Accounting Exam Qual. Framework
Accounting Exam Qualitative Analysis
Role and Scope and Date
- Who are you and what is your role in the organization?
- What does our role imply as to what we have the authority to make a decision on?
- Will we need higher level management support? Can we do this on our own?
- Make sure to pay close attention to the date and remember what is happening during that time
- Implications
Issues and Decisions
- What issues need to be addressed and what decisions need to be made?
- What are the possible decisions we can make, including all alternatives and do nothing
- How might these decisions affect our current situation? Negative and positive things
- What are considerations and constraints from the beginning?
Internal Analysis
- SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)
- Defining characteristics of the production process?
- labour intensive or capital intensive organization
- high skilled labour/ low skilled labour? Training necessary?
- standard or custom products?
- what type of inventory levels are required and does it influence operations
- can they benefit from economies of scale?
- Use case facts to highlight these and then draw implications from all of them that effect our decision
- anything going on in finance, ops, HR or marketing that will seriously affect our decision?
External Analysis
- Industry analysis: What is the nature of industry and what does it mean for our decision at hand? (growth, mature, dying) Look for seasonality, recent industry trends, how prices are set in the industry (price follower or setter?), how influential we are on the industry, how do political, economical, social and technological factors affect the industry, any specific industry trends, and implications
- Competitive analysis: who are the competitors, what are their strengths and weaknesses and how to we combat their strengths? How do we differentiate from the competition, who has the comp. advantage and what is it? Will the
Role and Scope and Date
- Who are you and what is your role in the organization?
- What does our role imply as to what we have the authority to make a decision on?
- Will we need higher level management support? Can we do this on our own?
- Make sure to pay close attention to the date and remember what is happening during that time
- Implications
Issues and Decisions
- What issues need to be addressed and what decisions need to be made?
- What are the possible decisions we can make, including all alternatives and do nothing
- How might these decisions affect our current situation? Negative and positive things
- What are considerations and constraints from the beginning?
Internal Analysis
- SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)
- Defining characteristics of the production process?
- labour intensive or capital intensive organization
- high skilled labour/ low skilled labour? Training necessary?
- standard or custom products?
- what type of inventory levels are required and does it influence operations
- can they benefit from economies of scale?
- Use case facts to highlight these and then draw implications from all of them that effect our decision
- anything going on in finance, ops, HR or marketing that will seriously affect our decision?
External Analysis
- Industry analysis: What is the nature of industry and what does it mean for our decision at hand? (growth, mature, dying) Look for seasonality, recent industry trends, how prices are set in the industry (price follower or setter?), how influential we are on the industry, how do political, economical, social and technological factors affect the industry, any specific industry trends, and implications
- Competitive analysis: who are the competitors, what are their strengths and weaknesses and how to we combat their strengths? How do we differentiate from the competition, who has the comp. advantage and what is it? Will the