ACCA Paper P3 Business analysis Essential text British library cataloguinginpublication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Published by: Kaplan Publishing UK Unit 2 The Business Centre Molly Millars Lane Wokingham Berkshire RG41 2QZ ISBN 9781847105509 © Kaplan Financial Limited, 2008 Printed and bound in Great Britain. Acknowledgements We are grateful to the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants for permisssion to reproduce past examination questions. The answers have been prepared by Kaplan Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Kaplan Publishing. ii KAPLAN PUBLISHING Contents Page Chapter The nature of strategic business analysis Chapter The environment and competitive forces 21 Chapter Marketing and the value of goods and services 43 Chapter Internal resources, capabilities and competences 65 Chapter Stakeholders, ethics and culture 85 Chapter Strategic choice I 111 Chapter Strategic choice II 131 Chapter Organisational structure 159 Chapter Business process change 177 Chapter 10 The role of information technology 201 Chapter 11 Quality 231 Chapter 12 Project management 257 Chapter 13 The role of finance in formulating and implementing business strategy 287 Chapter 14 Strategy and people 319 Chapter 15 Strategic development and managing strategic 353 change Chapter 16 Questions & Answers KAPLAN PUBLISHING 385 iii iv KAPLAN PUBLISHING chapter ACCA Introduction v ACCA Introduction How to Use the Materials These Kaplan Publishing learning materials have been carefully designed to make your learning experience as easy as possible and to give you the best chances of success in your examinations The product range contains a number of features to help you in the study process. 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Online subscribers Syllabus Paper background Objectives of the syllabus KAPLAN PUBLISHING vii ACCA Introduction Core areas of the syllabus Syllabus learning objectives and chapter references The examination Paperbased examination tips Study skills and revision guidance Preparing to study Effective studying Further reading You can find further reading and technical articles under the student section of ACCA's website viii KAPLAN PUBLISHING chapter The nature of strategic business analysis Chapter learning objectives Upon completion of this chapter you will be able to: • describe the common vocabulary of strategic management and why strategic management is important • describe the different levels of strategic planning for a profit seeking and a notforprofit organisation • describe the JSW model for both profitseeking and notfor profitseeking organisations • • describe the JS lenses (strategy as design, experience, ideas) explore the scope of business analysis and its relationship to strategic management The nature of strategic business analysis 1 Introduction This chapter introduces some of the main terms used in discussions about strategy. It also looks at the meanings of the word ‘strategy’ and asks to what extent strategic planning is useful Firstly, however, two brief company histories will be presented to illustrate how companies can be affected by circumstances and decisions Expandable text IBM Expandable text Kodak Test your understanding Think about what planning issues might currently be facing the newspaper industry KAPLAN PUBLISHING Questions & Answers (b) Features of internet sites focusing on cost reduction The site must, of course, be very easy to use. SDW should specify simple instructions on a site that is easy to understand and quick to load. The omission of detailed graphics and providing an ‘uncluttered’ site will also decrease programming costs Incentives to book online such as obtaining loyalty benefits, cheaper prices or being able to book earlier (which may not be available on off line bookings) could be offered. Although this may not save costs on the internet, it will provide overall cost savings by decreasing reliance on the call centre, thus limiting the number of staff employed Removing reliance on other more expensive selling media, such as the call centre, removes not only salary costs but also accommodation, pension, equipment and similar costs. Focusing on one booking medium becomes easier to support as only one cost structure is required Providing appropriate support to customers within the website which does not involve additional human contact. For example, provision of FAQs, a good help system and advice on each stage of the booking process. Customers are encouraged to resolve their own problems, which limits intervention from expensive staff Provision of other information on the website to attract customers to it, for example details of company performance or similar information already available within the organisation. Placing the information on the website is relatively inexpensive given that the information is already required inhouse. Setting up webspecific information would be more expensive Innovative uses of Internet technology, for example suggesting destinations on a limited budget rather than customers specifying where they want to go. Providing these ideas as unique selling points will attract more customers to the website, again limiting reliance on other media RUS plc Answer (a) Total Quality Management (TQM) can be defined as ‘the continuous improvement in quality, productivity and effectiveness obtained by establishing management responsibility for processes as well as outputs. In this, every process has an identified process owner and every person in an entity operates within a process and contributes to its improvement’ 452 KAPLAN PUBLISHING chapter 16 Quality is a term often used to signify ‘excellence’ of a product or service. However, if we are to define quality in a way which is useful to the management of RUS plc, then we must recognise that quality is simply meeting the requirements of the people who use the hotels. This means that the company needs to start its assessment of quality by understanding the true requirements of its various customers. The company’s stated policy is to provide ‘a highquality service