FLP 211. Operational Case Study (OCS) May Exam Deep Dive

Kevin Gornley: Hello, thanks for listening to the FLP podcast. It's the latest update on news about the finance leadership program. It's produced by AICPA and SEMA. You can find out more at ah, aicpa-cima.com on our FLP specific site enrolled.uh cgma.org as usual. This is myself, Kevin Gornley and um, today I am joined again by Alex William from Kaplan. Now for anyone who's a regular listener, you may remember Alex joined us back in, I think it was only February and we spoke about preparing for the February case study. So hopefully that was useful for those people who listen to the podcast. I know we had exceptionally high downloads and listen. So that was great to see. So Alex has joined us again today to do his very best to do such a great job again. So welcome Alex.

Alex William: Thank you very much. Kevin, thank you for having me back.

Kevin Gornley: We're here to do essentially uh, the same thing again, Alex. We're going to talk about the upcoming uh, exam in May and again we're going to focus on OCS because it's the first exam, it's most challenging for most people and obviously it's a transition exam. So you're coming from non professional exams for most people to your first case study type exam. So we're focusing in this area, uh, and we're hoping this is, this is uh, equally useful. So this time it's the first sitting of a two sitting window for this case study which is soca. And obviously our names are always unusual, uh, and they're usually weighted quite closely to a real company or notionally in some aspects. So Alex, first of all, I suppose we'll talk about the industry and then we'll go into a little bit about sopa. So could you give us an overview of what these guys are about and what industry they work in?

Alex William: Yeah, so it's quite interesting this time around. So the first thing that sort of springs to mind Kevin, is that we're sort of moving away from manufacturing. So SOPA are a restaurant which is, you know, if anyone has looked at previous OCS examinations, it's normally around sort of manufacturing. Quite interesting. This is a restaurant. So it's a restaurant. It's um, it's based in Zealand. There are similarities to other sort of OCS examinations. It's sort of based in its uh, own country, it has its own currency, so the Zealand dollar in Zealand, but it's a restaurant. Uh, the industry is highly competitive, um, around uh, restaurants, um, and it's sort of suffering from a Few things at the moment around sort of low consumer confidence. That's kind of similar to you know, maybe what's happening in the real world. Sort of high interest rates or interest rates are sort of under stresses, cost of living crises around that minimum wage, um, and just you know just some poor working conditions and just trying to sort of uh, you know ah, source staff. So it's a restaurant, it's in its own country and it's family owned. There's lots of good things around that company, around that it is profitable, it is family owned. They've got a great cash position. So we're going to talk a little bit about working capital later. Um, but it's um. As you would expect, the restaurant is kind of heavily reliant on in customer reviews. And anyone that's read the case, uh, the pre scene knows that sort of occupancy and sort of its kind of utilization of its covers is a key metric for them. So sort of using this 85% metric, I've got nine restaurants, six are in Tombo, which is the capital city. Um, and they're giving you loads of stuff around margins in the pre scene but sort of beverages of us kind of high margin and uh, sort of mains middle and sort of start as low. So just summarizing all of that is kind of in a sort of similar uh, sort of industry that is quite competitive. They were sort of smaller player. Um, but they're you know there's some good things going on with it.

Kevin Gornley: This company obviously sounds very much like Alex as I mentioned to you before we started recording here. Like Nando's for example.

Alex William: Yeah, he's got some Nando vibes going on.

Kevin Gornley: Yeah, exactly. And they're focused on a, on a m more quality, unique m experience rather than just you know turning over low cost slop and getting it out door on a volume basis. So quite a similar type of company I dare to say those flavors of.

Alex William: To your point Kevin, this isn't a pre scene. It's sort of quality and affordable. So as we were sort of you know, with Nando's. You know if you can picture Nando's, it's sort of in between sort of fast food and sort of dine in. So yeah it's. It's definitely got sort of Nando's vibes and similar parts of the world as well.

Kevin Gornley: So highly competitive industry. Um, as you say very reliant on customer uh, reviews experience and positivity.

