Skills and Learning Statement (SLS)

For the goal to complete my RAP I chose Mr. Waseem Yousuf Adil (ACCA) as my mentor. He
is the Director at A.S Financials. The topic I have selected for my RAP is Evaluation of business
and financial performance of Mark and Spencer over three year period.

I decided to write the RAP in December 2008 and by January I spoke to Mr. Adil asking him
whether he agrees to be my project mentor. My mentor Confirmed the date of first meeting by
telephone giving me around two weeks to prepare myself for the first meeting. Therefore, I had
checked the ACCA website for the guideline on the RAP and also bought Kaplan Financial
Research and Analysis Project Guide. It helped me with all the necessary knowledge for the
preparation of the research project on the preparation and research of the project.
Before my first meeting I had shortlisted the following projects on which I would work on:

 The business and financial performance of an organization over a three year period.
 The impact of e-business on an organization
I also started working of list of famous companies in United Kingdom. I came up with initial list
of five
 Marks and Spencer
 Tesco Group
 British Airways
 Next
 British Petroleum
I continuously accessed the websites of above companies for the initial assessment on the
company.
1 Meetings:
1.1 First Meeting:
In this meeting I presented my Mentor with the ideas on the topics of the Project. Both ideas
were discussed in detail and finalised. Then I had prepared some basic info on the above five
companies I selected, each company was discussed and Mark and Spencer was the company that
I finally chose to work on.
Next thing on meeting agenda was the discussion on the process of the whole project,
information gathering and Analysis technique. I had some doubt and questions that were also
answered in the meeting.

1.2 Second Meeting:

Before attending the second meeting I had almost finished my RAP. So my mentor could check
all the progress that I had made. All the difficulties faced were also discussed and my Mentor
also suggested some changes in the RAP, for example detailed reasoning of the Ratio analysis
that I has carried out. I showed my analysis result to mentor and had some questions regarding
final part of my RAP. Early hand planning for the meeting was the key to making use of the time
for me, as I was able to ask so many questions in the so little allotted time of the meeting.

1.3 Third Meeting:

In this meeting I gave a presentation on the RAP by connecting my laptop with projector. It was
about 20 minutes long followed by some questions by my mentor. My mentor was satisfied by
my work and praised me for carrying out such a good presentation and RAP.
After this I finalized my project and compiled Skill and learning statement. I have tried to
compile Skill and learning statement in a logical manner that it answers the four questions that
are follows:

2 Learning from the Meetings:

2.1 1st Meeting:
It helped me in coming to decision about the topic, also coming up to decision of company
selection.
This meeting was the most significant and important for me as it helped me understanding the
aims and objectives of RAP.
It also helped me in laying timeline for the future meetings and project to be completed on time.
2.2 2nd meeting:

In this meeting all doubts and question were clarified by my mentor, also guiding me on the right
quality of analysis. For the purpose of financial analysis I had to prepare bar charts and explain
trends. I was advised by my mentor to include and explain the trends and their explanation by
reasoning. It was new, tough and hard task for me, as it presented me with lots of challenges and
interest and I was very excited and was also enjoying the work that I was doing.

This process enhanced my analytical skills and provided me an opportunity to learn how to link
the results of one ratio with another one. Secondly, I came across calculating one of the ratios of
M&S where I was told to use my ACCA text book for Paper 2.5 (2006/2007) to calculate ratios
for my project.

2.3 3rd Meeting:

At the end of this meeting I was fully confident that I can submit my project to Oxford Brooks
University. Moreover, the Presentation was also productive as it was the first time I was involved
in carrying out presentation. It gave me an immense confidence to present the report to people in
presentation and face all sorts of questions they had in their mind. This meeting also provided me
with chance to review the whole project.

3 Answer to Research Questioners:

My aim and objective of RAP have been clearly stated. I have also outlined the approach taken
to achieve. I have tried my level best to answer all the questions relating to the aims and
objectives. Two main strategies that were in place to analyze the business and financial situation
of M&S were the financial and non financial analysis. As I explained in RAP I have decided to
use both of them because the limitations of non financial analysis is overcome by financial
analysis and vice versa is true for the later technique.