for the discerning guest’ and presumably meeting its customers’ requirements has wide implications which include dealing with initial enquiries, availability of accommodation, prices charged for the various services provided, level of customer service, facilities offered, standard of food and overall reliability, amongst many other features TQM will emphasise the importance of RUS plc’s ‘marketing’ function. It must take the lead in establishing the quality requirements for the services. This will determine service features such as the grade, quantity, facilities, timing, etc. For example, prior to opening a new hotel or refurbishing an existing one, the company’s management will need to consider its location and accessibility, before deciding whether it will be principally a budget, firstclass, business or family hotel. This may, of course, involve the use of market research techniques TQM, and the way it is organised (which is discussed in (b)), gives people throughout the organisation a common language for improvement. It enables all the people working in the hotels, with different abilities, needs and priorities, to relate readily with one another, in pursuit of the common goal of quality. A hotel is so complex and employs so many different specialist skills that everyone has to depend on the activities of others in achieving their own quality standards. TQM provides the vitally important chain which links the ‘users’ and ‘providers’. TQM involves the continual examination of the requirements and RUS plc’s ability to meet them. After all, the needs of both ‘internal’ and external customers change over time. This alone will lead to a ‘continuing improvement’ philosophy. The benefits of making sure that requirements are met at every link of the chain are very great in terms of improved customer satisfaction, increased competitiveness and market share, improved productivity, elimination of waste and reduced costs Relevance of a strategy needs to be evaluated in terms of costs and benefits. A TQM programme for RUS plc will be costly. The staff may need to be increased substantially to provide the quality levels required, and training will also have a prominent role. However, the benefits could be enormous KAPLAN PUBLISHING 453 Questions & Answers (b) The ability of the company to meet its ‘upgrading’ objective will depend on its staff and organisation. Throughout the group as a whole, and within each separate hotel, there is a series of quality chains which may be broken at any point by one person or one service not meeting the requirements of the customer The key to TQM is for everyone in the organisation to have welldefined customers – an extension of the word ‘customer’ beyond the customers who use the hotel, to anyone to whom an individual provides a service. Thus the ‘room service’ staff would be the customers of the kitchen staff, who would themselves be the customers of the purchasing staff. These relationships form a chain of customers and suppliers. Areas of responsibility will need to be identified and a manager allocated to each, and then the customer/supplier chain relationships established. True to the principle outlined above, the quality requirements of each ‘customer’ within the chain would be assessed, and meeting these would then become the responsibility of the ‘suppliers’ who form the preceding link in the chain Quality has to be managed – it will not just happen. To meet the requirements of TQM, RUS plc will probably need to recruit more staff, particularly managers, and may also need to change the level of services on offer to its customers, which includes the ‘internal’ customers. This will involve costs in terms of the redesign of systems, recruitment and training of staff, the purchase of equipment and the refurbishment of existing facilities. These costs need to be estimated and included in costbenefit assessments, and in the strategic plan that is being formulated (c) The contribution of the management accountant breaks into three distinct aspects: (i) providing information, (ii) analysing and interpreting the information, and (iii) advising managers on the basis of the analysis. This contribution can be related to the needs of RUS plc’s new TQM strategy (i) Provision of information The vital need of TQM is to first find out what the customer requirements are. The internal supplier/customer relationships are often the most difficult to establish. To achieve quality, data needs to be obtained, sifted and analysed to provide information on: working or ‘chain’ relationships, requirements of the people involved, measurements that will be used for performance assessments, capabilities, availabilities, and reporting lines. The management accountant’s participation in ‘quality circles’ would be very useful. 454 KAPLAN PUBLISHING chapter 16 Also there must be a corporate understanding of the company’s quality position in the market place. Information regarding the company’s competitive position in terms of locations, services, prices and facilities will be required. Market research techniques using both secondary and primary data collection methods will be appropriate A formal ‘position audit’ of RUS plc’s existing resources of people, equipment, facilities and services will provide data that will enable the company’s needs to be matched with capabilities. This will particularly help in identifying the major areas of existing quality weaknesses. Performance assessment and the competitive appraisal already referred to will be extremely useful in this regard. The management accountant would also become responsible for designing the information systems required by the new TQM system, at the centre of which will be the budget system Data will also be required to provide for the cost estimation of investments envisaged by the strategic decision (ii) Analysis of the information The management accountant will use an arsenal of techniques included in the tasks of cost estimation, capital investment appraisal, costbenefit analysis, management and systems auditing to produce report information for management, which can be used to