Alex William: Things that jumped out as well Kevin, for that is just for the uh, Industry around, you know, reasons that companies are failing in this area of the stresses of the industry is around sort of too much diversification, expanding too fast and sort of poor customer reviews. So sort of again what's interesting about that, if you look at SOPA's expansion plans, they're sort of operating or uh, considering all of those areas. So as we sort of discussed before the uh, podcast, maybe that's where we can see questions going. So just anyone that's listening to the podcast, maybe sort of look at their expansion plans because there may be questions on that coming up.

Kevin Gornley: Yeah, yeah. Too much too soon for, for many of these companies.

Alex William: Correct? Yeah.

Kevin Gornley: Now we've talked about the industry generally and uh, I know I had a long look at the, the pre scene myself over the last few days based on what we have here from super. What positive and not so positive aspects of the company do you see? And um, like how's it generally performing?

Alex William: Uh, overall from a company perspective? I think it's, I mean just looking through their P L and their SFP, the growth in revenue is great. It's 17 growth in revenue and gross profit, you know again 26 is increasing. So from a sort of P L profitability point of view it looks good. It looks good. And then interestingly from the pre scene you can see that the industry growth is only around four and a half percent. So if revenue's growing at 17 now, say people are doing well, they're navigating this kind of sort of cost of living crisis. Well um, they've got a kind of uniform approach to it. So Paolo, the guy, uh, one of the guys that set it up with his wife, they have a sort of standardized meal, standardized processes, which is a good way to keep cost in sort of, you know on, on a level. But again we can talk about maybe operating costs are looking slightly, maybe high because grace margin looks great, but operating margin does look a little bit high. Working capital looks great. The cash position is good, but just the very nature of being a restauran, highly competitive area. Maybe there'll be stresses around cash and you can hopefully as we were talking about with restaurants, you know, it's all good but you can see that it could go south quite quickly, particularly if these customer reviews, you know, start to continue its trend of going down, a strong reputation and loyal customers. And they've got again similar to other OCS examinations, they're highly sustainable. So they have locally uh, sourced produce and locally sourced sort of second hand furniture. So lots of good things that are going on around it um, maybe some weaknesses around them around that. As I've mentioned, reviews have started to sort of, you know, not. They haven't been so rosy. So customer loyalty was around sort of 70%, lots of repeat customers. But there seems to be a trend of reviews being not so quite as good. Staff turnover is high and it does turn out that morale uh, is starting to decrease, which is obviously crucial for a restaurant, particularly if you're offering some sort of quality and an uh, that's an affordable price. And there's a little bit about sort of reliance on a single supply too. But you know, on the whole at the moment, you know, they seem to be doing okay. Their P and L is particularly good and their cash position is okay, obviously lots of cash.

Kevin Gornley: So short term liquidity is not an issue. But you know, they talk about expansion. Um, with expansion comes a lot of investment at a short basis. So um, that could jeopardize that position there Also a cost issue that you pointed to as well is always something that can get out of control very quickly because it's heavily reliant on manpower, which obviously the costs around that. Uh, you also allude to the budgeting. So the budgeting and the 85% occupancy is a key metric. So obviously the KPIs around that and how they measure. You can see how uh, that could be used in any questions that come up.

Alex William: Yes, what I might do at the end, Kevin. But absolutely, KPIs will be a common question. Uh, ah, you know, under Core Activity C, which is performance management, there will highly likely to be a KPI question. So yes, certainly around occupancy and sustainability I can see some things, um, you know, some KPI questions around that and sort of maybe some variances. Common things in Core Activity C, as we were sort of discussing as well, these new ventures maybe sort of expanding too fast. You know how to use that cash, if you know. Yes, that cash position is healthy at the moment. But you know, it's you if you're starting to spend that in a new venture, lots, uh, of sort of capital requirements around it that can be spent quite quickly. So this sort of ghost kitchen that's described, these branded dips, now they sound sort of, you know, expanding domestically. So they've just opened or about to open a 10th restaurant now. Lots of fixed costs. If you look at their P L, their fixed cost is like a 60% fixed cost base, which is great when the going is good, when revenues increase in your margins are going to look good, not so good. Obviously when revenue starts to drop. So it's, you know, it's summarize, uh, it looks great but there's just a few things in my sort of mind. Example, my spider senses tingling. It could kind of go south, particularly around the brand uh, of Dips and Ghost Kitchen if they're not reviewed very well.

