以下是高顿网校小编为学员整理的：ACCA P1-P3模拟题及解析，供学员参考。
 

　　Jayne Cox Direct is a company that specialises in the production of bespoke sofas and chairs. Its products are advertised in most quality lifestyle magazines. The company was started ten years ago. It grew out of a desire to provide customers with the chance to specify their own bespoke furniture at a cost that compared favourably with standard products available from high street retailers. It sells furniture directly to the end customer. Its website allows customers to select the style of furniture, the wood it is to be made from, the type of upholstery used in cushion and seat fillings and the textile composition and pattern of the covering. The current website has over 60 textile patterns which can be selected by the customer. Once the customer has finished specifying the kind of furniture they want, a price is given. If this price is acceptable to the customer, then an order is placed and an estimated delivery date is given. Most delivery dates are ten weeks after the order has been placed. This relatively long delivery time is unacceptable to some customers and so they cancel the order immediately, citing the quoted long delivery time as their reason for cancellation.

　　Jayne Cox Direct orders wood, upholstery and textiles from long-established suppliers. About 95% of its wood is currently supplied by three timber suppliers, all of whom supplied the company in its first year of operation. Purchase orders with suppliers are placed by the procurement section. Until last year, they faxed purchase orders through to suppliers. They now email these orders. Recently, an expected order was not delivered because the supplier claimed that no email was received. This caused production delays. Although suppliers like working with Jayne Cox Direct,they are often critical of payment processing. On a number of occasions the accounts section at Jayne Cox Direct has been unable to match supplier invoices with purchase orders, leading to long delays in the payment of suppliers.

　　The sofas and chairs are built in Jayne Cox Direct’s factory. Relatively high inventory levels and a relaxed production process means that production is rarely disrupted. Despite this, the company is unable to meet 45% of the estimated delivery dates given when the order was placed, due to the required goods not being finished in time. Consequently,a member of the sales team has to telephone the customer and discuss an alternative delivery date.

　　Telephoning the customer to change the delivery date presents a number of problems. Firstly, contacting the customer by telephone can be difficult and costly. Secondly, many customers are disappointed that the original, promised delivery date can no longer be met. Finally, customers often have to agree a delivery date much later than the new delivery date suggested by Jayne Cox Direct. This is because customers often get less than one week’s notice of the new date and so they have to defer delivery to much later. This means that the goods have to remain in the warehouse for longer.

　　A separate delivery problem arises because of the bulky and high value nature of the product. Jayne Cox Direct requires someone to be available at the delivery address to sign for its safe receipt and to put the goods somewhere secure and dry. About 30% of intended deliveries do not take place because there is no-one at the address to accept delivery. Consequently, furniture has to be returned and stored at the factory. A member of the sales staff will subsequently telephone the customer and negotiate a new delivery date but, again, contacting the customer by telephone can be difficult and costly.

　　Delivery of furniture is made using the company’s own vans. Each of these vans follow a defined route each day of the week, irrespective of demand.

　　The company’s original growth was primarily due to the innovative business idea behind specifying competitively priced bespoke furniture. However, established rivals are now offering a similar service. In the face of this competition the managing director of Jayne Cox Direct has urged a thorough review of the supply chain. She feels that costs and inventory levels are too high and that the time taken from order to delivery is too long. Furthermore, in a recent customer satisfaction survey there was major criticism about the lack of information about the progress of the order after it was placed. One commented that ‘as soon as Jayne Cox Direct got my order and my money they seemed to forget about me. For ten weeks I heard nothing. Then, just three days before my estimated delivery date, I received a phone call telling me that the order had been delayed and that the estimated delivery date was now 17 June. I had already taken a day off work for 10 June, my original delivery date. I could not re-arrange this day off and so I had to agree a delivery date of 24 June when my mother would be here to receive it’.

　　People were also critical about after-sales service. One commented ‘I accidently stained my sofa. Nobody at Jayne Cox Direct could tell me how to clean it or how to order replacement fabrics for my sofa’. Another said ‘organising the return of a faulty chair was very difficult’.

　　When the managing director of Jayne Cox Direct saw the results of the survey she understood ‘why our customer retention rate is so low’.
 

