*** P5 December 2014 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

Can someone pls remind me the requirements to question. 1……

I think we should all remember that we are professional people and the ACCA code of conduct requires us to act professionally and with integrity at all times. It is therefore unprofessional to attack the ACCA examiner because the questions are hard, time pressured or obscure. P5 like all other ACCA papers are challenging and will always be regardless of which paper or what examiner, that is why when one passes, there is a sense of achievement and satisfaction.

Just like syed above says, you will appreciate this examiner when you find yourself in a position where the FD or CFO stands on your desk wanting answers there and then without giving you the time the P5 examiner allows in 3 hrs 15 min. What will you do then? Turn on your boss and attack him/her for not giving you time to think? This is like a daily occurrence in the workplace. And wherever I have worked, whenever there is a query concerning any area of the company, the first port of call has always been the Finance Department. My advice is P5 is an optional paper. If you don’t like it, there are 3 other options to choose from.

We students are ACCA stakeholders and so are the examiners. The difference is we have high interest but no power and yet the examiners do have the power (Mendelow’s matrix). The best way to beat the examiner is to get 50% or more.

Let us therefore use this cohort to learn from each other’s mistakes in the exam hall and do better next time.

My sequence of completing the exam is question 2, question 1 and then question 4.

I spent also too much time on question 2, trying to score as many marks, then I tried to wrap it up quickly and start question 1.

I find question 1 very tricky. Part ii) and iii) were so confusing… You really have to read the case to identify what the examiner wanted you to do. I re-read that part of the case at least 5 fives, to make sure I did the right thing.

You are only supposed to evaluate whether the performance measures listed in Appendix 1 are appropriate to the stakeholders they mentioned. It is not until part iii) that you actually have to do the calculations for the mentioned performance measures and then suggest 2 more performance measures (remember the case said maximum 7 performance measures, and I think there were 5 already in the Appendix 1).

I’d say compared to the past exams that I practiced on, the exam itself is quite decent, nothing too difficult and not do-able, you just have to watch out for time.

Good luck to everyone, and I’m also hoping to scores above 50%. Fingers crossed!!

The exam was indeed time pressured.Question 1 appeared fare but looking at it critically there were some areas that can easily be overlooked and lose a lot of marks.Imagine I ignored that one of the main objective of the company was to be the quality supplier so there was need to incorporate quality measures for the benchmarking exercise.

Putting fingers crossed.

May the almighty God bless us.

My sequence of attempting P5:
Q.NO.1 a) I explained 5 facets of prism given by Nelly & Adams and linked to 3 initiative:
1st Initiative-Staheholder Analysis: Stakeholder satisfaction
Initiative of benchmarking:Capabilities
Initiative of introducing JIT: Strategy

Q.NO.1 b) Used Mendelow’s Matrix as mgmt approach and linked performance measures to those stakeholders
Net Profit Margin, Roce, EVA-shareholders, although EVA is better than traditional profit measures but shareholders are interested in future performance,so TSR would be better.
Average Pay per Employee- Employees
Revenue Growth-Although not directly linked to Customers, nevertheless it can be measured as customer’s satisfaction since if customers were not satisfied with those bespoke products they wouldn’t buy their products thus revenue would fall.
No specific Measure for Supplier

Q.No.1 c) I calculated those given performance measures in appendix(I forgot to write assumptions for EVA)+ 2/3 additional performance measures such as Fixed Assets Turnover & Revenue per Employee. I did benchmarking exercise based on those calculations,it seems Boltzman has done better compared to General Machines.

Q.No.1 d) I wrote 5-6 points on problems of JIT such as there would be chance of defective products being sent to customers since there would be few room for testing, Boltzman may be unable to meet unexpected demand made by customers, employees may feel hurry/time constrained in producing products thus they may overlook quality,
Culture & Values of Employees may need to be changed in JIT…..