Kevin Gornley: It screams to me like many of the big chains were very successful when they were maybe under, you know, a dozen or two dozen small market and then they tried to expand nationwide or at least regionally and unfortunately lost control of quality and I couldn't personal touch and the end product suffered because of supply changes, etc. So yeah, it's teetering on the age of a very successful business that could fail very quickly if they don't make the right decisions.

Alex William: Yes, I've echoed that loudly.

Kevin Gornley: Jumping into the main areas are like the core activities. I know you've done that review before, Alex.

Alex William: Uh hm.

Kevin Gornley: Is that something you could walk through in terms of the key things a student should be focusing on or looking at and preparation?

Alex William: Yes, I can go down through um, each core activity. Absolutely. Um, just as I sort of said, um, you know, looking at uh, each core activity, there's a few new extra bits that have popped in. Um, anyone that's looked at the SEMA blueprint that's sort of been published recently, uh, we can see in costing that um, environmental cost in a quality costing are going to be examined from this city. And so that would be something to look at. So when I'm, when I go through that, I'll call out the kind of newer bits that have come in. Uh, core activity D which is accounting standards. There's less waiting now for that. So that's moved down to 7 to 13 and now there is more weight in towards working capital. So you know, anyone that sort of read through the pre scene a few times, you can sort of see that there's lots of discussions around cash movements in inventory. Now I would, you know, in my humble opinion, expect maybe some more sort of questions around uh, those kind of areas, but no working through each one of those, as I said, their future plans at the moment. So this sort of new retail product line that uh, could come in in house and sort of outsource. So sort of core activity E, there could be some stuff around, um, you know, incremental cash flows that come in, um, home delivery service around the Ghost Kitchen and then um, these vertical farms. So that kind of comes into the sustainable aspect. But if we just go through why each core activity and Then Kevin, if you just want to jump in as we go through, um, interestingly for core A, which is costing from here most OCS examinations do talk a lot around absorption costing versus abc. Now interestingly for SOPA they use a marginal cost system. So immediately that sort of springs out a question that sort of talks around absorption costing versus abc, which is commonly examined. That uh, doesn't seem so suitable at the moment just because they're using a marginal cost system. So obviously prepare for everything. Thank you to the people downloading, but anyone that's listening please, um, prepare for everything. But at the moment ABC um versus absorption costing may be more appropriate if they go for this new venture rather than something different. You know the occupancy rate of 85% is probably a more critical metric. Ones that are sticking out under costing is digital costing. So similar to our OCS examinations, they do have a website but they don't have an application or an app at the moment. They don't have an app. So traditional versus digital costing is a common thing that's examined under that. Um, and so I would make sure that you're okay with that. So traditional costing, a lot of costs are upfront, particularly in a restaurant, especially if you're, you know, raw materials being cooked by chefs. Um, digital costing, lots of those costs come post development. Um, the categories around digital costing are sometimes not answered very well. So um, I will talk about the CEMA marking guidance at the end. But technical understanding is what one of the pillars that is now uh being released by sema. Um, but technical understanding around digital cost in making sure we know the different categories of costs. So sort of functional cost, administrative costs, infrastructure costs and IT support. Now from a kind of um, a SOPA point of view. Now where is this app going to be hosted from? Who is going to support it, you know, what it teams around it. Um, as discussed, quality costs and environmental costs. They're new, so they're new that are coming up at the moment. So conformance cost and non conformance. So prevention appraisal, um, internal failure costs and external failure cost. Um, please know that for the exam because if that's new, um, then it may be that some variants will be examining that. It's probably kind of likely for that. So that was core activity A, core activity B which is budgeting. So sort of normally around 25, up to 25% of any variance. Um, common things that are examined and probably will be consistent themes in this case study. Again prepare for everything please. Um, incremental versus zbb. So from the pre scene which is common, uh, to an OCS examination, they use top down incremental budgeting. Quite good for their business as usual, which is in Zealand. So if you're a restaurant and you've got a kind of a consistent approach, which is what Paulo has, he has a sort of consistent approach to meals probably okay incremental there. But zbb, please know the pros and cons, particularly if they go into this new uh, country Nyland, they probably will need to know zbb, um, similar things for um, from a technical understanding point of view, please know the steps of zbb. So lots of students will know that you start from scratch. But there is four processes for zbb. So identifying activities and then the cost and benefits of division, ah, decision packages, ranking those decision packages and then allocating resources. So there's sort of four steps to a ZBB budget. Um, that all just gives structures to your answer. So when you're going through that and you're kind of planning your answers that will give structure, subheadings. You can talk about the subheading, use those for uh, sort of your structure and making sure that your answer and the requirements properly. Rolling budgets, beyond budgeting. So rolling budgets, sort of a variety of performance measures, maybe something around beyond budgeting as well. That's just the reason I think that may become a thing because if they're using top down imposed budgeting, uh, beyond budgeting is kind of a movement away from that. So there could be a requirement around that. Forecasting, I think. Forecasting, time series analysis. So if you think about a restaurant, you know, we were talking about Nando's just a moment ago. You know, Nando's are probably going to be more busy at the weekend because people want to eat out at the weekend. So sort of Friday and Saturday, maybe a little bit more busy than a Monday and a Tuesday. What does that kind of um, you know, think about in my head, maybe some movements towards a sort of seven day moving average, some sort of seasonal variation, but the variations will be by day. So that's sort of again core