Business A

nalysis Practice &

Revision K

itACCA

P3

For exams up to June 20

15

ACCA approved content providerBPP Learning Media is dedicated to supporting aspiring business professionals with top-quality learning material as they study for demanding professional exams, often whilst working full time. BPP Learning Media’s commitment to student success is shown by our record of quality, innovation and market leadership in paper-based and e-learning materials. BPP Learning Media’s study materials are written by professionally qualified specialists who know from personal experience the importance of top-quality materials for exam success.

Paper P3

Business Analysis

This Kit provides material specifically for the practice and revision stage of your studies for Paper P3 Business Analysis that has been comprehensively reviewed by the ACCA examining team. This unique review ensures that the questions, solutions and guidance provide the best and most effective resource for practising and revising for the exam.

One of a suite of products supporting Paper P3 Business Analysis, for use independently or as part of a package, this Kit is targeted at ACCA’s exams up to June 2015 and contains:

• Banks of questions on every syllabus area• Answers with detailed guidance on approaching questions• Three mock exams with full answers and guidance

Contact us

BPP House142-144 Uxbridge RoadLondon W12 8AAUnited KingdomT 0845 075 1100 (UK)T +44 (0)20 8740 2211 (Overseas)E Learningmedia@bpp.combpp.com/learningmedia

June 2014£18.00

Paper P3Business AnalysisPractice & Revision Kit for exams up to June 2015

ACCA ApprovedPractice & Revision Kit

ACCA APPROVED CONTENT PROVIDER

Free access to our Exam Success site

Look inside

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PR A C T I C E

&

R E V I S I O N

K I T

PAPER P3 BUSINESS ANALYSIS

BPP Learning Media is an ACCA Approved Learning Partner – content for the ACCA qualification. This means we work closely with ACCA to ensure our products fully prepare you for your ACCA exams.

In this Practice and Revision Kit which has been reviewed by the ACCA examination team we:

Discuss the best strategies for revising and taking your ACCA exams

Ensure you are well prepared for your exam

Provide you with lots of great guidance on tackling questions

Provide you with three mock exams

Provide ACCA exam answers as well as our own for selected questions

Our Passcard and i-pass products also support this paper.

FOR EXAMS TO JUNE 2015

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First edition 2007 Eighth edition June 2014

ISBN 9781 4727 1109 0 (previous ISBN 9781 4453 6653 1) e-ISBN 9781 4727 1173 1

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Published by

BPP Learning Media Ltd BPP House, Aldine Place London W12 8AA

www.bpp.com/learningmedia

Printed in the United Kingdom by

Ricoh UK Limited Unit 2 Wells Place Merstham RH1 3LG

Your learning materials, published by BPP Learning Media Ltd, are printed on paper obtained from traceable, sustainable sources.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of BPP Learning Media Ltd.

We are grateful to the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants for permission to reproduce past examination questions. The suggested solutions in the practice answer bank have been prepared by BPP Learning Media Ltd, except where otherwise stated.

© BPP Learning Media Ltd 2014 ThiN

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iii

Contents Page

Finding questions Question index .................................................................................................................................................................. v Topic index ..................................................................................................................................................................... vii

Helping you with your revision ................................................................................................................... viii

Revising P3

Topics to revise................................................................................................................................................................ ix Reading articles................................................................................................................................................................. x Question practice .............................................................................................................................................................. x Passing the P3 exam........................................................................................................................................................ xi Exam information ........................................................................................................................................................... xvi Useful websites ............................................................................................................................................................. xix

Questions and answers Questions..........................................................................................................................................................................3 Answers ..........................................................................................................................................................................93

Exam practice Mock exam 1 Questions ............................................................................................................................................................291 Plan of attack .......................................................................................................................................................299 Answers...............................................................................................................................................................300

Mock exam 2 (Pilot paper) Questions ............................................................................................................................................................317 Plan of attack .......................................................................................................................................................327 Answers...............................................................................................................................................................328

Mock exam 3 (December 2013) Questions ............................................................................................................................................................349 Plan of attack .......................................................................................................................................................361 Answers...............................................................................................................................................................362

ACCA exam answers June 2013............................................................................................................................................................383 December 2013 ...................................................................................................................................................393

