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MODULE ASSESSMENT - BEMM112DA Cohort 2L20

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MODULE ASSESSMENT: BEMM112DA-2L20
This module is assessed by two assignments and several formative exercises:
Assignment 1 time and date due: 23:55 Monday 8 March 2021
Assignment 2 time and date due: 23:55 Wednesday 14 April 2021
% Weight:
Form of Assessment:
50%
Assignment 1
Evaluate a chosen organisation’s
challenges and opportunities
based on an analysis of its
published financial statements.
Assignment 2
Propose and justify a financial
and non-financial Balanced
Scorecard to support the
strategic approach of a chosen
organisation.
50%
Size of the
assessment e.g.
duration/length
20 minutes audio
commentary +
supporting
spreadsheets
ILOs assessed by
this assessment:
Feedback
method:
1, 3
Written
Spreadsheet
report plus 2,500word report
All
Written
Marking rubrics for both assignments are provided in the appendix.
Assignment 1: Evaluate a chosen organisation’s challenges and opportunities based on an analysis
of its published financial statements
Context:
As a senior leader within an organisation you will typically be entrusted with resources and
accountable for the stewardship and performance of those resources. This assignment supports
your ability to explain to stakeholders how you have discharged your responsibilities. The only
difference between this exercise and what you may do, currently or in the future, is the level of
detail and frequency. Internally you will have access to a much greater level of detail and will likely
do this on a monthly or quarterly basis.
Detailed requirement:
1. Identify a real organisation that prepares audited annual financial statements that are
publicly available. You may want to choose your own organisation or a competitor or peer.
Equally, you may choose an organisation purely on the basis that it interests you. You are
not limited to UK organisations. You are also not limited to for-profit organisations – very
insightful analysis can be extracted from a review of the financial statements of non-profit
organisations. A key consideration should be the level of detail provided by the financial
statements – some organisations have a minimalist approach to presentation and disclosure
which would make it harder to provide a meaningful analysis.
2. Obtain the audited financial statements covering at least three but no more than five years.
3. Perform a financial analysis of the organisation in order to understand what assets the
organisation employs, how it has funded them, what income it has made and what expenses
it has incurred. Identify relevant trends and relationships in the financial data and assess the
key drivers behind these movements. Consider the strategic implications to the organisation
in terms of challenges and opportunities.
4. Create spreadsheets and graphs in Excel as required to support your analysis. These will be
assessed on the basis of clarity and accuracy.
5. Compile a PowerPoint slide deck to present your findings. If you wish to present a draft for
feedback this is the point you must do so, we will not provide feedback on the final
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slideshow (next step). You may use extracts or charts from your Excel workbook in the slide
deck.
6. Record a PowerPoint slide show discussing your findings. Detailed guidance will be provided
in the assessment information tile on ELE on how to do this.
7. Load the PowerPoint Show (.ppsx) and Excel (.xls) files to the assessment site as well as the
financial statements that you used.
Assignment 2: Propose and justify a financial and non-financial Balanced Scorecard to support the
strategic approach of a chosen organisation.
Context:
The financial and business data analysis that is introduced in this module is required by senior
leaders in developing and executing organisational strategy.
Place yourself in the role of a senior manager such as internal auditor or finance manager for an
organisation. You have been charged with leading a project to develop an information framework
that will help the organisation achieve its strategic vision.
This organisation can, but does not have to, be the same as the organisation you chose for
assignment 1 although it is likely that you will derive some efficiencies from using the same
organisation. It would be beneficial but not essential to use your own organisation. You are free to
use another organisation such as a former employer or an organisation you are interested in,
possibly a peer or competitor of your employer.
The use of an organisation is key as the application of the topics to be discussed can vary
significantly depending on the nature of the organisation. The essential consideration is that you
should be able to discuss how the topics are applied in practical specifics rather than academic
generalities.
Detailed requirement:
1. Using Excel, you are required to create a Balanced Scorecard report. The report should be
able to stand on its own (i.e. be clear and informative) without reference to the
accompanying memorandum discussed below. Effectively, this would be the report that
would be distributed to the attendees at the meeting to discuss the organisation’s
performance management. It is expected that you would have the standard 4 perspectives
although you could propose your own perspectives but should not exceed 6 perspectives.
Within each of these perspectives you are expected to have 3 to 5 relevant objectives. Each
of these objectives would have 1 or 2 indicators or measures and would be supported by 1
or 2 initiatives.
2. You are also required to submit a 2,500-word memorandum providing justification for the
measures you have chosen to use in the Balanced Scorecard. Start with an introduction to
the organisation and explain what its mission is and how it creates value for its stakeholders.
Discuss the organisation’s approach to strategy and what actions it should take to effectively
execute the strategy and how these would be measured using the scorecard you have
developed.
All the topics covered in this module will have some relevance to the scorecard and rationale that
you submit. Although your report should provide comprehensive coverage of the performance
management framework your memorandum, providing the rationale for the metrics you suggest,
may likely focus on a few areas rather than the entire range of metrics.
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Alignment of assignments to the Finance Knowledge and Skills in the CMI Evidence Locator
Professional discussion:
D1 / D2 / D3
D4 / D5
D10
Understands financial strategies including scenarios, modelling and identifying
trends; application of economic theory to decision-making, and how to evaluate
financial and non-financial information.
Understands financial governance and legal requirements, and procurement
strategies.
Oversees procurement, supply chain management and contracts.
