Archived – Welcome to all newcomers and returners to the OBU Forum

[trephena]

Please recognise that I am not an employee of Open Tuition. I voluntarily answer queries but this has to be fitted in around my other commitments. Although not a mentor for the BSc Applied Accounting (because of potential conflicts of interest), I am however a mentor for MBA students – their deadline for submitting their 15,000 word dissertations is today and therefore the priority for my time is with them. I shall answer queries for OT students when I can.

[ashwinacca]

Hi trephena. Ok thankyou. You have been great taking up this initiative.

[trephena]

@ashwinacca – all you will have to do is produce a decent spreadsheet. Ensure it contains formulae and do some graphs and charts from it and complete a,resubmission statement. As you only have this correction then the statement will be fairly brief so don’t worry about it! 🙂

(I have already made suggestions about what to produce graphs and charts for and there are probably a few more ideas in T17)

[ashwinacca]

Thankyou Trephena for your time. I really appreciate it. So from my understanding I should resubmit the below documents:-

1) RAP project previously done (Attaching spreadsheet workings).
2) Appendix.
3) Referencing report
4) Resubmission statement.

From the discussion that I had with some of my friends they mentioned that there is no need of presentation this time or meeting with my mentor as I am going to resubmit the same RAP reports with the spreadsheet this time.

Sorry for asking you so many questions, just nervous and frustrated as this is my last attempt. Thankyou so much once again Trephena for your valuable inputs and time.

[ashwinacca]

Yes sir/madam. I broke down when i saw my result in spite of working so hard on the project for 2nd submission.

Could you please provide your suggestion on my understanding.

I am under the impression that i should resubmit the below documents:-

1) RAP project previously done (Attaching spreadsheet workings).
2) Appendix.
3) Referencing report
4) Resubmission statement.

From the discussion that I had with some of my friends they mentioned that there is no need of presentation this time or meeting with my mentor as I am going to resubmit the same RAP reports with the spreadsheet this time.

Thankyou so much for your time on responding to my question. Really appreciate everyone in this forum. You all have been very kind and helpful.

[trephena]

@ashwinacca – all you need to do is as I advised previously, the spreadsheet and a paragraph for the resubmission statement.

You may find that when you go to upload you may need to include a Presentation or SLS or whatever -this is possibly because of a bug in the OBU system -which has caused issues and confusion in the past. In which case just load your old files.

Rest assured that no marker is going to mark more than they have to so in your case will welcome just having to look at the spreadsheet 🙂

[ashwinacca]

Thankyou Trephena:) Your answers are so valuable.

[exnihil]

Please when will the Industry Classification Benchmark for p35 be out. Time is running out.. Please advise!

[trephena]

We are all waiting for this – I hope to speak to the actual person responsible for issuing this today so hope to have definite news later this afternoon GMT

[trephena]

Good news everyone – I have received this from the ACCA BSc Office:

The Information Pack was released earlier this week and is available at at https://www.accaglobal.com/uk/en/student/exam-entry-and-administration/oxford-brookes-bsc-hons-in-applied-accounting.html

Could you also advertise to your students that we have a new twitter feed and a Facebook page where they can keep up to date with news? 

https://twitter.com/OBU_ACCA_BSc
https://www.facebook.com/OBU.ACCA.BSc.Applied.Accounting/

[exnihil]

Please is it compulsory that the company I want to use for my OBU be a company from the country I’m submitting from or residing at?

[trephena]

No, you can in theory use a company anywhere in the world regardless of where you reside. However some information about the company must be independently available in English and normally this means it will be registered in accordance with the company law of the land,where it is. If your organisation does not meet with these criteria then you have to seek permission from OBU first to use it.

[ashwinacca]

Hi Trephena,

I am resubmitting the project on topic 17 and as you may remember, i was failed in the project due to lack of spreadsheet demonstration. In the latest info pack as you correctly guessed and the topic as changed from

” An assessment of the quality of the corporate governance within an organisation and the impact on an organisation’s key stakeholders”

to

“Select an organisation that has been identified as having weak corporate
governance structures within the past 5 years. Critically evaluate their
corporate governance practices including an assessment of the origins of the
corporate governance issue(s) and the organisation’s response.”

DOES THIS MEAN I HAVE TO CHANGE MY COMPANY NOW?

