Forums › ACCA Forums › ACCA SBL Strategic Business Leader Forums › *** P3 June 2011 Exam was … Post your comments here and vote in Instant Poll ***
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- June 15, 2011 at 4:37 pm #85249AnonymousInactive
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In question 1a, I used the PESTEL for the macro-environment analysis and I used the Industry Life cycle for the market/industry analysis.
Is it right?
June 15, 2011 at 4:38 pm #85250AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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June 15, 2011 at 4:39 pm #85251AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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@connectt For the process redesign I made some minor suggestions cutting out some stages that weren’t necessary. Then I wrote a longer suggestion on the whole system going web based rather than by email – benefit of automation would be less errors, faster, less need for admin staff.
June 15, 2011 at 4:41 pm #85252AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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alancong.. 3 weakness part was all general things.. number 1 deals with need to coordinate n communicate budgets n monitor them.. tentions arose for not doing do.. number 2 was abt lack of succession planning.. plus employee commitment n morale new graduates were hire a facilitative leadership would be approporiate or anyother you think fine… number 3 was very straight.. Ecocar was being victim of Red tapism.. they js used to discuss risk bt never taken any action.. so recommending TARA framework or 4Ts i think would have been a good answer
June 15, 2011 at 4:53 pm #85253AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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bytecode./.. exactly i did the same thing.. all you have to do is to criticize the appraisal there were OBSERVABLE benefits which may not be correctly quantified,,, even those shouldnt be included… well those 15 marks were a piece of cake seriously:D n specially for P4 students.. it seemed as if m doing t10 or f9… thnks to p3 examiner:D
June 15, 2011 at 4:57 pm #85254@rochelleobar19: Totally agreed
June 15, 2011 at 5:08 pm #85255AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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Do anyone remember whether there was any relevant, mainly financial info, in Weakness 1 – description related to Q1, b, – outsourcing? I am afraid i skipped important info. Forgot to get back to this description due to time pressure:((
Thanks.June 15, 2011 at 5:42 pm #85256AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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@richieoctober said:
all the examiners articles – people & strategy, pricing strategy (econimic & non economic factors), the strategic use of IT, forecasting (trend analysis), and project mangement. . . . . barely anything came up only the financial and non financial benefits of the project and benefits realisation. very annnoying to study these inside out and the minimal amount comes up in the exam. im very disappointed after putting in so much effort for nothing. q1 part a) i put in pestel and then did the 7m’s model as i taught this best fitted the “market/industry” requirement. the porters diamond is used when expanding abroad & the porters 5 forces is in relation to “competition”. the question didnt ask for competition of wasnt a foreign expansion so what do ye think???? was i wrong using the m’s model????? time pressure also was unreal. didnt get to finish question 4 and didnt really relate it back to the case study, just explained the i’s and gave a real life example. overall, disappointingmay be you sit for exam just wanna get 50% thats all, please dun spot question as the examiner always warn us. be prepared and you wont get panic,
you use M model instead of Porter 5 forces, you still can earn marks as the question state any relevent model(s), but you wanna get higher marks, you shud stick the the question that ask for 5 forces, ur can use M model to relate the company position in that industry.June 15, 2011 at 5:50 pm #85257well Outsourcing part required some calculation for discussing financial part
cost if outsourced ( 3500 x 6 ) + ( 250 x 6 ) – 1250 ( decrease in overhead ) = 21250 and if manufacture in house it will cost 4500 x 6 = 27000 . so financially beneficial but also discussed that make sure there might be some other cost which may make it financial not good. discussed quality issues and reliability in non financial part . attemted complete paper alhamdulilah . Hoping for good marks 🙂June 15, 2011 at 5:55 pm #85258AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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Nobody on earth can read all the questions in 15 mins and make comprehensive approach to questions. Opentuition lecturer recommended approach helped. Questions were not strange but no time to seriously organise oneself.
June 15, 2011 at 6:43 pm #85260who used Harmon’s process start matrix for quest 3 part a..
