) I split down into advantages to the parent advantages to the SBU. There seemed to be more for the parent but I think I got some good points here.
b) Wasn’t really sure what I was doing here with the Kaleidosope as I had just learned the headings rather than how to apply the model lol. So I just wrote what I thought under five seperate headings. Eg time – will be fast given they need tutors for courses starting soon and they likely want e-business sorting out so as not to lose ground on competitors.
c) Seemed to ask for lots of different stuff for 12 marks. Organisational culture, the cultural web and organisational forms. I just picked the 3 elements which I could write about from the cultural web (Power and Relationships, Myths and stories, control systems) and talked about them pre and post merger and said that the organisational structure would change from a entrepreneurial/ basic bureaucracy to a professional bureaucracy.
Q2a) This was a total gift given I was sitting F5 and F9 also. Talk about payback period model being rubbish, note sunk costs are irrelevant etc so should have done well here.
b) Hadn’t a clue about this one and was running into time problems at this point so just wrote down a few components of a plan like risk assessment, roles and responsibility delegation etc. No more that 2/10 here 🙁Q3 Saw requirement was about people which I hadn’t learned so spend about 1/2 a second looking at this before deciding to do other two question.
Q4a) Very rushed but it seemed to be quite easy to pick out internal weaknesses and environmental threats so hopefully scored 7-8 out of 15 here.
b) Also rushed and about CSR which is annoying. Basically said company view charitable donating could change impression of sector – perhaps market growth. Also could improve market share if viewed favourably to other banks. For the shareholder I said likely annoyed and should be able to choose themselves whether to donate but perhaps being short termist and failing to see long term benefit. Don’t know if this was a sensible answer.December 14, 2015 at 11:28 am #291689@chullbulla said:
Any one did q3 part b ? and what was the right approachI’ve tryied this section, suggesting that lecturer job could be enriched involving them in process of planning educational period etc (there were some claims from students for spare time due to inpropper time allocation during study period). I’ve also suggested that this action may motivate lecturers who are currently upset from their work. Motivation driver here is an ability to affect working conditions. Don’t know how this will be valued by marker 🙂
December 14, 2015 at 3:07 pm #291745The exam was very much Time pressured, Q1 was too lengthy a case study. Would really be suitable for English Native people. Above Change Kaleidoscope which was given, I found the BCG Matrix coming in a bit as there was data given about the Revenue trends for the acquiring division, the acquired division as well as total market revenue trends. Such data would probe computation of Market share growth and relative division growth so according to how I interpreted it. I saw a Dog that was profit making and a Star. Comments based on what it means came up and so I discussed accordingly.
December 16, 2015 at 1:24 pm #291989Question 3(b)
I used POPIT (people, organization, process and information technology) to answer question 3b. Can anyone tell me if it was correct ?
December 20, 2015 at 11:33 am #292001As far as i understand (my second P3 attempt), POPIT is a framework of bussiness process change. So, using POPIT makes easier to understand which areas of improvements (changes) you have to treat. The question is what you’ve suggested to improve in those areas – people, organisation, process and IT and how it dedicate to the scenario problems.
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