activity B, forecasting, um, maybe something around a time series analysis, um, core activity C, which is a common thing. KPIs. So KPIs will be examined. Lots of students will sort of be comfortable with the concept of a KPI from a theoretical point of view. Just make sure please that when you're answering questions that you really are specific. So KPIs are smart, they're specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely. But please make sure that you are being specific with your KPIs. So around ghost kitchen which Kevin mentioned earlier, sustainability around that ghost kitchen, the quality of that ghost kitchen. If you are then offering a takeaway service, how do you ensure that that is going to be sort of the quality standards are maintained. Perfect way to bring in the pre scene as well. If you, if you're looking at reviews and reviews are slightly on a downwards trend, you certainly would want your ghost kitchen to have basically KPIs that measured quality. So around sustainability, quality around that uh, variances, the usual ones around variances please. Variances are very very common ocs. So around um, variances, the normal ones, you know, cost and sales variances, particularly around mixed variances. They do have different types of mains. We have them fish mains, uh, meat mains, all of those kind of things. Make sure that you know the different margins please and then can talk through sales variances, particularly mixed ones. Sometimes mixed ones aren't answered very well. And please use attachments if you want it. We'll talk about the marking guide together in a second Kevin. Um, but from the marking um, guidance the use of information from the scenario. So if you have an attachment please please refer to back to the attachment. Particularly for variances. If there's a favorable variance call out what that variance is. You know 2,500 Zealand dollars favorable. It just you know gives a bit more credibility to your answer. Core activity D which is accounting standards, um, that as I said the um weighting has moved down. Obviously all core activities, everyone will be measured in each exam. So each one, core activity A to F will be in every exam. But core activity D has just become a little bit less weighted, the usual um, so sort of PPE. So IAS 16 should I buy an asset or should I lease an asset immediately as well? So what can be capitalized, what can be expensed as part of an asset depreciation method? So straight line, reducing balance, things that are jumping out straight away. This vertical farming that they're talking about under sustainability, should they, you know it's going to be quite a lot of um, you know machinery and equipment that's going to be bought for that. Do we bind up equipment or do we uh, lease it? So that sort of jumps out straight away. And then the usual things around inventory please. IAS2 the lower of cost and NRV just make sure that you look out for something in the scenario where the net realizable value, the NRV is now lower than the cost. Um, you know the cost will always Be lower in the nrv. Unless something as bad has happened, look out for something where, you know, maybe some sort of dips have reached their sell by date and we need to sell them to a third party or give them to third party. Just the last couple on here. Core activity E. So around relevant costing. Kevin's already alluded to this slightly, but outsourcing and keeping in house. So this dip range. So one of the, uh, future aspirations of SOPA is to have this dip range. Do we produce them in house or do we outsource them? Future incremental cash flows, is it in the future, is it cash and is it incremental? So do remember that most fixed costs are not incremental. So just, you know, make sure that you consider that. And again, similar to before, please refer to attachments, linear programming. So around constraints, again, if we want to look at the ghost kitchen, if there is a ghost kitchen and there's constraints on chef's times, or maybe on some sort of oven, some sort of equipment, what is the best produce to make? What is the best main meal to make? Uh, decision trees, payoff tables are also commonly examined. So please make sure you know about expected values for the exam. So from a risk neutral point, point of view is expected values and then risk seeking and risk averse. The new thing that's popping up in Core activity E is weighted average benefits. So that is commonly going to be probably in a variant somewhere. So please make sure that you're okay with that. And then finally, um, moving on to core activity F, um, around, um, inventory. So just in time and economic order, quantity inventory. So know the pros and cons for that. Please do know the assumptions as well, so please know the assumption. So eoq, we assume that there's a constant purchase price, a constant demand. There's no buffer inventory. Sometimes that can not be answered, um, as strongly as it should be. So just please know. Sure. If you're just in time and eoq, please know the assumptions behind it and consider each inventory line separately, please. If you think about napkins, napkins, probably, you know, you can put them on a shelf. Think about Nando's napkins. They're probably on a shelf for a while. Ingredients, if they're fresh and it's affordable and quality, obviously they can't be lying around for very long. So certain lines of inventory will have different treatments. Uh, working capital. Interestingly, from here they have a negative working capital cycle. SOPA, they have a negative 14.5 days, which is very interesting. So normally it's positive. So at the moment their payable days are actually easing liquidity concerns. So I would expect a question please around receivables at the moment. If you think about a restaurant at the moment like Nando's, what are the receivables for that you just, you basically pay, you get billed immediately. The customer pays on here. Their uh, receivable days are just a couple of days because it's just a credit card or a debit card that's clearing through the bank. If they move into these new ventures, there'll be some sort of B2B business to business customer and there will be receivable days. What does that mean? Probably a factoring or invoice discounting question could be a thing. And then as Kevin has mentioned, surpluses of cash. What are we going to do with those? There will be some, maybe some short term investments, long term investments. Um, what are we going to do with that? Are we going to invest into Niland? Look out for things around overtrading. And just one last part of that. If we do go into a new venture, remember we don't know any of our customers, we don't know any of our suppliers. So we probably would have to look at some sort of metrics around suppliers that can be commonly examined. So sorry, that was a little bit um, me sort of talking at you there. But it was just you know the technical understanding, communication, use of information provided and application to the scenario. Any thoughts on that, Kevin?

