*** P3 March 2016 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

Time managemnt was a big issue..bt overall paper was fair…
No model tested specificly except value chain n cultural web

Q1 information is too much and lengthy , to write a good answer it needs to read the question well but limited time. reading time need to be at least 20 mints. part B questions are fairly good and somewhat easy.

What was the way to answer Q1 B and c in c i identified the value chain stages and the possible to improve each stage and b i i evaluted ech option saales and costs what u did?

4 departments are mentioned in req 1 , outbound & procure , production , outbound , marketing & sales. These activities are carried out in depts.

Time management was a big issue !!! Wasn’t sure what the question was asking for Q1 part C ??? Was it improvements or restructuring ???

Q1 was on value chain. i spent a hell lot of time on the first part which was for 20 marks plus some professional marks. in this we had identify issues on each of the value chain departments such as procurement inbound logistics marketing production etc

there were issues because production dept was not happy since the marketing dept was adamant on producing bespoke windows. supply costs were high since QTP had to order timber from specialist suppliers and there was a shortage of suppliers.

in part 2 i just used SFA model and briefly wrote that it was more profitable to switch to bespoke since customers valued that and they were coming to QTP (only because of bespoke windows) as other competitors were offering standard windows at lower prices

part 3 i just managed to put down 3 lines thats it. there was no time.

Q2) this was on strategic lenses and culture. in the question Fred the owner initially adopted strategy by ideas because he created the environment where the staff gave their inputs. his son on the other hand recommended a design approach because he mentioned about introducing formal controls and procedures. the store managers were adopting strategy experience. its the way we do things around here.

on culture i just applied the 6 points from the culture web. culture was about to change since FRED had a very participating approach and Peter the son seems to be autocratic

Q4) Emarketing. i just applied the model and commented on how it would benefit the company. gave examples such as feedback and reviews on websites, independence of location.

on pricing strategy, again i didn’t write much because of time. i just said pricing should reflect their mission statement and the company was in the position to charge higher prices because it was providing bespoke high quality holidays

hoping for a pass 🙂

questions were not that difficult but it was a very very lengthy paper. too much to digest. i guess time management is the key and the most vital skill to pass this paper. i think i left about 15 to 20 marks where i just manged to write some incoherent sentences.

yes but that is one aspect of many stages of setting prices. the first stage is that the price should reflect the mission. the mission statement was given in the question specifically for this purpose

I did question 1,2 and 4. I didn’t have time to start q4b though. The list of I’s for emarketing was a nice reward for 15 marks. Question 1 was time consuming but not too bad especially as they had given the format to answer it in.
The first part of Question 2b was cultural web -for culture under Fred- and then the second part – for when Pete takes over – was more open ended so I used cultural web and balogun hope hailey. I can’t remember what 2a was now :-/

Oh yes it was strategic lenses!
Fred used a bit of ideas and a bit of experience. He hated planning!

I said it was strategic design because Fred had designed the original strategy to have fun and the strategy was to play with kids and receive feed back from them. I argued it was not strategic by idea because all the managers were not happy with the current strategy and therefore their input was not valued by Fred.

It’s too long for results ?