decide on the extent of the changes required, how these changes should be effected, and the costbenefit aspects. Statistical methods can be applied effectively in an analytical role (iii) Advice for management Management will reasonably look to the management accountant for advice on the strategy. The management accountant’s attributes of knowledge of the situation, professional competence and flair for imagination and creativity would provide useful inputs into the strategic decision. Also, of course, the management accountant would be heavily involved in the decisions relating to the implementation of the new TQM system KAPLAN PUBLISHING 455 Questions & Answers Book retailer Answer (a) Williams and Sons (W&S) is operating in a mature market which has little growth potential and suffers from low barriers to entry. The supermarket chains are now exploiting this area by moving into book sales, utilising their large buying power to buy cheaply and sell at low prices. Combined with a policy to only stock high volume sales titles, this gives them attractive profitability W&S does not have the buying power to compete directly with supermarkets through price reductions. At the same time it is obliged to carry a comprehensive range of stock to meet the requirements of the wide range of customer groups who patronise the specialist bookshops. The current role of information technology (IT) at W&S is very much in the ‘support role’(McFarlan and McKenney – Strategic IT grid) and is not providing the firm with a competitive edge. By support we mean that the current and future competitive potential of IT at W&S is considered low Technological development can (and does) change the competitive characteristics of market sectors. Change can impact on either competitive forces (e.g. barriers to entry, substitutes, etc.) or on the industry’s value chain or, in some circumstances, on both. In periods of change, opportunities present themselves to those organisations which have the capability to identify and exploit the potential of new technology (which is often not immediately obvious) John Williams has undoubtedly seen that technology has changed the way in which he can market a wide range of specialist books, whilst not being constrained by physical location – the need to have retail outlets which customers visit to buy books. At its most advanced, the concept of ecommerce would allow W&S to establish a website to market and sell specialist books worldwide. Customers would use the internet to visit the W&S web site, browse through book lists, order in realtime and pay through a credit card transaction. W&S could link this online order entry system to warehousing, stock control, product dispatch and sales accounting 456 KAPLAN PUBLISHING chapter 16 In terms of the McFarlan and McKenney analysis, John Williams now sees the IT position at W&S as being in turnaround, i.e. the current potential is low but the future strategic potential of new applications is high. The turnaround IT position at W&S is the most challenging from a management viewpoint. Moving from support to turnaround takes place in organisations which are unlikely to have a high level of IT skills needed to effectively exploit the new technology. In addition, operating in a current low technology environment, it is likely to be difficult to convince the management in a changing organisation of the potential importance of the new IT strategy. Furthermore, the culture of the organisation may be one which is antitechnology. This is the challenge facing John Williams in a turnaround situation. He has correctly identified a strategic opportunity but he must now drive forward an IT project in an organisation which has never implemented such a project in the past Tutorial note: This solution promotes the potential of selling books via the internet. You might want to take a less optimistic view in your solution, given the experiences of eretailers. Whatever view you take, you should answer the question as stated, and use a suitable conceptual framework to support your arguments (b) In many ways the identification of the ecommerce opportunity is the easy part – its successful implementation will require substantial capability in IT planning and implementation. IT planning implies a structured process of scanning, identifying, assessing and exploiting technological opportunities. It is of critical importance in organisations which operate in market sectors which have strategic IT potential. &S now finds itself operating in such a market Typically IT planning will cover the following elements and processes • Alignment: The IT plan underpins and supports the business strategy – it does not take place in isolation • Scoping: This sets the boundaries of the IT plan and seeks to achieve a balance between inhibiting innovation (too narrow) and avoiding drift (too wide). For example, a scope issue at W&S would be whether to integrate a new logistics system with the relevant book publishers • Timescale: Both a near and far perspective in relation to identifying manageable ‘chunks’ of project activity • Benefits: Assessment of costs and benefits (both tangible and intangible) • Realistic: The plan must match the capabilities of the organisation in terms of both competencies and resources KAPLAN PUBLISHING 457 Questions & Answers • Milestones: The plan should have performance measures for monitoring progress • Flexibility: The capability to respond to changed circumstances during the implementation phase • Communication: Once agreed, the plan must be communicated to all the concerned parties to inform them of the new strategy to be followed and their place in it • Responsibility: This must be assigned to managers and teams in relation to plan delivery • Support: It is essential that senior management expresses and delivers a commitment to the IT plan Multinational and local authority Answer (a) The objectives of any organisation should relate to its mission. A mission statement is frequently formally stated, but this is not always the case. Sometimes this mission statement is informal i.e. it is not set out in