Kevin Gornley: I don't know anything just to be very clear in terms of what's coming up on the exam. But the whole ghost kitchen or producing um dips for example for selling uh, third party. I'd be very very surprised if they don't test that some manner because you know that's going from a B2C to a B2B type environment potentially. So through the risks, the challenges that come with that are quite an operational concern. So I think that's a uh, very likely. But again that's just a guess. But looking at the whole pre scene in its entirety there are so many things that jump out. There are, and this is the challenge with the operational case study is there's so many things you could say well I would expect that or I would expect this. Uh, would you touched on a few things Alex that have just been added to the syllabus.

Alex William: Yeah. So uh, in core activity A the sort of environmental and quality cost in. So any flpers out there that's in your competencies and anyone on a traditional pathway that's in uh, P1. And it has been around in those uh, sort of, you know, in those competencies and in that examination for a while. But it is the first time it's been examined at ocs. So you know, if you think about it from you know, sort of maybe a viewpoint is likely that they want to sort of, if it's new, if you can imagine it's new, that you probably are going to get examined on it, you know. So um, yeah, so core activity A, the environmental costing and then working capital, just because there's a little bit more waiting for it. Um, you know management accountants, I'm SEMA qualified, you know, we help people drive decisions, we give people information around that maybe less focus now on sort of core activity D which is the kind of hardcore financial accounting. How do I capture capitalize an asset? Which is obviously very important. But um, around Core Activity F, you know, the decisions around cash and managing inventory, it just appears at SEMA and maybe rightfully so just put more weight in towards those elements. So prepare for working capital which used to be up to 13%, it's now up to 18 and core activity D has been pushed down to 13. But as Kevin said, please prepare for everything, please.

Kevin Gornley: Yeah, I think the focus and some of the changes and the industry where a lot of the core financial stuff companies are now seeing that as a software AI type job and more. So you see it in the headlines where uh, even some of the big consultancy companies are moving from a focus on the auto tax to more consultancy, advisory, general service. Not all clear leaders are rule for, for many, many people. But the shift, the, the subtle shifts, um, and the weightings. Yes, we think that we're moving with the times in terms of the, the importance put upon the tasks for the management accountant.

