*** P3 June 2012 Exam was … Comments and Instant Poll ***

PESTEL is used to analyse strategic position not option… option is what to do…

position means where we are and what current suitations are…

quite obvious to use Ansoff in Q1(b)…I struggled with part c, didn’t have much to say…put lots of bullshits in c… I didn’t even know what I was talking about…

Q2(b) is about project management? Q(2) is process matrix, but how to evaluate CEO’s decision? I didn’t have much to say… waffled again…

I left 20 mins for Q4, didn’t read the whole case… answered both (a) and (b) partly…

what was Question 1b again? Can’t remember.

using ansoff product matrix. The bit on market development can be analysed through a Pestel. Can it not?

Im not sure now. I am confused.

It was ok but time was not enough. In 1b U used Ansoff ans SFA, pro dev, market penetration (cost leadership and differentation)

The qestions in section B of this paper have become very lengthy. Time management has now become a threat,if not well-managed,to us in passing the exam.What is the point of giving us the extra 15 minutes reading time when it has been compromised by lengthening the case study? Evidence in the examiner’s report suggested otherwise. Can somebody out there tell me the truth, are the questions too lenthy based on the time allocation? Thanks.

Greetings my fellow students.

I’d thought that exam was ok, I did questions 1, 2 and 4.

Question 1 was split into three parts. The first being some financial analysis and looking at the payback of an investment.

The second was discussing a strategy

And the third was communicating the mission, values and something else relating to said startegy and why it was important to do so.

For the first part I done some basic profit ratios, ROCE and gearing and commented on the ratios and what they meant. The investment I used payback to work out the total returns of the intial investment and that fact that whilst scenario 2 would have netted Hammond $2.5m, it did have the porbability of 0.3 so it less likely to happen. Coupled with the intial outlay of $37.5m Is aid that I would not think Hammond would have the cash flow and any further borrowing would only increase the gearing.

The second part was quite tough I thought. I wondered what framework to use. Thought about the PESTEL but then realised that this is environment and not strategy so I went with ye ole SAF analysis. I went with the strategy that they should relocate thier production to Oritheria and formed my SAF basis on that.

Bringing in Mendelow to help with the acceptablility of the strategy to the stakeholders of the company (the brothers, employees, the green group and the goverment) and the course of action that it should take. As a final foot note ementioned E-commerce as they had a website but no-one using it.

For the third part about communicating mission, values and objectives I just waffled a bit.

Anybody else print off the technical article about the above and not read it??!!

Question 2 was about Harmons business process and Skidmore framework regarding the procurement and implementation of software.

I mentioned about the process of batch production being a core competence, One that Flexi should keep and develop. And the fact that the CEO did not recognise this and as a result trying to automate part of the process resulted in a clash and destroyed the value and competetitve edge.

The second part was about the process involved in buying and implenting software fairly straight forward and there were plenty of references in the question.

Question 4 was my strongest question I felt. Talked about the value chain and the weaknesses with the company.

And the use of technology would be utlising the website more, log in’s for cusotmers to view thier orders in real time, call backs. Giving drivers phones to contact customers to make sure they are in and a basic planing tool to help plan the driver’s routes.

As foot note I suggested that they should completely over haul thier production process for something akin to JIT. Save on storage costs and try to bring down the lead time from 10 weeks to something less of which is the amin reason that customers cancel thier orders.

The above is by no means ‘correct’

Good luck everyone come the 8/8.

can anyone tell me how to answer Q2(b), any model/theory to use?

Project management and mission statement was there as per open tuition guess paper. thax u so much open tuition. yesterday i saw ur paper and read that articles mission statement..:D

I also had problems with the time allocation. Never sat an exam before where I left so many questions unanswered. Even those that I could answer – I had no time to plan and structure my answer.
How can anyone do that? Because it doesn’t matter whether you have learnt or not – P3 success depends on something else for which you cannot really prepare yourself and that makes me sad 🙁

Otherwise: I think the questions were all okay (Haven’t done Q3 though.)

@kaym,
im so sorry, i dont understand yr question. u mean using PESTEL in 1b? from my understanding, we cannot use PESTEL but hey, im a student, maybe i was wrong, we dont know bout that, right? maybe it is acceptable by looking how you wrote the answer

oh man, i guess i made a mistake on q2b.. i do not know the formal process, so i just put something relating to formal and informal planning process and answer according to the scenario… i was totally wrong,am i? 🙁