L4M2 Defining Business Needs Questions and Answers

Explanation

According to Investopedia, the financial services sector provides financial services to people and corporations. This segment of the economy is made up of a variety of financial firms includ-ing banks, investment houses, lenders, finance companies, real estate brokers, and insurance com-panies. As noted above, the financial services industry is probably the most important sector of the economy, leading the world in terms of earnings and equity market capitalization. Large conglomerates dominate this sector, but it also includes a diverse range of smaller companies.

According to the finance and development department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), financial services are the processes by which consumers or businesses acquire financial goods. For example, a payment system provider offers a financial service when it accepts and transfers funds between payers and recipients. This includes accounts settled through credit and debit cards, checks, and electronic funds transfers.

Companies in the financial services industry manage money. For instance, a financial advi-sor manages assets and offers advice on behalf of a client. The advisor does not directly provide investments or any other product, rather, they facilitate the movement of funds between savers and the issuers of securities and other instruments. This service is a temporary task rather than a tangible asset.

Financial goods, on the other hand, are not tasks. They are things. A mortgage loan may seem like a service, but it's actually a product that lasts beyond the initial provision. Stocks, bonds, loans, commodity assets, real estate, and insurance policies are examples of financial goods.

Explanation

Those items make up small portion of spend and the supply risk is low. So it is tactical item according to Kraljic portfolio matrix. Procurement should bundle these items into larger contracts, simplify procurement process.

LO 2, AC 2.1

Explanation

In this scenario, the final product has vast range of parts. The second problem is lacking any part can cause disruption to the production process. So GE has 2 things to do: to reduce the part varie-ties, and secure the supply. Part standardisation is the best option here. It can simplify the range of parts or materials used, and simultaneously, it expands the supply base of GE. If a supplier fails to deliver the part, the company always has other options to replace.

Costs are also a concern, but bottleneck in production imposes a serious risk to the organisation. Driving down costs using market competition cannot be a foremost priority.

Increasing production may help to reduce bottleneck. However, it will also increase the inventory of finished products and unnecessary upkeep costs.

LO 3, AC 3.4

Explanation

Based on variability, the costs has been classified into three categories, they are fixed, variable and semi variable. Fixed costs, as its name suggests, is fixed in total i.e. irrespective of the number of output produced. Variable costs vary with the number of output produced. Semi-variable is the type of costs, which have the characteristics of both fixed costs and variable costs (Source: Key Differences).

Among above costs, leasing and depreciation are relatively static and do not change if volume of business activities increase or reduce.

Packaging, utilities and annual business rate (tax) are variable costs.

Explanation

3D-printed parts can replace traditional metal parts. They are also more easily customised to fit customer's needs. This technology is an example of threat of substitute in Porter's Five Forces model.

Substitute goods or services that can be used in place of a company's products or services pose a threat. Companies that produce goods or services for which there are no close substitutes will have more power to increase prices and lock in favorable terms. When close substitutes are available, customers will have the option to forgo buying a company's product, and a company's power can be weakened.

Explanation

Through-life Management involves the life-cycle management of the products, services and activities required to deliver a fully integrated capability to the customer, while reducing the cost of ownership for the customer.

Diagram, table Description automatically generated

Source: Andrew Graves

The installation stage occurs in In-Service Operations. At this stage, the machinery is shipped and installed on the buyer's premises and check to ensure that it is working to the standards set out in the design specification.

Explanation

When using conformance specification, the buying organisation is responsible for the performance of the purchase. If the product fails due to poorly designed specification, the buyer is wholly responsible for it. It cannot blame the supplier for the failure because they still provided 'fit for purpose' product.

'Time to produce specification is shortened': Conformance specification requires details on dimen-sion, materials, design, etc. With such requirements, time to produce a complete conformance specification is often longer than producing performance specification.

'Buyer cannot control the inputs': Conformance specification is a list of inputs from buyer, so buyer has control over the inputs that will make the product. It also means that buyer is responsible for any product failure.

'Buyer may face liquidity risks': Liquidity means that how quick a business turns its assets into cash. This is a financial term, it does not link directly with specification failure.

Explanation

A rolling budget is continually updated to add a new budget period as the most recent budget period is completed. Thus, the rolling budget involves the incremental extension of the existing budget model. By doing so, a business always has a budget that extends one year into the future.

Think of continuous (rolling) budgets as waves rolling ashore on the beach. A new wave comes in each time, replacing the one that was there before. From a financial perspective, the wave is your budget, and the time between waves is longer! These reporting time frames can be monthly, quar-terly, yearly, etc.

An incremental budget is a budget prepared using a previous period's budget or actual performance as a basis with incremental amounts added for the new budget period.

Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is a method of budgeting in which all expenses must be justified for each new period. The process of zero-based budgeting starts from a "zero base," and every function within an organization is analyzed for its needs and costs. Budgets are then built around what is needed for the upcoming period, regardless of whether each budget is higher or lower than the previous one.