Review form

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A note about copyright Dear Customer What does the little © mean and why does it matter? Your market-leading BPP books, course materials and e-learning materials do not write and update themselves. People write them: on their own behalf or as employees of an organisation that invests in this activity. Copyright law protects their livelihoods. It does so by creating rights over the use of the content. Breach of copyright is a form of theft – as well as being a criminal offence in some jurisdictions, it is potentially a serious breach of professional ethics. With current technology, things might seem a bit hazy but, basically, without the express permission of BPP Learning Media: Photocopying our materials is a breach of copyright Scanning, ripcasting or conversion of our digital materials into different file formats, uploading them to

facebook or emailing them to your friends is a breach of copyright You can, of course, sell your books, in the form in which you have bought them – once you have finished with them. (Is this fair to your fellow students? We update for a reason.) Please note the e-products are sold on a single user licence basis: we do not supply ‘unlock’ codes to people who have bought them second-hand. And what about outside the UK? BPP Learning Media strives to make our materials available at prices students can afford by local printing arrangements, pricing policies and partnerships which are clearly listed on our website. A tiny minority ignore this and indulge in criminal activity by illegally photocopying our material or supporting organisations that do. If they act illegally and unethically in one area, can you really trust them?

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Topic index v

Question index The headings in this checklist/index indicate the main topics of questions, but questions are expected to cover several different topics.

Ins Page number

Marks

Time allocation

Mins Question Answer

Part A: The overall strategic perspective

1 Nesta (6/13) 25 45 3 93

2 Airtite (3.5, 6/06, amended) 25 45 4 96

3 The Management Press (12/10) 25 45 5 100

4 Rock Bottom (6/09) 25 45 6 102

5 iCompute (12/11) 25 45 7 105

6 Jayne Cox Direct (6/12) 25 45 8 108

7 Frigate (12/10) 25 45 9 111

8 Alpha Software 25 45 10 114

Part B: Options and organisation

9 8-Hats (6/11) 25 45 12 118

10 Joe Swift Transport (6/10) 25 45 13 121

11 MMI (12/08) 25 45 15 124

12 Graffoff (12/12) 25 45 17 127

Part C: Strategic implementation

13 Country Car Club (6/08) 25 45 19 131

14 Ergo City (6/10, amended) 25 45 20 134

15 Cronin Auto Retail (6/11) 25 45 21 136

16 BeauCo 25 45 22 139

17 Finch Co 25 45 23 143

18 Chemical Transport (6/13) 25 45 24 146

19 Perfect Shopper (12/07) 25 45 25 149

20 Independent Living (12/09) 25 45 26 152

21 Accounting Education Consortium (6/08) 25 45 27 155

22 ISD (12/11) 25 45 28 159

23 Clothing Company (12/07) 25 45 30 161

24 Tillo Community Centre (6/12) 25 45 32 166

25 Lowlands Bank (12/09) 25 45 33 169

26 HomeDeliver (12/11) 25 45 34 172

27 OneEnergy plc (6/09) 25 45 35 176

28 ASW (6/10, amended) 25 45 37 178

29 Flexipipe (6/12) 25 45 39 182

30 Moor Farm (12/12) 25 45 40 184

31 Institute of Administrative Accountants (12/10) 25 45 41 187

32 Institute of Analytical Accountants (6/11) 25 45 42 189

33 Pharmacy Systems International (6/08) 25 45 44 192

34 World Engines (12/12) 25 45 45 196

35 AutoFone (6/08) 25 45 46 200

36 Academic Recycling Company (6/13) 25 45 48 204

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vi Topic index

Part D: 50 mark questions

37 MidShire Health (6/13) 50 90 50 207

38 Polymat Tapes (3.5,12/03, amended) 50 90 53 212

39 The EA Group (12/12) 50 90 55 216

40 Shoal plc (12/10) 50 90 58 220

41 Bonar Paint (3.5, 6/07, amended) 50 90 60 225

42 Hammond Shoes (6/12) 50 90 62 231

43 GET (12/11) 50 90 65 236

44 EcoCar (6/11) 50 90 68 241

45 Oceania National Airlines (12/07) 50 90 70 247

46 ABCL (12/09) 50 90 73 256

47 Wetland Trust (6/10) 50 90 76 262

48 Institute of Information Systems Architects 50 90 80 268

49 The National Museum 50 90 83 273

50 GreenTech (6/09) 50 90 86 281

Mock exam 1

Mock exam 2

Mock exam 3 (December 2013)

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Topic index vii

Topic index Listed below are the key Paper P3 syllabus topics and the numbers of the questions in this Kit covering those topics.

If you need to concentrate your practice and revision on certain topics or if you want to attempt all available questions that refer to a particular subject, you will find this index useful.