unequivocal terms but is widely known and understood. The organisation’s mission encapsulates the ‘raison d’être’ of the organisation and should focus on the demands of the principal stakeholders. Following from this, the objectives of the organisation can then be stated within the framework of the rational planning model Within the MNC the main stakeholder group would be the shareholders, whereas within the local administrative authority the main stakeholder group would probably be the local community It might well be that central government prescribes objectives for the local administrative authority, permitting some degree of freedom In order to determine exactly what the strategic targets should be, those responsible for the local administrative authority must make a detailed assessment of the needs of the local community. Thus there exists the need to liaise with a number of other organisations with a local presence. Whatever strategic targets are set they will be set with the overriding need to satisfy the objective that economic, efficient and effective services are provided by the local administrative authority. The targets should be set in a manner that enables performance measures to be made as to the extent to which the three Es have been attained 458 KAPLAN PUBLISHING chapter 16 It is quite conceivable that the needs of the local population will vary between different areas within the overall boundaries of the authority. Statistical information should be used in order to assess the actual level of service provision against the perceived level of need; for example, in assessing whether the provision of local housing in a particular location met the demand for such accommodation. This will assist in the setting of future objectives. Perhaps it may be necessary for housing to be established as the primary objective because there is a significant underprovision of locally administered housing. If this were to be the case then it is probable that other services would be affected By way of contrast, an MNC is likely to find its objectives much easier to establish. The shareholders are the major stakeholder group in the business. The primary objective of an MNC will be to maximise its longterm wealth and increase the value attached to its shareholding. It is probable that the MNC has secondary objectives relating to issues such as social responsibility, ethical trading practices and the quality of goods and services. These are usually set with the attainment of the primary objective, i.e. creation of long term wealth for its shareholders in mind (b) The measurement of performance levels achieved by an organisation must relate to the nature of the objective that has been agreed. Objectives should be capable of being measured, and thus one that is nonspecific in nature is likely to prove problematic as regards its measurement. Consequently, the extent of its attainment is difficult to quantify with any degree of exactitude. It is probable that the local administrative authority will establish targets, thereby enabling measurement of the extent to which objectives have been achieved. Carefully chosen performance indicators will be monitored. For example, with reference to locally administered housing, then appropriate performance indicators would be the number of residents waiting for accommodation and the average waiting time to be housed. In the event that a reduction were to occur in the number of residents awaiting housing due to the increased provision by the authority, this would indicate that the objective of effective service provision was being achieved with regard to housing in the area KAPLAN PUBLISHING 459 Questions & Answers It is also possible for performance measurement to be made utilising the ‘balanced scorecard’ approach. This would be applied in respect of the financial perspective, internal business processes, learning and growth and customer perspective. In order to determine how economically the local administrative authority is providing its services, it should not only compare its results with those of previous years, but also make detailed comparisons with the results of other authorities. The authority may review its business processes for the provision of various services and state how it has made changes to these processes as a consequence of learning from experience. The conduct of customer surveys will enable the measurement of the satisfaction of local residents to be measured As part of the objective setting process, it is appropriate for the representatives of the authority to determine how objectives will be measured. The appropriateness of performance measures will need to be reviewed in order to take into account the changing nature of the service provision in respect of the dynamic business environment The local administrative authority should give consideration to inviting members from within the local community to contribute to the measurement of its performance. For instance the local press, charity groups and other local interest groups would invariably seek a role in measuring the performance levels achieved by the authority. It would be much more positive for them to work in conjunction with the authority towards the attainment of agreed objectives as opposed to adoption of a more combative posture The MNC will probably have significantly lower levels of stakeholder participation in the measurement of its primary objective. Objectives defined in terms of profitability will be set within a given timeframe. The MNC will report on the levels of its earnings and the impact upon shareholder value. The financial markets will primarily determine the extent to which the MNC is successful in achieving its objectives. In contrast, the view of the local community will be the principal determinant as to whether the objectives of the local administrative authority have been attained Local vested interests will inevitably be visible within a local community, whereas the shareholders of the MNC will not have interests of such a nature. The shareholders will comprise a group with disparate interests. The MNC will