　　(a) Analyse the existing value chain, using it to highlight areas of weakness at Jayne Cox Direct. (12 marks)

　　(b) Evaluate how technology could be used in both the upstream and the downstream supply chain to address the problems identified at Jayne Cox Direct. (13 marks)(25 marks)
 

　　(a) The value chain was introduced by Michael Porter as a way of examining all the activities a firm performs and how these activities interact. By understanding the value chain the analyst can understand costs and identify existing and potential sources of differentiation. The value chain of the organisation is concerned with creating value for customers. A firm is profitable if the value it commands from the customer exceeds the costs involved in creating the product or service that delivers that value.

　　The primary activities of the value chain are the activities required to physically produce the product, get it to the customer and provide that customer with after-sales service and assistance. Support activities provide organisation-wide functions (such as procurement and technology) to support the primary activities. In general, they support the whole value chain.

　　In the context of Jayne Cox Direct, the primary activities and their problems are:

　　Inbound logistics – activities associated with receiving, storing and distributing inputs to the product. This includes warehousing, inventory control and raw materials. At Jayne Cox Direct this concerns wood, upholstery, textiles and other raw materials. It concerns the storage of these raw materials before they are used in production. At Jayne Cox Direct there are documented problems with the e-mail purchase ordering system, which has led to the non-delivery of an expected order. High inventory levels are also commented on in the scenario and these need further investigation.

　　Operations – activities concerned with transforming the inputs into their final form; machining, packaging, assembly and testing. At Jayne Cox Direct this is the production process of furniture manufacture. Despite high inventory levels and a relatively slow production process, almost half of the promised delivery dates are not achieved. The reasons for this again need further investigation. Perhaps the method for estimating the delivery date is too optimistic. Alternatively, there may be inefficiencies in the production process which need addressing. As well as disappointing customers, failure to meet the proposed delivery date causes increased administrative costs, as a member of the sales team has to contact the customer and rearrange the delivery date.

　　Outbound logistics – activities associated with storing finished goods and physically distributing these to the customer.

　　At Jayne Cox Direct this is the storage of completed furniture and the delivery of furniture, using their vans, to customers. The cost of storing of finished goods is exacerbated by the need to store them longer than is necessary. There are two reasons for this. The first is concerned with customers not being able to meet revised delivery dates and so deferring delivery. The second reason is the return and storage of goods where delivery cannot be made because the customer is not at home to sign for them. Storage of finished goods increases inventory holding costs. Failed deliveries increase administrative costs (a member of the sales team has to telephone customers to re-arrange the delivery) and distribution costs (the delivery has to be made again).

　　Marketing and sales – activities that allow a buyer to become aware of a product, induces them to purchase this product and supports the actual purchase of the product. At Jayne Cox Direct this is achieved largely by display advertising in quality magazines and through a web-based ordering system. The sequence of the web-based ordering system may repay investigation and amendment. The estimated delivery time is given after the order has been placed and this causes some customers to immediately cancel their orders. It is perhaps unlikely that such customers will return to place orders with Jayne Cox Direct.

　　Servicing – activities that enhance or maintain the value of the product, including repair, parts supply and product adjustment.

　　At Jayne Cox Direct this would concern replacement of faulty or spoilt goods, complaints handling and product care information. Customers are critical of after-sales service at Jayne Cox Direct and the managing director believes that this contributes to low customer retention.

　　The value chain also considers a number of secondary or support activities. Only one of these is specifically relevant in the context of the Jayne Cox Direct scenario.

　　Procurement refers to the function of purchasing inputs used in the organisation’s value chain. It does not refer to the purchase inputs themselves. The cost of the procurement function may be relatively small, but their practices greatly affect the quality and cost of the final product. At Jayne Cox Direct, the cost of wood, upholstery and textiles will be an important determinant of the product cost. The long-term arrangement with suppliers needs investigating. Three timber suppliers provide 95% of the wood. Such arrangements may lead to suppliers becoming comfortable and progressively uncompetitive.
 

　　(b) This question is primarily concerned with re-examining the upstream and downstream supply chains to explore opportunities for reducing cost, improving order-to-delivery time, improving delivery practices and enhancing customer service. Clearly there are many possibilities. Candidates, however, will only be given credit for suggestions that use technology (rather than organisational changes) and that are clearly relevant to the case study scenario and the products it concerns.

　　21 Upstream supply chain solutions The upstream activities concern selecting suppliers (procurement), placing orders (procurement) and storing raw material inventory (inbound logistics). Dave Chaffey identifies six main challenges in the supply chain. Three of these six are relevant to Jayne Cox Direct.