I totally screwed up on the last part I defined the 4 elements and picked up points from the passage what may have been vaguely related but I think It was fine…also left the financial aspect of outsourcing in quest 1..
rest was goood
June 15, 2011 at 7:05 pm #85261I used pestel and swot for q1.. i wonder swot was the correct model to use…
q2. npv, irr, payback??? more of f9…..
q4: emarketing… omg.. lengthy paper how on earth do u absorb so much info in such a short time span…
q3. i found it too daunting so i opted out…..
a pass.. is all that is needed.. so God help us all!!!!!!!!June 15, 2011 at 7:07 pm #85262@muneebnawaz90 said:
well Outsourcing part required some calculation for discussing financial part
cost if outsourced ( 3500 x 6 ) + ( 250 x 6 ) – 1250 ( decrease in overhead ) = 21250 and if manufacture in house it will cost 4500 x 6 = 27000 . so financially beneficial but also discussed that make sure there might be some other cost which may make it financial not good. discussed quality issues and reliability in non financial part . attemted complete paper alhamdulilah . Hoping for good marks 🙂how did u come up with 4500 x 6? as far as i know, there are limited number of hours available if u r manufacturing it in house.. i did the ranking using contribution per hour and then calculate the total profit for in house and outsource..
June 15, 2011 at 7:09 pm #85263AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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i wrote too much using pestel and 5 forces for q1 part a…over ran a lot then fluffed the make or buy decision totally…re part c the weaknesses were budgetary (PRIME) need to recruit and support either graduates or fast track internally or head-hunt from competitors third was basically the need to set up a risk committee or employee a risk manager to devolve this kind of thing to.. of the three options i thought q3 was the most time consuming and complicated (for me) so did the bobby blunt q which was – as others have said – bascially saying why he was completely wrong with his comments about the investment appraisal.. payback was the same – unless you took out the intangibles which should never have been included – NPV is to beat COC not inflation.. as seen in previous papers (Rick Hein Q i think) bobby autocratic and unfocused re control processes….matrix would never work as he’d scrap it before the benefits had a chance to show themselves….q4 seemed ok. i feel i’ve done enough to pass.. good luck to everyone
June 15, 2011 at 7:19 pm #85264AnonymousInactive- Topics: 7
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q1 part b. did you take production hours as a scarce resource and found profit without outsourcing and profit with outsourcing, besides it was irt necessary to do SFA analysis??
June 15, 2011 at 7:19 pm #85265Paper was ok.
Got a few doubts though.
Q1. (c I think) on controls, Senior Partners and risk weakness.
I answered as
controls weakness – Used Cultural web to explain why controls are weak.
senior partners – Used Strategic leadership to address this risk
risk Weakness – used knowledge from P1, risk awareness, culture, etc.Q2. About NPV – I said it was prepared wrong as It included moral benefits as a revenue
Can ANy1 tell me whether I answered the above mentioned correctly
Thanks a bunchJune 15, 2011 at 7:52 pm #85266For Q1 – i used the PESTEL and as it was only asking external environment I used only the OT part of SWOT as SW is internal factors(hope i’m right) and for Marketplace I used porter’s 5 Forces.
Option did Q3 & 4 – was real time pressured and could not think enough to write quality answers:(.
Will be happy with just 50% marks!
Goodluck !!
June 15, 2011 at 8:13 pm #85267AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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Well i thought the exam was pretty difficult but this is how i tackled the exam:
Q1) I used part PESTEL (Political, Environment, Socio-cultural), then i used porters 5 forces for the industry.
b)
I thought this was difficult to score with financial ratios etc. I ended up focusing on the non financial:Adv – Better budgeting for cost, meets production demand, less conflict and legal issues
Disadv – Government grant could be removed, bad for company brand. Quality assurance problems. Transportation leads to high co2 emissions going against the companys going green car.
c)
3 weaknesses i used the following:1) Bad internal controls, introduce computer system to ensure that products are ordered to order etc.
2) Mentioned about cultural web and also Halogens & Hope Bailey “reconstructive” phase etc.
3) Mentioned about risk awareness and embedding risk into company. Ensure cultural risk is started at top to bottom.
