Part this report is available online on

Part this report is available online on

Part 1 – The Beginning In preparing for the OBU Research & Analysis Project, Most students spend a lot of time wondering as to what exactly the Research & Analysis Project (RAP) is all about. The reason for this is because they try to search the same amount and type of guidance as is available for the ACCA Exams. The starting point to work for the RAP is first to correct our understanding of what RAP is all about. Research & Analysis as the name suggests is the applied research which we are required to carry out to meet our objectives.Research is a part of academic studies in which you learn more than just models and theories.

You need to apply your professional knowledge in reaching an appropriate conclusion about your subject matter. Oxford Brookes University requires you to prepare a 6500 words report along with a 2000 words Skills and Learning statement (SLS). All information regarding the marking and grading of this report is available online on the ACCA Website. You should download the “Basic Information Pack 2008” which will provide guidance on marking, skills required in making the report, and a general guidance on the structure of your report.In this article I will talk about few points we need to make clear while making the reports.

When preparing this report, you should keep in mind that you first need to set the objectives of the report i. e What is it that you need to find out from your research. For example, If you select the topic of your research as “3 years financial and business performance of GE” then your objectives are could be: * What was the annual sales growth in 3 years period from 2006-08 * What effect did rising oil prices had on the Net profits for the year * How well did GE perform compared to its competitors What Impact did credit crunch had on the financial performance * What effect did new legislations had on the business performance of the company These are called Research Questions or Project objectives. Note that in they all begin with “What”, “How” , “Did” etc. Your research is supposed to answer all these questions. From this, you should get the idea that the information you would need for this is, the financial and business performance of your chosen company (GE in this case), competitors performance, financial and business news.

To get all this information you could look at some of these sources: Company Annual reports * Competitors annual reports * Journals * News Website ( BBC, Financial Times, Economist etc. ) * Search Engine (Google! ) Annual Reports of large companies can be easily located on the company’s website. Try browsing company’s Investor Relation or Financial Information sections.

These are all secondary data, you may collect primary data to increase the quality of report and present a better analysis however It is completely correct to use secondary information as far as its rightly referenced. So in this article, we saw how to begin our project with a correct understanding.