A business report of 7,500 is indeed a huge project. Many feel overwhelmed by this prospect – such feelings are natural. However, these lead to procrastination.
Time is the most valuable ingredient within this project and we hope the following steps will help you kick off your project immediately!
Step 1 – Read the OBU Information Pack.
Make detailed notes of the suggested structure of the OBU report and the word counts for each section. Many students have just dived into the report without being familiar with the report, leading to painful errors as they had to substantially change their report thereafter.
From our experience, we have ever reviewed a student’s report and noticed that they had just written according to their “gut feeling”, there was no structure and vital content was missing. Such students would then have to completely rewrite the report.
Step 2 – Hold a meeting with your OBU ACCA mentor to discuss the topic selection.
An experienced mentor would discuss what the project title really means and how a student can fulfill its criteria. The mentor would also outline how to select an appropriate company and the relevant models.
Step 3 – After selecting the topic, do some deep reading around the academic models of the topic.
For example, what models are relevant to CSR or Marketing? What unique value does each model bring to your report? Do not select models that merely “repeat” another, each model must bring significantly unique value. By familiarizing yourself with the models, you will gradually form a picture of how the project will flow and the models used.
Step 4 – With the models known, we are now ready to select a company for research.
This will take some time. (TLL has an article and a video on that) Do not rush this. Several students had to change their company selection midway as they realized it was inappropriate, resulting in all the prior work being wasted.
An appropriate company will fulfill the title. This should not be taken for granted. For example, if we choose Topic 20 on CSR, the company must have a poor reputation for CSR. Does the company selected really have a poor track record? Or are their lapses due to the nature of being a “big company with complex operations”? After all, the bigger you get, the more mistakes you inadvertently make.
An appropriate company will also have sufficient resources online that allow analysis. Google the company and see whether newspapers, investment firms and other reputable establishments have written about it. It would be a great challenge to write about a small, local company. There would be no independent reports or analysis that are available online. With referencing being an essential part of the report, a lack of public resources would mean a lack of references. Generally, a famous, listed company will be a better selection.
Step 5 – Discuss your company selection with your OBU mentor.
While he may not deep-dive into the company (that is the student’s responsibility), he can see if the company “sounds right”.
Step 6 – Start Writing the OBU Business Report.
Once the company is selected and you are aware of the models that you will use, you can immediately start writing Part 1 and 2! If you had selected TLL as your mentors, you would send each Part to them for their review and comments. This would give you momentum and show whether you are on-track.
This 6 steps are all you need to kick off! Forge ahead!
Pass First Time, Pass Well,
OBU Mentor | The Learning Luminarium
