Hi, In the exam paper it says that the audience may be surprised by the withdrawal of the energy fund. Therefore i thought it is best not to directly mention it in the introduction, as it would be best to provide background first? Howerver, the mark scheme states it should be mentioned in the intro. Can i have some guidence on this please? Thanks
Hi - yes, I agree that we might not want to flag this specific point up in the introduction. Instead, we might want to build up more gently towards it within the paper. The examiners have chosen to mention the change earlier in their sample solution, but do bear in mind that there are many different approaches that can be taken which produce equally good answers. Try not to be overly concerned about individual points in the marking schedule. We do of course need to recognise that one of the objectives of the paper is to communicate the withdrawal of this fund and why this is being done. So we do need to signpost forwards to this in the introduction in some way. However, I agree that this could be done without explicit reference to the withdrawal of that fund, by including something more general about covering the forthcoming changes that are going to be made to the range of funds offered.
Hi, I folllowed a bottom up approach in drafting my answer as it was mentioned that audience might be surprised. Therefore, I talked about introducing a new fund before withdrawal of top perfroming fund. I don't think this was an illogical approach. However, looking at the marking scheme, it appeared that the examiner wanted to write the 3 asks in the script in the given order only (despite not mentioning it). This cost me few marks. Any suggestion here what should be done? Thanks
Although you say you have taken a bottom-up approach, it actually sounds like you took more of a top-down approach: hitting them with the final message first (= new fund) and then filling in the background that has led to that decision? Remember to step back and think about the overall purpose of the report. Here, part of what we have to do is to communicate the removal of an existing fund - which as well as coming as a surprise to the sales team, might well also worry them. They will presumably be remunerated on how much they sell, and removing a fund might make them worry that they will find it harder to sell business. So when we are framing the 'Why' of our report, we should include a need to reassure the sales team and give them confidence that they will still be able to sell lots of business after these changes. As noted, the information about withdrawing the fund could well be taken in a negative way. It is better to take a bottom-up approach in such situations: work gradually through the explanation of what has led to the decision, before then telling them what the 'bad news' decision is. That way, they will understand the reasoning by the time they get to what has been decided, and it should be less of a shock and not taken as badly. Here, after giving the background explanation, and then telling them that the fund has been withdrawn (which they still might not be happy about), we can finish on a positive by explaining that there is a great new fund that is being launched instead - which will hopefully replace the lost sales that they would otherwise be worrying about. Hence we are more likely to be judged as having achieved the implicit objective of giving them reassurance and confidence - and more likely to have a happy sales team, ie a satisfied audience. Try to make sure you step back and are thinking carefully about what you need to do in order to 'satisfy the audience' - a key aspect on which you are being judged within CP3. This isn't saying that a different order is 'wrong' as such, just that the order suggested here makes it much easier for us to meet the objectives of the communication.