therefore be subject to market pressures. The market will view the worldwide activities of the MNC, and the prevailing share price of the MNC will reflect the attitude of the market to those activities 460 KAPLAN PUBLISHING chapter 16 The ‘balanced scorecard’ approach could be used by the MNC in order to measure its overall performance. The principal aim of this approach is the quantification of how much shareholder value has been added. In essence, the market determines this value Jays Answer (a) There are a number of Human Resource Management (HRM) issues that will be impacted upon by the move from retailer to services Recruitment On a fundamental level, when Jays were retailing shoes they operated 123 outlets; the move into repairs meant trebling the number of outlets to over 300. This expansion will have meant a significant increase in the number of employees within the outlets. As well as this, the skills required between retailing and repair are different and so different types of employee would have been hired In addition, the number of outlets may require an increase in the management positions at head office analysing the data produced Finally, Jays is expecting that more difficult repairs will be carried out at a national centre. Specialist employees to carry out this work will need to be recruited Training There are some overlaps between the retailing and repairs businesses. Retailing is very much geared towards customer service, an area that Jays has identified as important within the repairs business. There will obviously be some training involved for the watch repairers. However, it has already been identified that this can be broken down into ten easy operations. This should make the training progress quicker Delegation It appears that Jays is already a decentralised organisation since much of the decisionmaking is already carried out at each individual outlet. Jays will need to ensure that there is consistency between outlets particularly over which repairs are passed back to the national centre KAPLAN PUBLISHING 461 Questions & Answers Culture The culture within the outlets at Jays may cause the management problems. As the company concentrated less on shoe retailing and more on shoe repair, the culture of the craftsman may have appeared. Under this, knowledge, skill and experience would be respected and passed on to more junior members of staff (almost like apprentices). The watch repair side, as noted above, has been made extremely simple with the result that the status of the ‘expert’ repairer may be diminished (b) Motivating the workforce at Jays may prove more difficult than it initially appears. A number of methods that might normally work in companies might prove difficult to implement in Jays’ situation For example, the work at Jays might prove to be monotonous and so job rotation might be undertaken. The difficulty with this is that this would mean training all the staff in the skills of shoe repair which might prove costly. Similarly, due to the geographical area being covered, moving staff between branches may not be practical Another common motivation technique would be to undertake job enrichment, whereby members of staff add on new skills to their current ones. Again, in the context of Jays’ large number of small (ten employees or fewer) autonomous shops there is a limit to how far this can be developed One suggestion would be to reward staff on the outcomes of their performance. For example, measuring customer feedback (although how useful this might prove is debatable). A broader reward based on the financial performance of the shop might be introduced. The difficulty with this is that the nature of the business is reactive, if nobody’s shoes need repairing there is nothing the branch can do about it The likelihood is that some kind of competencebased system will be introduced. Under this, the employee would be graded by the branch manager on how well they fulfil certain competencies. These might include technical competencies such as their knowledge and the quality of their repairs and to service competencies such as how well they deal with customers 462 KAPLAN PUBLISHING chapter 16 Y Answer (a) Resistance to change in organisations can be considered according to whether the resistance comes from individuals, groups or the organisations themselves Individual level At the individual level, the following reasons/causes have been noted as factors involved in resistance: fear of the unknown, well formed habits, threats to economic interest/status and the threat of inconvenience. In the case of Y, there is much for employees to fear. Several will be afraid that, in the longer term, they may lose their jobs. Some will fear that they may have to move from one job to another or from one department to another. For some, this will be quite an upheaval, although others may welcome the change. Some will fear that the change may bring a loss of status in the organisation, especially those in middle management whose jobs are to go. Redeployment to another job may include a protected salary, but delayering will inevitably result in a loss of status for some employees. Then there are the problems with learning new skills. Some employees will fear that they might not make the grade and be reluctant to take on retraining Group level At group level there will be collections of individuals who see their position threatened and who will combine to resist any threats to their position. The middle management groups in Y in particular will feel threatened and will be looking to their trade union to protect their interests. There may well be calls for industrial action to attempt to prevent delayering from taking place, or at least to win for the managers affected the highest possible severance pay or redeployment terms Even where individuals are not members of a trade union, it is possible for groups of employees, including managers, to collude informally to resist change. This may be achieved by such measures as withholding information or by not being wholly cooperative with those seeking to implement change KAPLAN PUBLISHING 463 