Alex William: Yes, I think it's actually what's great. I think is probably never been a better time to be a management accountant because as you say with AI is if you ask how do I capitalize this, is this allowable? Then you know, maybe obviously you have to check your AI output. Uh, but you know that you may be able to get quite an accurate answer on that. But if you've got somebody that says should I invest in this business or what should I do with this cash? You probably do want a human being that's qualified at the end of that process. So yes, for um, SOPA it is quite interesting because they are exploring AI in there. Um, and um, what they were talking about particularly is again is what Kevin was saying at the beginning around Nando's if you can just picture any restaurant that you may have gone into, you know, being able to order on an app now or maybe order on a screen through a QR code that may be again sort of some sort of examination point. There's a rather um, it did make me smile actually from the pre scene as a picture of a beautiful robot going down an aisle which you know, maybe from here some sort of like um, AI robot delivers your food. I think if you are sort of, you know a Latin American family run business, maybe sort of more ordering the customer ordering side rather than the delivery side. But they are embracing it as part of the industry, uh, just on the guidance for that. So anyone that has listened to it, technical understand. So the four pillars that have been released, they are in previous ocs but SEMA have given more clarity around that. So, so OCS to pass OCS it's a scaled score of 80 out of 150. So the total examinations out of 150 and you need to get 80 across four tasks. Across those four tasks there's four pillars which is technical understanding. So technical understanding as um, Kevin opened the um, conversation with OCS is the first case study and it is a lot of testing. Do you know the actual theory behind it? You know the theory and can you apply in context to sopa? Ah, so technical understanding, you know, summarizing what that means is have you got any big glaring gaps in your technical knowledge? If you need 80 out of 150. If you look at the marking grid which is across lots of mock exams. There's lots of great resources on the CGMA hub around level two and level three answers. But level two showing some sort of technical understanding and level three where you're, where you are demonstrating very concise technical understanding communication. Um, remember you are advising SOPA in this case study so make sure that you are using professional language, no slang, you know, and then just things where, if you are getting an email from Paolo or your boss, make sure that you actually reply back to the person that's writing back to you. You know, maybe a report format but you know, keep your, you know, give advice and use a professional tone. The last two pillars, the one is use of information provided. So what does that. It means attachments and um, descriptions. So uh, when you're reading through, remember you're given 20% planning time per task. Each task is 45 minutes. So you're giving like nine minutes planning time or up to that. Now make sure that you're looking through attachments and using them proactively, please. So some of the weaker answers or some of the level one answers, just ignore the attachments. And. And if you do that, you are not doing what Seema's advising, which is to use the information provided and then application to the scenario. Keep talking about sopa, uh, if they are talking about a new venture, if they've gone into Niland, if they've talked about this ghost kitchen, which, uh, Kevin and I have been speaking about. Make sure you keep coming back to the ghost kitchen. And talk too generically, please. If you do that, have the best chance.

Kevin Gornley: No, I know you asked me a question about those areas, Alex. I didn't answer. Sorry to be like a politician. What they've done is re emphasize what you need to do to be successful in the case study. There's nothing especially new in that information. Guess what? They've done it. They've changed the communication to make it more explicit in terms of the things. So we've always said, you know, this is the most technical, uh, exam. You will need to relate this to the case. So as Alex says, if in fact you're talking about a company, mention it. The products mention it. The people mention the people, mention the currencies, mention the competitors if they're mentioned. You gotta make this relevant without making it relevant, then you lose that authenticity, uh, and the appropriateness of the use of your knowledge to the case. So you stand much less of a chance of passing. So, so many students don't do that still. So, uh, I knew that was part of the initiative that they had in their mind when they published that information ox. So, yeah, very, very important, uh, to mention them. The other thing for our, uh, FL appears is just again, I know everyone's sick hearing this from me, but understand what you're going into. So look at the case study review course. Understand the parameters of the exam, how you're expected to behave, what the terms and conditions are. Uh, Alex touched on the pass mark, et cetera. So understand all of that. Understand your content, do mock exams. Do mock exams. Do mock exams. They are the best thing you can do to prepare. But also look at past answers and how they're constructed. You know, the tone, the way a model answer is structured in terms of how it's laid out, and, um, the air of, I guess, professionalism, as I like to point it out, it's really, really important. So do all of that. You have a better chance to understand the precinct. Remember, you don't need to have the precinct entirely in your mind. But I think for most people sitting in this exam, they will have experienced a similar organization and it's relevant and it's relatable to a lot of people. And I think that helps with, uh, people taking the exam because we found in the past that, uh, the more relatable the cases in terms of real life experience, the more successful students are. So I will learn to eat my words on this one based on results. We've done things about technology like phones or chains of gyms, uh, things that younger people use generally. And I know all our students are not 20 somethings, but the vast bulk are. Yeah, anything relatable people have more interest on and actually can think differently.