As when I was preparing RAP I came across some of the facts that I think would had improved
my analysis were:
  Comparison of M&S’s performance with at least more than three competitors. This
would have given us an even clearer picture or M&S’s relative performance compared
with that of its industry players like Tesco ASDA, and Sainsbury’s.
 At least a five year analysis of M&S and its competitor’s performance. By doing so I
Would be in a situation to access M&S’s past performance and also predict future
performances. A three year analysis gave us only a snapshot of M&S’s performance. A
five year analysis would also have cleared out any one-off situations that have affected
M&S’s performance, for example the closure of 27 stores.
 The word count allotted had me restricted to not explaining the whole reasons behind the
changes in the trends.

Above factors were not included in the RAP because of strict word count and the topic
particularly suggested that length of analysis should not be more than three years

4 Demonstration of Interpersonal and Communication Skills:

Taking up RAP and on finishing it I came to realize that this project has helped me
communicate with other people effectively. As the meeting with my mentor progress from first
to second and to third I was getting organized and more attentive to all the advice given to me
during meetings by my mentor. I use to do my homework before meetings I had my questions
ready to be asked before meetings so I can benefit most out of the meeting. I kept on writing my
questions when I was working on the project just to make sure I don’t miss anything and cleared
all the doubts when I met the mentor. Questioning played an extremely important element in my
RAP; I used a combination of questions and tried to launch conversations with the open ended
questions with the mentor which helped me to open the discussion. I tried to avoid asking
questions which were vague. I also prepared a checklist of questions which I required to ask him
to make sure the aims and objectives did not get ignored.

Another major skill that I was able to polish out of RAP was presentation. As this was the first
time I had taken up project and was also the first time I had to give presentation in front of
people. I was nervous as it was the first time I was giving presentation so I practiced it in front of
my house mates. I went through awful lot of articles to learn how to make my presentation
interesting. Major outcome of my presentation was that I learnt a lot on how to capture interest of
audience. Variation of voice tone, body language and presentation layout formed part of my final
presentation. My mentor was satisfied with the quality of my presentation. I believe if I am given
another opportunity I will be more than willing to grab it.

This project helped me develop my communication skills in writing; I read some articles on how
to write a formal report. My analytical skills have been significantly developed through this RAP
and I believe to have learnt the art of conveying message across through a written report and also
to manage the flow of information in a report.

5 Role of RAP:

I believe that RAP has given me the opportunity to work on real life organization. The topic was
itself very interesting as it was combination of both financial and business performance of M&S.
hence linking all the factors that are affecting the performance of M&S.

Preparation of RAP has helped me enhance my IT skills, specially using Micro soft power point
which have never used before. I learnt it during preparation of my presentation. Drawing up
charts was also new technique for me. It was during RAP that I had learnt how to calculate
formulas in a spread sheet.

Strong Communication skills have also been developed because of RAP and these were due to
report writing, meetings with mentor and presentation.

RAP has helped me enhance my understanding of analysis of financial and non- financial
factors. That I believe will be helpful for me in future for passing my further ACCA (Association
of Chartered Certified Accountants) papers.

RAP will also be helpful in boosting my accounting career as after the successful submission of
the project and subject to passing the project by the examiner I will be getting the designation
(BSc Hons) in Applied Accounting from Oxford brooks University that is a well known and
reputed institute in the industry.
RAP has skilled me on how to look at scenarios from another perspective. As M&S claims that it
is one of the most profitable and big companies, its 2006 to 2008 financial statements gave a
different view point.

Finally, RAP has made me work and submit my project under the given deadline. I believe this
has helped me realize how to finish pace the work in the allotted time. This will be very helpful
as in most of the financial career jobs; professionals are given very tight deadlines to finish their
jobs. By working under time pressured environment I will be able to increase my efficiency and
can be more productive.