Questions & Answers Organisational level At the level of the organisation, a number of factors will operate to make the change process difficult. These included the existing structure and culture of the organisation, the existing investment in resources, and past contracts and agreements with various stakeholders within the organisation. For example, many state industries that have been privatised in recent years have required flatter, more organic, organisational structures; it is hard to change from a ‘role’ culture to a ‘task’ culture to cope with competition in the open market and hard to renegotiate the terms of the contracts with stakeholders, such as the trade unions (b) A useful way of looking at the problem of resistance to change is via the simple framework formulated by American social psychologist, Lewin Lewin’s framework suggests that change, or lack of it, is the result of disequilibrium or equilibrium between two sets of opposing forces. One set he refers to as ‘driving’ forces, because they act to encourage and facilitate change, and the other as ‘restraining forces’ because they act in the opposite direction and seek to maintain the status quo Any attempt to bring about change, therefore, requires ways and means of overcoming resistance to change. This may be achieved in a variety of ways, but it is apparent that what is required is either a further strengthening of the forces for change or a reduction in the power of restraining forces Using this framework we can see that the major driving force for change is the increasing competition brought about by changes in the industry environment. There is little that Y can do about this except to respond to it by becoming leaner and more effective. The reduction in management levels should help to cut costs, and the strengthening of the telephone banking division should help the bank’s competitiveness, as should the investment in IT and training. 464 KAPLAN PUBLISHING chapter 16 The spur to change is the threat of the new competition, and management should seek to communicate the message to managers and other employees more effectively. We cannot tell from the scenario just what attempts have been made to communicate to the workforce either the seriousness of the bank’s situation, or the rationale behind senior management’s plans to combat this situation. To the extent that the need for the planned action has not been properly communicated it follows that this must be an early priority for the senior management team. Communication, along with other means such as education, participation, consultation, manipulation and coercion are part of typology of methods advocated by theorists such as Kotter and Schlesinger for assisting in the management of change process It may be that communication is not sufficient and that a process of education is required. In this day and age the senior managers should tread carefully. Bank employees generally have a high level of education and it would not help the case for change if management underestimated this. Nevertheless, in trying to persuade employees that the plans management have drawn up are in the best interests of all, there may be a place for the education of some staff members to management’s point of view. A method associated with communication and education is that of facilitation and support. Y management may be able to alleviate fears of some individuals by the use of counselling and group discussion Another way of reducing resistance to change is that of involving all employees from the start of the change process. By putting the problem the bank is facing to employees in a series of facetoface meetings, and offering the possibility of participation in the decision making and planning process, it may be possible to get more employees to buy into the planned changes. The problem in the case of Y is that senior management may already have made decisions without consultation. This kind of participation exercise is also timeconsuming. Given that the decisions have been made and that resistance has already been encountered it may well be that the best way forward now is through a process of negotiation with representatives of the workforce. In the case of Y it is probable that trade union officials will represent the employees’ side. Through a process of negotiation and bargaining it may be that the union can gain sufficient concessions from management, in terms of builtin safeguards and appropriate compensation for its members. The bank could then be allowed to proceed without further hindrance KAPLAN PUBLISHING 465 Questions & Answers An alternative approach is the less ethically based use of manipulation and cooptation. Manipulation involves seeking to persuade people by the use of partial and misleading information while cooptation involves ‘buying people off’ by the promise of some kind of reward for going along with the proposed changes. Through these methods are used, they are not the kinds of methods that professional people would involve themselves with If all else fails, however; senior management may find that the use of explicit and implicit coercion is the only way forward. This may involve mass redundancies without right of appeal. This method would be one of last resort since the image of the bank would suffer and the morale of the remaining workforce would be badly affected 466 KAPLAN PUBLISHING ... Chapter 16 Questions & Answers KAPLAN PUBLISHING 385 iii iv KAPLAN PUBLISHING chapter ACCA Introduction v ACCA Introduction How to Use the Materials These Kaplan Publishing learning materials have been ... often examined Expandable Text Expandable text provides you with additional information about a topic area and may help you gain a better understanding of the core content. Essential text users can access this additional content online (read it ... you with the nature and content of the examination and give you tips on how to best to approach your learning The complete text or essential text comprises the main learning materials and gives guidance as to the importance of topics and where other related resources can be found.