Alex William: Absolutely. Uh, again, the other side of that coin is you don't have to have eaten in Nando's to sort of appreciate what that restaurant is. But I, you know, with recent case studies. Exactly what Kevin said. Please just go. And on the CGMA hub, there's lots and lots of resources. Um, just look at as many mock exams as past mock exams as, um, possible would be my advice. You'll see there's ones around sort of backpacks and saddles and bakeries. Um, you know, hopefully sort of with Nando's, a restaurant, even if it isn't Nando's, particularly, you've eaten in a restaurant, so they can sort of understand the importance of a service and, um, you know, making sure that staff is, you know, staff is a critical thing for sopa. And, you know, staff morale does look a little bit lower. So. Yes, absolutely. As Kevin said, there may be nothing new around those five, four pillars, but when you're reading through that, um, if people want sort of just a, sort of my idea of a structure, just use your planning time to come up with some subheadings, please. It gives great structure to your answer. If you're the person that sometimes thinks, actually, I'm running out of time, um, subheadings are a good way to actually go. Okay, this task is worth 22 minutes, half of 45 minutes. I've got 23 minutes to write about this and I need four subheadings. And then that sort of directs your brain to kind of just go, actually, I only need five or six minutes per subheading. You'll just get into good habits of, actually, I think I'm overrunning a little bit here. I need to stop talking about this and move on to the next thing. Do remember that after each 45 minutes, the first task closes and the second task opens. So you can't go Back, you can't go back. So subheadings are good for that. So use a subheading. Please show the technical understanding by using a framing sentence. So sort of frame what your subheading means. So if you're talking about, you know, the economic order, quantity model, explain what that actually means in general terms, not only for one or two sentences. Please don't talk too generically. Show the technical understanding. Remember, no calculations are required. So no calculations required in ocs, but certainly the descriptions of it are important. And then so subheadings, framing sentence and then really linked to the scenario. So as we've talked about, quite a lot of, if it's about the ghost kitchen, if it's about the dips keep coming back to that, I don't want to dumb it down too much, but if you haven't mentioned SOPA every second or third sentence, you're probably not talking about them enough. So make sure you keep linking back to it. And if the requirement asks for a recommendation, please give a recommendation. So as long as you justify it, you will be giving credit for that.

Kevin Gornley: Yeah, very good points. Very good point, sir.

Alex William: To wrap us up, Alex, very much enjoy these sessions. So thank you and good luck. Anyone that is listening in.

Kevin Gornley: Absolutely. Like, there's a reason you're back, to be honest, because I think the way someone can pick this up and in 30 minutes listen to, uh, the highlights and it gives a bit more focus. So when you come onto your case study review course, even if you haven't looked at anything whatsoever, you sort of can, ah, navigate yourself quicker. I think, um, that's the purpose of why we're doing this.

Alex William: Yeah, you can just absorb it, can't you? Just, you just let it sort of every time you listen to something or somebody talking about sopra, it all just starts to sort of sink in a bit more. So thank you.

Kevin Gornley: Well, thanks very much for taking the time again, Alex. That's much appreciated. Uh, there'll be more on the topic in the show notes, as usual. To view them, click on the episode's info icon on the podcast app or on your smartphone or tablet, or open the episode in your browser. As I said. For more information on the Finance Leadership program, go to enrol.cgma.org thank you for listening. If you know a friend or colleague that could use some information, feel free to share it with them. That's it for now. We'll have an hour podcast, uh, episode soon. Wish everyone good luck on the exam and hopefully you get good news. Six or seven weeks later. Okay, thanks now. Bye bye.

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