Choosing a company /topic- Where to start??

@dancemoney – well you have made a few sensible initial observations – I always recommend a company that interests you! A good RAP depends on having access to a variety of good information sources so maybe a company that is frequently mentioned in the financial press is another thing to have on your ‘tick sheet’? Don’t be swayed by the actual length of the Annual Report – read the CEO / chairman’s / directors reports for a few companies that interest you and go for one that sounds fairly dynamic . That way you will have plenty of scope for your research and analysis and commentary and you are more likely to actually enjoy doing your RAP. That enthusiasm will communicate itself in your work and if you do good evaluation and follow all the rules you are more likely to pass with a B or even an A Grade. 😀

PS There needs to be a suitable comparator company so you also should factor that into your choice before you start

PPS Evaluation is about far more than graphs and ratios – I need to resurrect my postings on this for all new initiatiates into the RAP process – so watch for a new Forum on Evaluation & analysis in the next few weeks for some tips!

@barbara2012 Welcome to the OBU Forum

I’m not sure where you have got the idea that it must be an international company. That is not a prerequisite, you can choose any company that you like but you need to consider the availability of information for both it and the comparator company.

As to how long… There is normally a positive correlation between the amount of time spent and the quality (and subsequently the grade awarded). Personally I would suggest 3 months is normally adequate for most students but an A grader probably does more research and ‘goes the extra mile’ so probably puts in twice as much effort and takes twice as long. Some students conversely try to do it in about 6 weeks but that is often putting themselves under undue pressure….

We now have a few articles that are mainly intended for newcomers to the site (although there is one on Resubmission and another on the Academic Conduct Office) and these can be found via the following link

https://opentuition.com/obu/

Note: It is my intention to produce an item dedicated to choosing a topic and company but due to my current work commitments and deadlines this won’t be appearing until next month 🙁 I suggest that you work your way through some of our forum discussions and see some of Bassanio and my postings (they will come up I think if you click on the box referring to Replies under our relevant avatars) as these may provide more specific answers to some of your queries 🙂

Would you like to disclose the companies so we may judge the comparability.

@bassaniobroke – possibly out of your comfort zone – women’s fashion I mean! Lol 😀

@barbara2012 – leave it with Bassanio and me and one of us will come up with a few suggestions in the coming days I expect….

My immediate reaction is that they both have different business models (as you had already noted). The best match for ASOS would be La Redoute but that is a French company. It is not impossible to use comparators based in other countries (I’ve seen a RAP on Zara, which is Spanish, compared with a British fashion company – can’t remember which but possibly it was Top Shop). When it comes to different currencies you don’t necessarily have to translate the currencies (see some posts I did a month or two back on that) as rather than comparing absolute amounts you can use the ratios for comparison purposes. Not sure if La Redoute is a public or private company – maybe you can check it out @barbara2012 if you are interested?

Any ideas or comments on this from you @bassaniobroke or anyone else for that matter?

still thinking about a company, cannot decide.
Any suggestions?
Many thanks
Barbara

when referencing books examined during research do we cote the page number?

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR RESPONSE.
I HAVE DECIDED TO DO A RAP FOR A PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY
Pfizer ( american) and Johnson & Johnson ( american)

@sebina11 I just wrote something on the Topic 2 Forum which deals with how to start off so you may wish to look at that and the Information Pack pages 25 – 35 are recommended. You should be able to see some OBU exemplars with the link

https://business.brookes.ac.uk/undergraduate/2013/acca/

I discourage the use of actual sharing of work by students as a precaution against possible charges of collusion and although I have read hundreds of RAPs it would be a breach of student confidence for me to share the contents with anyone, sorry. However I am able to comment on the general weaknesses of work that I have seen (and of course share the strengths).

The RAP is a formal A4 size report produced in Word which has 3 main parts: Introduction containing Project Objectives and Research Approach; Information gathering which includes details of how you actually set about assembling the data you are going to work on and limitations on the data collected and Findings (the most important section) which should be where you show how you have analysed and evaluated the data collected. There is also a brief Conclusion which summarises the main points of your findings to which you can add recommendations. Throughout the RAP you are expected to use graphical data, charts and diagrams to illustrate your points as appropriate – and in fact both @bassaniobroke and I recommend that you use visual information as much as possible as it helps the reader assimilate the information far easier than words and is therefore so much more effective as a means of communication (something that students seem slow to grasp).

I suggest at this stage that you follow the advice that I have given to @ellinet on the Topic 2 Forum so that you start to formulate some ideas for your project topic and organisation

Note I shall be moving your post and my reply to it to a more appropriately titled forum (one about how to get started with the RAP) in a couple of days as we need to keep similar questions in the same place

@sebina11 Surely this depends whether you are doing a financial analysis of the company at company level or are looking at the whole group? You need to choose the same analysis level for the comparator ideally as otherwise this must be discussed in Part 2 – as to why you haven’t / couldn’t and the limitations of this

@sm1308 – apologies for the delay in answering. You could do the business analysis now. Check when M&S’s financial statements 2015 are available -think you will probably still be able to use 2014 as 2015 are unlikely to be published before 1st Feb which I think is the cut off for period 30 – but please check the rules in the Information Pack as it is the student’s responsibility to ensure the latest are used. Submission is May not June and again dates are in the Pack. It is better to take time to do a good RAP than attempt it in a hurry.

Conclusions – refer back to you research objectives and questions and briefly summarise the answers to them. Recommendations are things that you think might lead to improved performance.

(This assumes you are doing T8 – for T 17 you can use 2014 but you need to do a quick update when the 2015 CG statement is available. CG is a more dynamic topic e.g. probably the latest accounts for Tesco are also 2014 but it would be madness [and a set fail] in P30 to ignore everything that has gone on in Tesco since then !)

As far as selection of company for your project under topic 8 is concerned, OBU don’t impose any restriction and students have full option to select any company but you have sufficient information about this company along with its associated sector. Important aspects that you need to take in your mind during selection of company are as follows;

• Identify major internal and external reasons for specific to requirements of the topic.
• Vast information is widely available (either through primary and secondary sources of information)

i Ill personally suggest to select any well know local company from oil and gas, fertilizer or tobacco sector.

@warda. How much have you researched this company yourself on the internet? Are the financial statements available? Are there articles in the financial press? If you cannot find much then obviously it is not going to be suitable

As I mentioned in my reply to you a few weeks back you yourself need to assess whether your company meets the criteria in the Information pack and whether there is sufficient info available for adequate analysis and whether there is a suitable comparator. It is now compulsory to use an OBU listed mentor so you should discuss these aspects with them