*** September 2023 ACCA APM exam – Instant Poll and comments ***

Section A:
i) Performance measurement problems in NFPOs
ii) VFM analysis of 3 hospitals and conclusion on resource allocation
iii) League tables – possible problems

Section B:
1) i) PEST implications of each part of environment + possible KPI for each part of environment (?)
ii) Performance gap analysis. CEO’s proposal of investment in new technology that will help to increase quality and decrease labour costs. Initial calculation of CEO didn’t match planning profit before tax (seemed strange)

2) i) Building blocks – dimensions, analyze the performance report and suggest new measures
ii) Cloud computing – describe benefits from financial perspective

Got exactly the same set of questions as you. But I was able to attempt two questions, Q1 on performance measurement & management, VFM & League table and Q3 on Building Block Model and Cloud computing. I wasn’t able to attempt the last question on PEST analysis and Performance Gap.

In exam when you open question the status changes from unseen to u attempted. Then when you write something the status changes to attempted.

I attempted all questions but time was running out. One of the screen status showed unseen instead of attempted. I remember going to question writing some more and coming to end screen to end exam but still one of the status showed unseen. Then time ended before I can press end exam. Will that impact my submission of that answer?

Why ROI is bad for comparison?

It saved automatically even if you didnt click on end exam

I made the same points for ABM not much more else to write, i think the idea was to criticise the drivers used and suggest alternative ones and how this effects the analysis

I wasn’t sure if I did Q3 right about the 2 IT approaches about recording conversations and how it will improve the performance. I said that the company will have control over their behaviour and could invest more in training in customer service. Not sure

For the IT approaches I think the question was how it will improve company performance and any ethical considerations.
For performance, I said the voice analytics might capture “neutral” or “negative” tones but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as could just be the agent repeating the same script as there is likely to be terms and conditions to be read out to the customer before securing a sale as the insurance industry is highly regulated. I said the tone of this might be quite flat as the agent could be bored or just wanting to read through it as quickly as possible before the customer looses interest and terminates the call. Not sure if that’s mark worthy?

I also said the speech analytics of capturing words such as “connection” and “network” will just be highlighting an already known issue and will therefore not help performance as it is not adding any value and the organisation should instead be thinking how to prevent the network issues (by investing in better tech.)

For ethical considerations I said the staff may feel like they’re being spied upon and this may cause resentment and result in an even higher staff turnover (this was a problem already addressed for the organisation.)

I also said as the agents are working from home the speech analytics may pick up other family members conversations (which although isn’t professional it will be inevitable after moving the call centre to remote working) and this could breach confidentiality.

My heart sank when I saw the first question was regarding an NFPO, but after reading and going through it, I felt I did okay. I gave some reasonably good answers regarding the problems regarding performance management and NFPOs, using examples specific to EHAS such as EHAS’s commitment to patient care conflicting with its goal to meet financial commitments (I referenced the CEO shutting down the air ambulance proposal in here too).

For VFM I used and made points regarding the following:

Economy – Average Salary per T3 Doctor
Efficiency – T3 Patients per T3 Doctor
Effectiveness – Percentage of T3 patients treated classed as survived.

For League Tables I again linked this to EHAS and how it would affect them, I basically ripped this idea to shreds (my own bias coming in here – League Tables and competition have should have no place in medical care, the patient should always come first).

For Section B, the Building Block model question I showed where the information in the performance report tied in with the six dimensions, however it was pretty clear to me that the performance report barely covered most of the dimensions, with one or two dimensions (Innovation in particular) not really covered at all, so I made recommendations for improved measures in all six dimensions and also noted the current performance report only looked at current year and prior year, so the new measures should use at least three years worth of data (where applicable).

The Cloud Computing question was straightforward for me. I gave a brief description of what cloud computing is, and there were financial gains in the form of very little up-front capex costs and lower maintenance costs (both passed on to the service provider), plus lower IT staff costs, and lower energy/utility costs due to more staff working from home. I felt I answered this very well.

I answered the PEST implications reasonably well, but almost forgot to recommend specific KPIs! I got bogged down in the implications of the PEST report for the company, and had to then tweak my answers to link them to (and therefore justify) the KPIs, I got there, but this cost me time when it came top the Performance Gap analysis, which I did not answer well and, yeah, ran out of time.

Overall I feel I have done enough to pass – just about. We shall see.

Hey… I did my Eng Law exam early this month and it was a complete disaster.
A friend of mine has recommended Open Tuition and I’m looking forward to get the support I need to pass my next exam.

Hi, Ayobami
hope you’re doing well!
Would you mind sharing APM study text from Sep’23 session onwards
I’m preparing for Dec’23 exam and really needed the updated study text, would appreciate if you could provide. Thanks