Work-based project showcase:
D6 / D7
D8
D9
Oversees financial strategies/management, results and setting organisational
budgets, and challenges financial assumptions underpinning strategies
Is accountable for decisions based on relevant information eg Key Performance
Indicators/scorecard
Uses financial data to allocate resources
Assignment 1 assesses your understanding of financial statements and your ability to identify trends
within financial statements and evaluate financial and non-financial information in order to
understand the financial strategies and decision-making of the organisation.
This understanding and ability assessed in the first assignment also provides the foundation for the
other knowledge and skills outcomes required by a Senior Leader. In order to effectively exercise
financial governance, including compliance with legal requirements, it is essential to have knowledge
of the contents of financial statements. Equally budgeting, formulation and monitoring of strategy,
and resource allocation including procurement, supply chain management, and contracts, all require
an understanding of the elements of financial statements and in turn have an impact on the financial
statements.
Assignment 2 expands your understanding of financial information while providing the insights that
financial information on its own is often not sufficient to support decision-making and oversight of
strategy. The assignment provides you with the opportunity to apply non-financial information to
support decisions which will include consideration of resource allocation, procurement strategies,
budgeting, and governance.
Assignment feedback:
You will have the opportunity to submit a draft of each assignment. It is important that objective
and scope of the feedback given be clarified to avoid misunderstanding. The objective is to provide
you with feedback on the fit of your draft to the requirements of the assignment, not what you need
to include to achieve a certain mark. The assignments must be your own work and follow University
requirements for citation and referencing to comply with proper academic conduct.
The objective of the feedback is to reduce the stress associated with coursework and help students
avoid a failure (referral) by providing an advance warning that the draft submission is not yet of the
required standard to pass. You will not be told what to do to pass but instead will be told that a
section is insufficient or shows a misunderstanding of the requirements. Where a section is on track
to pass you will receive feedback to that effect. You will not receive any indication of a likely mark.
If you are confident you understand the brief and have a clear idea of the content you will provide
you will likely find no advantage in submitting a draft. Only one draft may be submitted i.e. you
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cannot submit a draft, respond to feedback to try get the assignment to a pass level and then
resubmit.
Drafts must be submitted through the drop box that will be provided in the assignment folder within
the ELE module site. (If an extension has been granted than the deadline will be two weeks before
the extended deadline – if this applies it is critical that you let your module leader know that you
have submitted a draft for feedback). Again, advance clarification is needed to prevent
misunderstanding – drafts submitted after the deadline will not be reviewed. No exceptions to this
will be made. This is for reasons of logistics and fairness. For the feedback objective sufficient time
needs to exist between receiving the feedback and the final submission date. The module leader
also needs sufficient time to complete the review. All students need to be treated equally so it is not
appropriate to make an exception and review the efforts of some students beyond the deadline. So,
to reiterate, the deadline exists for valid reasons and to be fair has to be applied consistently.
Submission Guidelines
Please submit your assignments electronically only through the assignment submission link on the
Exeter Learning Environment (ELE) module webpage. Do not submit any paper copies.
All submissions when uploaded must include the following information on the front sheet:
Module Code: BEMM112DA
Module Name: Financial and Business Data Analysis
Candidate Number: e.g. 012345 (on every page in Word or Excel but not PowerPoint)
Time / Word Count: e.g. 21 minutes / 4,724 words (+/- 10% tolerance)
Page numbers:
You should not include your student number (9-digit number beginning with 6) or your name
Late Submission of Assignments
You must submit your assignment(s) by the deadline(s) specified, if you fail to submit on time, the
following penalties apply:
• The penalty for assessed work submitted up to two weeks and without an agreed extension
is a capped mark of 50%.
• Assessed work submitted more than two weeks beyond a submission date will receive a
mark of zero.
Genuine mitigating circumstances should be supported by a medical certificate from your doctor in
the case of illness. In all circumstances we will require formal evidence.
Referencing: You must provide a list of the articles and texts you have referred to. You should use
the APA system of referencing. Guidance is provided in the ELE course, UEBS Academic
Development Resources, under Finding and using sources at:
https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/mod/book/view.php?id=668941.
Detailed referencing examples are contained in the document, A to Z list of example references and
citations in the APA (6th ed.) style at: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=651525.
There are a number of referencing programmes which may help you in your work, details which are
available at: https://libguides.exeter.ac.uk/referencing/software.
Cheating and plagiarism: The University treats very seriously any case of a student attempting to
seek unfair academic advantage through plagiarism or cheating and can lead to exclusion from the
module. For further guidance see the course on Academic Honesty and Plagiarism at
https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=3044.
Time Limits or Word Counts
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You are expected to adhere to the indicated time or word count. A specific penalty is not
administered for falling short or exceeding the guidance. However, if your submission is shorter
than expected then you will of necessity lose marks as you will likely not have adequately covered
the assignment topics. Conversely, if your submission is excessively long) the marker will stop
marking at a point consistent with the upper range of time or words (i.e. 10% more than indicated
length. This will then mean that any topics covered after this cut-off point will not receive marks.
The following content is NOT included in a final word count:
• Reference list
• Bibliography
• Appendices
• Front cover sheet (refer to required details above)
The following content IS included in a final word count:
• Title
• Contents page
• Abstract
• Executive summary
• Main body of text
• Words used in tables, graphs and other forms of data presentation (including titles of
figures)
• In text quotations
• In text references
• Footnotes
• Section headings
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Appendix - Marking Rubrics
Assignment 1
Assignment 2
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