Syllabus topic Question numbers

Benchmarking 39

Business process change

Capabilities and competences

17

11, 14

Change management & the context of change 14, 33, 38, 39, 40, 46, 49

Corporate appraisal (SWOT) 41, 43, 45, 47, 50

Critical success factors 43

Culture 5, 7, 37, 38

Diamond model 10

e-business

e-Marketing

3, 15

15, 18, 22, 47

Environmental analysis 2, 43

Five forces 1, 35, 38, 41, 46, 47

Integrated reporting 8

Investment appraisal

Marketing mix

9, 12, 27, 34, 42, 46

3, 21, 22

IT controls and continuity planning 16

Mission statements and organisational objectives 41, 42, 47

Organisation structure 4, 7, 9, 48

Outsourcing 13, 14, 44

People

PESTEL

36

41, 44, 47, 48, 49

Process-strategy matrix 5, 13, 18, 25, 48

Product Life Cycle

Product portfolio

38

40

Project management 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 31, 37

Software

Stakeholders

Strategic capabilities

Strategic change

Strategic options

Strategy development

Supply chain management

Value chain

27, 29, 32

14, 30, 46, 47

35

14, 33

10, 11, 12, 38, 41, 42, 43

11, 35, 49

6, 19

6, 19, 20

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viii Helping you with your revision

Helping you with your revision

BPP Learning Media – Approved Learning Partner – content

As ACCA’s Approved Learning Partner – content, BPP Learning Media gives you the opportunity to use exam team reviewed revision materials. By incorporating the examination team’s comments and suggestions regarding syllabus coverage, the BPP Learning Media Practice and Revision Kit provides excellent, ACCA-approved support for your revision.

Tackling revision and the exam

Using feedback obtained from the ACCA exam team review:

We look at the dos and don’ts of revising for, and taking, ACCA exams

We focus on Paper P3; we discuss revising the syllabus, what to do (and what not to do) in the exam, how to approach different types of question and ways of obtaining easy marks

Selecting questions

We provide signposts to help you plan your revision.

A full question index

A topic index listing all the questions that cover key topics, so that you can locate the questions that provide practice on these topics, and see the different ways in which they might be examined

Making the most of question practice

At BPP Learning Media we realise that you need more than just questions and model answers to get the most from your question practice.

Our Top tips included for certain questions provide essential advice on tackling questions, presenting answers and the key points that answers need to include

We show you how you can pick up Easy marks on some questions, as we know that picking up all readily available marks often can make the difference between passing and failing

We include marking guides to show you what the examining team rewards

We include comments from the examining team to show you where students struggled or performed well in the actual exam

We refer to the 2014 BPP Study Text (for exams up to June 2015) for detailed coverage of the topics covered in questions

In a bank at the end of this Kit we include the official ACCA answers to the June and December 2013 papers. Used in conjunction with our answers they provide an indication of all possible points that could be made, issues that could be covered and approaches to adopt.

Attempting mock exams

There are three mock exams that provide practice at coping with the pressures of the exam day. We strongly recommend that you attempt them under exam conditions. Mock exams 1 and 2 reflect the question styles and syllabus coverage of the exam; Mock exam 3 is the December 2013 paper.

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Revising P3 ix

Revising P3

Topics to revise

Firstly we must emphasise that you will need a good knowledge of the whole syllabus. Any part of the syllabus could be tested within compulsory Question 1. Having to choose two out of three optional questions does not really represent much choice if there are areas of the syllabus you are keen to avoid. There are certain topics that are stressed in the syllabus and therefore are core:

Strategic position

The need for and purpose of business analysis (rational model, levels of strategy, strategic lenses)

The internal resources, capabilities and competences of an organisation (value chain and corporate appraisal)

Setting critical success factors (CSF) and key performance indicators (KPI)

Environmental issues affecting the strategic position of an organisation (PESTEL and Porter’s Diamond)

Stakeholders, ethics culture and integrated reporting (stakeholder mapping, scope of corporate social responsibility and cultural web)

Strategic choices

Portfolio models; the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix, public sector, parenting matrix and Ashridge Portfolio display

Approaches to achieving competitive advantage (strategy clock and generic options)

Methods of development (Ansoff’s matrix, internal development, mergers, acquisitions)

Criteria to assess strategic options (suitability, acceptability and feasibility)

Strategic action

Organisational set up (boundary-less organisations, hollow, modular and virtual) and strategic alliances (joint ventures, networks, franchising, licensing) and concepts of outsourcing, offshoring and shared services

Organisational configurations (Mintzberg)

Managing strategic change

Organisational context of change (Balogun, Hope and Hailey)

Different approaches to strategic development (emergent strategies)

Business and process change

Assess the stages of the business change lifecycle and the four view model

The role of Harmon’s process strategy matrix

Software solutions

Information technology

Analyse IT and application controls and evaluate controls for safeguarding IT assets

Principles of e-business including upstream and downstream supply chain management

Understand the characteristics of e-marketing using the 6I’s and the use of customer relationship management software (CRM)

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