Thankyou

[trephena]

Not at all. When rules/ topics change they apply only to new submissions i.e. 1st submissions or where a student has decided to change organisation or topic (or as a consequence of an ACO decision has been told they must change one or both of these). A resubmission on the same company for T17 will be unaffected by the new rules for Period 35 regardless of when the resubmission is made.

Note: I shall post your query on the T17 Forum as it will be seen their by more people who might have the same query

[ashwinacca]

Thanks Trephena:) Your inputs have been so valuable to me:) Hats off for taking up this initiative and responding to our issues in spite of your regular work:) I will follow topic 17 forum.

[Muhammad Azeem Shaikh]

Can you please guide about topic 20? What is meant by having weak social responsibility practises and how to identify companies having such weak social responsilbity practices?

[trephena]

‘Weak social responsibility practices’ refers to where companies are not doing enough to be good corporate citizens compared with other companies. As an example in the UK with Starbucks – they make various claims in their CSR statement but the reality shows a different picture or the company attempts to disguise the facts e.g. proclamations about recycling however very few (I think it is less than 10%) of their paper cups are recycled; they say they pay all their tax due however whilst this may be strictly true they arrange their tax affairs and have complex transfer pricing mechanisms so that on paper they show low profits and pay artificially low amounts of tax; recently food hygiene inspectors discovered high levels of faecal bacteria in ice destined for customers drinks due to poor staff training and low standards of hygiene.

Some of the issues are not just confined to Starbucks but probably extended to others (I know that the same inspectors found poor hygiene in other major coffee operators and fast food chains) and the tax issue is found in many global organisations. What it means is that by not paying fair amounts of tax such companies take money from communities but give little back whereas local coffee shops and restaurants not only pay their fair share of tax but tend to give something back too as they also tend to use local suppliers and services (which in turn minimises their carbon footprint).

Another thing is that companies will emphasise charitable initiatives but these should be viewed against executive pay and dividends to shareholders and I have found sometimes there is an inverse relationship between how much space in the annual report is given over to telling people about their charity donations etc and the actual physical amounts given away. Also be aware that with some company foundations and charitable trusts as much money comes from donations from the public as from the company but the latter glosses over this fact to promote a picture of inflated philanthropy.

Another area where companies are economical with the truth is supply chain -I know one French cosmetic chain claims it has an award for its water usage, water recycling and energy use. This makes it look ‘green’. However the reality is that its face creams are over packaged in larger plastic jars than needed (so the it looks as if there is more in the jar from its external appearance). Not only is there deception in trying to make the customers think they are getting more product than they are but the large plastic tubs are imported so the waste of plastic, the toxic substances used in the manufacture of plastics and the energy used to create the jars does not enter the energy and sustainability calculations of the French firm so these negatives are ignored. However a company serious about being a good corporate citizen would not just simplify and minimise its own carbon footprint ( having simpler product packaging and less plastic waste but would look at its supply chain and try to influence good practices there to encourage best practices in every aspect of sustainability and environmental issues.

To do the new topic 20 well you need to read up on what constitutes good practice (maybe the Global Reporting Initiative could be a helpful resource here and put a few key words in and use Google Scholar as a search engine to find articles). Then you will need to research the practices of a few companies to help you decide on a company to use. Remember on its own the company’s CSR statement will be next to useless -it must be used with caution therefore and applied in an appropriate context. However the CSR statement could be helpful when you want to compare reality (what really happens) with myth (what the statement says) or perhaps occasionally to show that the statement is true as you have found external sources that support it.

[GT0707]

Hello Trephena,

In Period 34, I have failed the overall Research Report Assessment and SLS assessment but have passed some elements (1, 5, 7, 9).

I had worked on Topic 8 – Pharmaceutical industry. I want to re-submit the RAP in period 35 and there is a change a industry. Will I have to change the industry too!!

Regards,
GT

[trephena]

@GT0707 – sorry to hear you were unsuccessful. From the sections failed looks like you didn’t reference properly and your evaluattion was inappropriate. As well as reading the marking feedback, read the articles on our homepage http://www.opentuition.com/obu

on referencing (The Open Tuition Ultimate Guide to Referencing your RAP) and evaluation as these should help. Also ensure you start the analysis with the models and apply them to your financial analysis where appropriate (markers tend to look for integration of the business with financial analysis)

The good news is that you will be able to resubmit on your current company as the new rules on company selection only apply to new submissions (there are different rules for RAPs attempted in P34 or before that are being resubmitted in P35). Another bit of good news is that you now don’t have to update using the latest financial statements.