　　– Reduce order-to-delivery time

　　– Manage inventory more effectively

　　– Improve demand forecasting

　　Suggestions for improvement might include:

　　As mentioned in the answer to the first part of this question, procurement continually uses the same long-established suppliers(for example, 95% of timber comes from three established suppliers). These suppliers may have become complacent and uncompetitive. The company might consider using e-procurement websites to identify a wider range of suppliers and then select between these suppliers on the basis of cost and quality when placing individual orders. Such an approach should help

　　drive down raw material costs and re-focus the costs and service offered by the established suppliers.

　　Although the purchase orders are placed through email, the ordering process is relatively cumbersome with suppliers occasionally failing to respond to emails or, when an expected delivery is not received, claiming they did not receive them in the first place. The payment system (operated by accounts) sometimes fails to match purchase orders with supplier invoices,

leading to delayed supplier payment and discontent. The company might consider a new system to administer purchasing and payment, linked electronically (through EDI) to the suppliers, so that orders are automatically entered into the supplier’s system and all invoice reconciliation and payment is performed electronically. This may require the company to continue to trade with a selected number of small suppliers, but it should help avoid non-delivery, reduce administrative costs and improve supplier relationships.

　　To avoid delays through inventory shortages, linkage with supplier systems might be increased by allowing suppliers to see the demand for certain products so that suppliers can, to some extent, anticipate demand and so should be able to supply more quickly. This would require further investigation and it seems likely that it would work better for certain raw materials than others. For example, the textile suppliers would be able to see the relative demand for different patterns and adjust their production accordingly. This should lead to Jayne Cox Direct achieving a higher percentage of planned customer order dates,as well as reducing delivery lead time.

　　Increased integration also brings the promise of better inventory management, with the opportunity of suppliers effectively producing to order rather than to stock, which is, in effect, an extension of what Jayne Cox Direct is doing. Closer integration of customer and supplier systems also provides the opportunity for ‘just in time’ manufacture where raw materials arrive just before they are needed in the production process. Although this transfers inventory costs to suppliers, more understanding of demand should mean that suppliers’ inventory management is also more effective. Reduced inventory costs for the supplier might also be passed on to Jayne Cox Direct, resulting in lower input costs. An understanding of demand and the relative costs of storage and ordering should also allow Jayne Cox Direct to implement systems that optimise order quantities (the EOQ model).

　　Downstream supply chain solutions

　　Downstream supply to customers is relatively simple as there are no intermediaries, as the company supplies directly to the consumer. However, evidence suggests that some consumers are relatively disaffected. A further challenge cited by Dave Chaffey is relevant here, the need to improve aftersales/post-sales operations (service on the value chain). The company also needs to consider the costs of finished goods storage (outbound logistics), distribution to customers (outbound logistics).

　　Furthermore, although processing orders is relatively effective, customers feel uninformed in the period between order placement and order fulfilment.

　　Some technological solutions here might include:

　　To introduce technology to support the planning and co-ordinating of deliveries so that delivery vans are used more efficiently and effectively. This might simultaneously increase the likelihood of customers being at home to receive deliveries. The products being delivered are bulky and valuable and so it is vital that someone is available at the delivery address to receive them. Failed deliveries are running at 30%, and this leads to increased inventory holding costs associated with storing the returned item at the warehouse, higher administrative costs of arranging a re-delivery and extra costs of actually making that re-delivery. Technology could be used to improve van utilisation (route planning software) as well as increasing the chance of a customer being at home (automated emails to the customer, automated text messages confirming delivery that day, perhaps confirming likely delivery time).

　　Part of the delivery problem is caused by the failure to continually inform customers about the progress of their order. The processing and payment for the goods appears to go quite smoothly and an estimated delivery date is given to the customer at the time of order. However, the customer receives no further information until an actual delivery date is confirmed by telephone less than one week before the planned delivery. Many actual delivery dates are not the same as the original estimated delivery date because of procurement issues. Some customers cannot make this new date (often after keeping the original date free) and so a new date has to be negotiated (an administration cost) and this often leads to the finished product being stored for longer (increasing inventory cost). An IT system that allows the customer to track their orders; updates likely delivery dates as they become available and gives the customer some feeling of progress and involvement would increase customer satisfaction and, by increasing the chance of achieving target delivery dates, reduce inventory cost and other expenses.

　　Customers have also complained about the absence of after-sales service. Using technology to provide answers to frequently asked questions (how do I get stains out of the upholstery), make and handle complaints and order replacement materials (particularly textiles) would appear to be beneficial. Service should help retain customers. Newsletters, special offers for established customers and targeted emails should also boost customer retention.
 

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