June 15, 2011 at 8:19 pm #85268AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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it was ok. too much time pressure.
June 15, 2011 at 8:27 pm #85269AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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Did anyone consider CSR re employees, community under the non-financial argument on outsourcing? Thought paper was fair, but, as usual, time-pressured. I will pass this paper before I go to my grave!
June 15, 2011 at 8:53 pm #85270AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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The paper was not difficult and in line with the pilot paper by structure and style. I try P3 for the second time, the first one was June 2010 (December 2010 was missed). Compared to that exam, the 1st question was much easier and shorter, which made me happy, but only until I had only 15 minutes for the last question. Questions 3 and 4 were both very long to read, which was unexpected. After all, this is an exam for ‘strategic’ paper, and everyone needs to develop their own strategy to pass, taking into account the time pressure, vagueness and uncertainty. Otherwise it would be too easy;)
Q1 – I did PESTEL and Diamond. Indeed, originally it was made for analysis of nations’ competitiveness, but can be used for analysis of markets in geographic areas (as in the exam). For outsourcing, I used straight comparison of costs of outsoursing and in-house, not using contribution, as it is clear that there are not enough hours to produce in-house and there is no choice which model to outsource (may be too simple assumption). Other arguments included lost customers and gov.support in case of outsourcing.
Q2 was quite clear to me. Much is said about that.
Q3 – I had about 15 minutes so I tried to answer only 10-mark question. Don’t know exactly what should be said here;)June 15, 2011 at 9:23 pm #85271Did anyone use Harmon’s Matrix for question 3 part b?
There were 4 options – testing, student invoicing, student adresses, and something else.
Did each fall into a different quadrant (outsource, automate, etc) or did I misinterpret the question?June 15, 2011 at 9:28 pm #85272AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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I studied a lot for this particular exam, and even more for P2. To be honest I was pretty pissed when i saw the papers, as they were too easy and did not test the candidates. There should have been some tricks in both of these papers, but I hardly found any. The only problem I seemed to face was in the outsourcing question, as i did not remember costing from F5, and mistakenly thought the Eco Car co. was outsourcing its complete manufacturing division. I only did basic cost calculations, and advised in favor of outsourcing, and also jotted down some cons. NPV went well, could’ve written more if had more time, could not complete the IRR aspect, but debated on the discount rate intangible benefits realisation, and the fact that these benefits sometimes even take months or years after an internal job/project is completed. Did comment on the payback method and its disadvantages, and that no investment should be made on payback on a stand alone basis. Apart from that, i think it was one of the easiest papers ever to be made, and it was a complete and utter joke, with case studies so long, and there not being any link in questions to most parts of those case studies, i thought the examiner just made a joke out of himself. Might not get good marks in outsourcing and especially in its financial area, but gave a handful of valid points related to outsourcing that would influence a company, and in particular this one.
June 15, 2011 at 9:37 pm #85273AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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@tom.mcdonald217 said:
Did anyone consider CSR re employees, community under the non-financial argument on outsourcing? Thought paper was fair, but, as usual, time-pressured. I will pass this paper before I go to my grave!Yes I guess in outsourcing that could be used, considering the loyalty of consumers and the grants received from govt. these all add up to expectations being there from these stakeholders, who love their company and are happy about what they are doing. The factor to be seen could be that would this outsourcing send a wrong signal to these stakeholders and would they figure that maybe the company in the future might outsource its complete manufacturing division, which a) would piss the govt. off as they have given grants to this company in substantial amounts, and they need to increase employment and the national income of their country rather than of another one. and b) might affect the loyalty of the consumers, who might transfer to substitutes in the future(refer to the people developing hybrid vehicles). These amounts do add up and could affect the company
June 15, 2011 at 10:42 pm #85274AnonymousInactive- Topics: 0
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@abbas 732 i guess u havent witnessed the option papers yett particularly p6 and p7 and when u do im sure the examiner will fulfiil all ur expectations of a difficult paper and a real test for the candidates..perhaps we cant forget an easier brings with itself a tough marking…so cheers
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