THEN I LOOKED CLOCK, there was just 1 hour left for another 50 marks……I spent 45 minutes for Q.No.2 which was about Proposed Investment linking to environment goal of reducing carbon emissions & environment related techniques-Input/Output Analysis, Lifecycle Costing

ANOTHER FINAL 15 minutes left, then i ignored scenario and attempted Q.NO.3 related to NFPIs & Value For Money, it was good experience though..

Overall My performance
Q.NO.1=Good
Q.NO.2=Satisfied
Q.No.3=Poor

Finger crossed for furious 50……

Hard to say.

Hopefully scrape a pass.

I Advise you all, stay calm and be professional. Record your point of view with ACCA at this link https://www.webropolsurveys.com/Answer/SurveyParticipation.aspx?SDID=Uni881233&SID=a434d9d6-56e8-43c2-8021-e00687fa8cb9&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ACCA&utm_campaign=5109809_SDS+-+ACCA+Exam+Feedback+Survey+-+List+No+3&dm_i=47A,31IR5,20DTG6,AXLIV,1&dy=2094129908

I Received following email from ACCA. I again advise be professional.

“ACCA EXAM AND STUDY FEEDBACK

OPEN UNTIL

15
DECEMBER 2014

Dear student

ACCA welcomes your feedback on the exams that you took at the December 2014 session. The feedback you give will be considered by the Global Exam Review Board. The Board meets to review the questions, answers and marking schemes after the last exam paper has been sat at each exam session. This ensures that the papers are a fair and reasonable test and is one of the final stages in the quality assurance process before they are marked and the results are finalised. We are also interested to know more about your experience with your learning provider if you have used one for this exam session.

We would be most grateful if you could take the time to complete the attached survey here. Your identity will be kept confidential at all times.

Please reply no later than 15 December 2014, 09:30 AM (GMT). The survey will take around 15 minutes of your time.

All respondents who complete ACCA’s exam feedback surveys and enter their contact details will be entered into a prize draw for a chance to win one of the two cash prizes of £75.

Should you have any problems completing the survey, please email studentssurvey@accaglobal.com

If you feel that your exam performance has been adversely affected by personal circumstances or adverse conditions in the examination hall, please write separately to ACCA’s Glasgow office, email ExamsOperationsServices@accaglobal.com, as soon as possible and no later than four weeks after the exams. Where appropriate, you must include documentary evidence and certification to support any mitigating circumstances.

Thank you for participating in this survey.

ACCA”

Questions were not so tough but time pressured, we even forgot to write basic points bcoz of time pressure….

@jacob you are so right! i even forgot kpi’s because of pressure. I could not just think!! something i am ordinarily very good at!

Anyway, i wrote that in the survey…

i hope i did enough to pass

Had a look at the answers.

It may be just me, but the answers are terrible. To take question 2 as an example (the question I thought I had answered the best).

Part a) Asks “Explain why non-financial indicators are particularly useful for public sector organisations”

The answer states “Public sector organisations have a number of problems which can be at least partially addressed with the use of NFPI”. Maybe it is me but “particularly useful” and “partially addressed” are not the same.

Part b) Is badly laid out with large paragraphs included within which are some numbers. There are no calculation workings and it is hard to follow.

The points raised appear far too simple. He has done various simple calculations and just commented in basic terms, I was expecting far more analysis.

One point in particular caught my eye.
In the exam it mentions collection days as being 14 as against an average of 12. I had thought he had put this in as a trap, because yes there is a longer delay. However no local authority would collect every 12 days as that means bins would have to be put out on different days. All local authorities have either a 7 or 14 day cycle so the public know collection day is say a Monday every week/fortnight.

However, he does ignore that and answers that collections below average and could cause a health hazard!

Part c) Most of the answer is a bog standard textbook reply with little reference to BLA and very weak suggestions.

A point I raised was it is harder to implement standards, therefore making it more difficult to benchmark. For example it states that BLA has based it’s complaints on letters and telephone calls. How do we know that is the same way they recorded complaints nationally.

I’m hoping that whoever marks my exam understands the points I made and does not follow this guys script otherwise I will be retaking in June!