Activity-based budgeting (ABB) is a system that records, researches, and analyzes activities that lead to costs for a company. Every activity in an organization that incurs a cost is scrutinized for potential ways to create efficiencies. Budgets are then developed based on these results.

Explanation

A business case is developed during the early stages of a project and outlines the why, what, how, and who necessary to decide if it is worthwhile continuing a project. One of the first things you need to know when starting a new project are the benefits of the proposed business change and how to communicate those benefits to the business.

Preparing the business case involves an assessment of:

- Business problem or opportunity

- Benefits

- Risk

- Costs including investment appraisal

- Technical solutions

- Timescale

- Impact on operations

- Organizational capability to deliver the project outcomes

These project issues are an important part of the business case. They express the problems with the current situation and demonstrate the benefits of the new business vision. Making business case with multiple options and choices also prompts the procurement and senior management to consider alternatives. As a result, the organisation may opt out the best option.

The business case brings together the benefits, disadvantages, costs, and risks of the current situa-tion and future vision so that executive management can decide if the project should go ahead.

Explanation

The difference between the actual spend and budgeted spend is known as variance. The formula for variance is:

Variance = Actual spend - Budgeted spend

Variances can be adverse/unfavourable or favourable ie they can be positive or negative.

Be very careful with these terms. A positive or a negative variance may be favourable or it may be adverse/ unfavourable.

Adverse variances

Adverse variances are those variances that are unfavourable to the firm. Examples would be sales below plan; costs above budget, cash receipts lower than expected, and overtime payment more than forecast.

Favourable variances

Favourable variances are those variances that are beneficial to the business. Examples would be sales ahead of plan, costs below budget, and wages below forecast.

Positive variance

A positive variance occurs where 'actual' exceeds 'planned' or 'budgeted' value. Examples might be actual sales are ahead of the budget.

Negative variance

A negative variance occurs where 'actual' is less than 'planned' or 'budgeted' value. Examples would be when the raw materials cost less than expected, sales were less than predicted, and labour costs were below the budgeted figure.

When the operators create saving, it means that the Actual spend is less than Budgeted spend. Therefore the variance is negative.

Explanation

If an organisation doesn't have capability to produce a technical specification, they can draft one based on standards or consulting the suppliers.

Explanation

Robots in manufacturing help to create jobs by reshoring more manufacturing work. Robots protect workers from repetitive, mundane and dangerous tasks, while also creating more desirable jobs, such as engineering, programming, management and equipment maintenance.

LO 2, AC 2.1

Explanation

With strategic suppliers, the aim should be to work co-operatively with them to find ways of reducing costs to achieve a target cost. It is necessary to work with the suppliers in carrying out open book costing by having first persuaded them of the need to do it. Open book can be used to establish a Target Cost, a Compensation Event value and can eventually be used to ensure the payment of actual costs to an organization. A number of forms of contract cater for this functionality of which only the NEC goes to into any great depth of methodology.

If the suppliers worry about leak of confidential information, procurement team can suggest them to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The buying organisation should also comply with data protection regulations. The Employer / individual responsible for a project’s costs should ultimately take a pragmatic and sensible approach with regard to commercially or personally sensitive data provided by the contractor. The primary goal of all open book cost management is to provide Employer comfort and security in the accuracy of commercial data; this effectively means striking a balance between undertaking full audits and blind faith.

Explanation

Primary activities consist of inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, sales & marketing, service.

Second activities consist of firm infrastructure, human resource management, technology development and procurement

Graphical user interface, diagram Description automatically generated

Support activities (also known as secondary activities) include Firm infrastructure, Human resource management, Technology development and Procurement. Developing digital SRM technology to manage suppliers better is Technology development.

LO 1, AC 1.2

Explanation

A technical specification details the standards that a product or service must meet. Drawings (often called engineering drawings or technical drawings) are complementary to technical specifications

Explanation

From the scenario, you can see that the project team is developing a new product. They start with analysing the functions, and the costs of delivering those functions. This is a typical process of value engineering. You may read more on value engineering from the reference paper.

Explanation

The buyer won't pay the supplier until next month. This is a liability to the buyer. This amount can be recorded as accrued expense or accounts payable. On the other hand, the supplier has not sent the invoice, so it should be accrued expense.

Both accounts payables and accrued expenses are liabilities. Accounts payable is the total amount of short-term obligations or debt a company has to pay to its creditors for goods or services bought on credit. With accounts payables, the vendor's or supplier's invoices have been received and recorded.

On the other hand, accrued expenses are the total liability that is payable for goods and services that have been consumed by the company or received. However, accrued expenses are those bills in which an invoice or bill has not yet been received. As a result, accrued expenses can sometimes be an estimated amount of what's owed, which is adjusted later to the exact amount, once the invoice has been received.

Conversely, accounts payable should represent the exact amount of the total owed from all of the invoices received.

Explanation

Products used in agriculture can be subject to shortage due to natural disasters.