BUSS3 January 15th

I've been taught to use the FMOP structure in the 34/36 marker.

F is where you talk about Finance, this could be liquidity, profitability or Investment Appraisal figures which you would need to expand on.

M is where you talking about the marketing factors, such as Research, PED, Marketing budget and forecast growth in the market.

O is where you talking about the business and its operations, this could be delivery times, defective products? Capacity utilisation and total output. You would need to examine how (If they're bad or have fallen or are lower than the industry average) it would affect the business and always refer back to its corporate objective and how it would affect that.

P is where you talk about its HR strategies, this could be the number of them that belong to a Union, hourly pay rates (Increased or decreased after proposal?) or its training budget, always look in the Appendix and it will always point out something that you can write about.

When writing the exam, if you are against the structure, then write three points AGAINST using FMO, for the FOR points write two points using OP (Operations and HR). You can do the same with this if you think they should use the strategy.

To help you structure better, you're allowed to subheading your FOR and AGAINST point so you know what you're writing about.

I always conclude at the end of each paragraph with an "It depends on factor" which will gain evaluation marks.

But remember, always refer back to the case study and always state that whatever you're writing about how it will affect the business and how it will affect their corporate objectives.

Is it possible to get an A without revising for the content for the exam? I know how vital it is to use the case study/appendix.. but what about the content?

It is possible, but you need to know the basic knowledge otherwise you won't know the affects.

E.G. If a firms ROCE has risen from 30% to 34% you will need to know what a rise in ROCE does to a business.

Is it possible to get an A without revising for the content for the exam? I know how vital it is to use the case study/appendix.. but what about the content?

What does a high ROCE actually do? I know you can compare it to interest rates to measure it and shareholders will be happy

can some help me with Critical Path Anaylsis... I don't understand float time :'(. I am really nervous about this exam!!
Also can some also explain to me about economies of scale and diseconomies of scale please

is everyone prepared?
i have just tried to learn some of the vital things,
business can go both ways. i can pass or just fail
my teacher is an examiner and on the board so i should be ashamed if i don't pass

can some help me with Critical Path Anaylsis... I don't understand float time :'(. I am really nervous about this exam!!
Also can some also explain to me about economies of scale and diseconomies of scale please

To understand float time you would need to understand the critical path very well.

Critical path analysis has two ways, one way is the critical way. The critical route is simply those that tasks that cannot be delayed and on the hand you have non critical routes these are tasks that we can afford to delay without having any impact on the overall time it takes to complete a project.
So float time is simply the difference between the latest time and earliest time of those tasks in a non critical path.

Economies and diseconomies of scale are easy to understand.
Economies scale is simply a fall in the long run average cost as out increases.
Think about when Morrison took over Safeway, Morrison could have benefited from purchasing economies of scale or in other words bulk buying.


Diseconomies is an increase in long run average as size of operation increases. Think about it this way, as the firm grows the lines of communication become much more complex and therefore communication can be delayed and this could lead to problems such as responding to the market needs.

what is the formula to calculate float time?

float time=LFT-activity duration-EST