看看有你所在的天津市有上榜吗——ACCA中国考点分布城市

正确答案：
(iii) Flexibility may relate to the company being able to cope with flexibility of volume, delivery speed or job specification. In
this particular context, flexibility appears to have been problematic for HLP as evidenced by the fact that 320
consultations relating to commercial were subcontracted during the year. This could be due to the lack of the ability of
HLP advisors to be able to provide consultations to a potentially wide-range of commercial clients, i.e. the variability in
the ‘job specification’ requires greater flexibility than HLP can deliver. Furthermore, a total of 600 consultations relating
to litigation work were also subcontracted throughout the year. These subcontract consultations might be due to the
inability of HLP to deal with fluctuations in demand.

正确答案：

(b) Effective project management could have improved the conduct of the website re-design project in the following ways:
Detailed planning
During the delivery of the project the lack of a formal detailed plan means that there is no baseline for review and control.
The absence of monitoring progress against that plan is also very evident. The meetings are events where, although progress
appears to have been made, it is unclear how much progress has been made towards the delivery of the final re-designed
website. Effective project management would have mandated the production of a detailed plan. There is no mention of a
project plan, a critical path analysis, a Gantt chart or supporting project management software.
Effective monitoring and control
The board were not kept up to date about progress and were only alerted to potential issue when the finance director became
concerned about spiralling costs. This is a failure of monitoring and control, aggravated by the fact that there is no project
plan to monitor against. Effective project management would have required formal progress to the sponsor (in this case the
board). Such monitoring should lead to project control, where suggested actions are considered and implemented to deal with
project slippage. The planning, monitoring and controlling aspects of project management are completely absent from the
scenario and so none of the usual project management monitoring and reporting structures were in place to alert the board.
Mandating of substitutes
Initial progress is hampered by the absence of key personnel at meetings 3 and 4 and the inappropriate sign-off by the RP
(already discussed above) of the technical design. The requirement for the TD to produce a technical report also slows
progress. These problems could have been addressed by ensuring that substitutes were available for these meetings who
understood their role and the scope of their authority. Effective project management would have ensured that progress would
not have been delayed by the absence of key personnel from the progress meetings.
Standards for cost-benefit analysis
The cost-benefit analysis provided by the MM is flawed in two ways. Firstly, the assumptions underpinning the benefits are
not explained. There is no supporting documentation and it appears, at face value, that year four and five benefits have been
greatly inflated to justify the project. Secondly, it would be usual to discount future costs and benefits using an agreed discount
rate. This has not been done, so the time value of money has not been taken into account. Effective project management
would have defined standards for the cost-benefit analysis based on accepted practice.
Estimating, risks and quality
The reaction of the board to the cost-benefit analysis also appears unrealistic. They appear to have suggested a budget and
a timescale which does not take into account the complexity of the remaining work or the resources available to undertake
it. The estimating part of the project management framework appears to be lacking. It is clear at the final meeting that the
website will not be ready for launch. However, the MM decides to take the risk and achieve the imposed deadline and take
a chance on the quality of the software. This decision is made against the advice of his TD and without any information about
the quality of the software. Effective project management would have mandated a framework for considering the balance
between risk and quality.

The MM does not inform. the board of the TD’s advice. The MM, like many project managers (because the MM now appears
to have adopted this role) finds it politically more acceptable to deliver a poor quality product on time than a better quality
product late. Unfortunately the product quality is so poor that the decision proves to be the wrong one and the removal of the
software (and the resignation of the MM) ends the project scenario.

正确答案：
Part (d):
Oliver should arrange a formal grievance interview with the appropriate partner. Both Oliver and the partner need to be aware that
the grievance interview follows three steps in a particular and logical order. The meeting between Oliver and the partner responsible
for human resources must be in a formal atmosphere.
The first stage is exploration. The manager or supervisor – in this case the partner responsible for human resources – must gather
as much information as possible. No solution must be offered at this stage. The need is to establish what is actually the problem;
the background to the problem (in this case the icy relationship between Oliver and David Morgan) and the facts and causes of
the problem – in this case the resentment felt by David Morgan over Oliver’s appointment.
The second stage is the consideration stage. This is undertaken by the appropriate manager or partner here, who must firstly check
the facts, analyse the causes of the complaint and evaluate possible solutions. The meeting may be adjourned if at this stage the
partner requires more time to fulfil this step.
The final stage is the reply. This will be carried out by the partner after he or she has reached and reviewed a conclusion. It is
important that the outcome is recorded in writing; the meeting and therefore the interview and procedure is only successful when
an agreement is reached.
If no agreement is reached then the procedure should be taken to a higher level of management.

正确答案：
(a) E-commerce is transforming many of the traditional relationshps between supplier and customer and retailing is no exception.
In broad terms, electronic commerce is defined as ‘the use of electronic networks to facilitate commercial transactions’. In
terms of tangible goods, such as supermarket shopping, it enables online ordering and delivery direct to the customer and
represents a significant move away from the well-established retail formats. Benefits to companies using electronic commerce
have seen companies increase their sales by 10–20% and reduce costs by 20–45%. However, in a significant sized business
like Supaserve the investment costs are high, affecting profit margins and making for more intense competition.
Business-to-consumer electronic commerce is argued to face more barriers to growth than its business-to-business equivalent
and is at an earlier stage in its lifecycle. Issues surrounding the potential for fraud, security of payments, privacy of personal
data and difficulties in accessing electronic retailers, explain this slower start for the retailing side of electronic commerce.
Clearly, for the move to be successful in Supaserve there needs to be a sufficiently large number of customers who can be
persuaded to use the service. This, in turn, will reflect the number of homes with computers and online capabilities. However,
the traditional retailer with a trusted brand and reputation is often in a better position than the specialist online retailer with
no physical stores.
Assessing the size and defining characteristics or attributes of the customer segment likely to use the online shopping service
is an interesting task. There is evidence to suggest that age may be a key factor, with electronic retailing appealing to younger
customers familiar with using information technology. Income may be an important way of segmenting the market, with online
shopping appealing to those families with high disposable income, access to computers and a lifestyle. where leisure time
is valued. Chris’s knowledge of his current customer base will be important in positioning them at various stages of their
lifecycle – does the company appeal to young families with heavy shopping demands? Further insight into buying behaviour
will come from geodemographic segmentation where the combination of where a customer lives and the stage in their
particular shopping lifecycle will give real insights into their buying behaviour and willingness or otherwise to use electronic
shopping.
Essentially, Chris has to come to a decision on whether there is a combination of characteristics that form. a significant
segment willing to use online shopping. This will enable him to decide how it can be measured, whether it is big enough to
make the investment in online shopping worthwhile, can it be accessed and whether it is sufficiently distinct to cater for itsparticular needs.