[saifudeen]

@trephena
I read your forum about referencing, I have doubt that if I read an article and write in my own words and at the end of the paragraph giving the reference . Is it allowable ?

[trephena]

You should avoid too many direct citations as this can result in a fail for bad academic practice. Regarding putting a reference at the end if a paragraph – it only goes at the end of a paragraph if the last sentence relates to the reference (markers absolutely hate students dumping references at the end of a paragraph unless is appropriate -see my Golden Rules). Otherwise reading around a topic and picking out key points and placing the reference immediately after these is the correct methodology

[saifudeen]

Thankyou @trephena and one more thing, I chose Hotel industry and when doing the net profit margin, for administrative expenses and interest rates I am not able to get much information, can you please provide some tips particularly for Intercontinental hotel group?

[Anonymous]

Hello,@trephena.

I submitted my Bsc project on T8 in period 34. I am planning to resubmit my project in period 35. examiners feedback is as follows:

Technical and Professional Skills
1. Understanding of accountancy/business models Pass
2. Application of accountancy/business models Pass
3. Evaluation of information, analysis, and conclusions Fail
Reasons for fail and advice for improvement:
You have undertaken a lot of work but overall this is not of a pass standard. Your financial analysis needs some improvement. It is not enough to state that GPM margins increased because the growth in cost of sales was less than the growth in sales (page 13), or that in
2014 the GPM margin fell because sales increased. You have to give a credible explanation. The reference you give for 2013 performance (Business Recorder, 2014a) is very brief but it does give an explanation regarding the sales mix; which you fail to comment on. Your 2014 review is similarly limited and inaccurate. You state that “cost of sales increased by 14.6% … due to unfavorable foreign currency movements. The reference given is Business Recorder 2015. I checked this reference. Again it is a brief research note which doesn’t mention the fact you have identified. Other causes are mentioned which you fail to comment on. There is a similar story with the rest of your financial review, it was difficult to check many of claims as your referencing was poor. You use the reference “Abbott Pakistan, 2014, 2015″ etc. I presume you mean the annual reports? You must be much more accurate and show WHERE in the annual accounts the information is found. Other examples of similar errors and inaccuracies are found in your Return on Equity review. (page 20) Stating that Roe fell because “equity surged” is not an explanation. Why did equity increase? You seem to blame the increase in reserves to an increase in profit ??” this would surely cause this ratio to increase?
4. Presentation of project findings Pass
Overall Technical and Professional Skills Fail

Graduate Skills
5. Communication Pass
6. Information gathering and Referencing Fail
Reasons for fail and advice for improvement:
Your referencing needs improvement. I have given a few examples above. You must ensure that all claims are properly referenced and use an a, b, c system if using one source on multiple occasions. You are also heavily, perhaps overly reliant, on the company’s own accounts.
7. Information Technology Pass
Overall Graduate Skills Fail
Overall
Research Report Assessment F

Skills & Learning Statement
Graduate Skills
8. Self Reflection Pass
9. Communication Skills (inc Presentation) Fail
Reasons for fail and advice for improvement:
Your PowerPoint presentation is not of a pass standard. It is too long; 23 some quite detailed slides could not be delivered in the required 15 minutes. Secondly the graphical presentation does not show the comparator company and hence is less useful. The use of different graph styles is also confusing for the audience.

Skills and Learning Statement assessment Fail
Overall
Overall RAP Result F

I need to know whether I have to submit SLS again or just the presentation? Secondly, Do I have to update the financial statements or I can use the same ones as previously used in my research report?

Thanks in advance.

[moomi]

hello Trephena,

Kindly guide me whether a specific point could be used in two models e.g shown as a threat in the SWOT analysis and as a threat to entry in Porter’s five forces.

[usmannadeem155]

How are you all?
I have confusion whether i can choose company with for example only dairy products and other company (secondary) with products portfolio of dairy products and other products relating to foods.
Please note that both conpanies are food producers one of the industry mentioned on OBU information pack17-18

[Author]

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