（Jun 2005/Q4 Identify and discuss five examples of how, in your opinion, the introduction of business information management systems can significantly affect working relationships and the communication of management information between employees and employers within an organisation.）

第二次考试，把剩余为看完的书看完了，没空做习题，考前照例把历届考题review一遍（其实还是没看完，data management这一块我还是放掉了），把考官的文章重点学习了一遍。这次考试比上次顺利些，终于在三小时内完成了100分的题量。考官的文章覆盖了必答题中十多分的题。

复习技巧总结

1、 看完书、看透书。理解书的内容和思想是学习3.4的价值所在，如果可以用一句话来概括整本书的思想的话，那便是’Enable Business Strategy through IT Application’。国外，信息部门被称为Enabling Function，顾名思义，信息部门的任务就是保障战略实施、提供战略优势，而并非通常意义上的辅助职能部门，我想3.4反复强调的也就是这么一个思想。附录中有一篇IFAC2004公布的研究报告<The Diverse Roles of Professional Accountants>中的文章摘录<Enabling Functions – What that Means in a Global Company>，对大家理解3.4这门课很有帮助。

2、 总结模型。3.4中有许多经典模型，他们经常出现在考题中，考前好好的梳理一下各个模型的主要思想对考试大有裨益。列举如下：

n PEST，SWOT

n ‘Where We Are, Where We Want to Be, Going to Get There’

n Nolan’s Six Stage Growth Model

n Parson’s IS Strategies

n Porter’s Value Chain, Porter’s five forces

n Earl’s Three Legs Analysis

n Zuboff’s ‘Automate, Infomate, transformate’

n Checkland’s SSM

3、 考官的文章非常重要！3.4的考官通常半年至少写一篇文章，而这篇文章多数会成为下一次考试的topic之一，一般涵盖10-15分的题目。好好学习考官的文章有助于进一步理解模型，更有助于通过考试：）

4、 关于习题。3.4全部是Essay Question，要求写得快，写得多。一、原则上应该多做习题，平时多练笔，多写写，以避免考场上“知道模型怎么回事，但是三言两语就写不出东西了”的尴尬境地。（郑重申明：本人学习态度不够端正，千万别以我为榜样；p）二、历届真题的重要性远远高于练习册。熟悉答题风格，考过的模型会经常换着花样的考，要重点准备。

5、 复习时间紧张的救急办法：背考官文章；看tips，准备你认为这次最有可能考的几个模型；烧香拜佛，求老天保佑，哈哈。

Appendix

Enabling Functions – What that Means in a Global Company

An Interview with Jon Fundrey

Jon Fundrey is, to give him his formal title, Financial Manager, Enabling Functions, at the industrial gases giant, The BOC Group, based at its UK headquarters. Enabling Functions covers a diverse range of responsibilities across the wide range of information management, human resources, safety and finance. “A major part of that role,” he said, “is supporting Information Management. BOC is a global business in fifty countries so staff are dispersed all around the world, though IT services are increasingly delivered from a global data center in Guildford in the UK. We also charge out to the business for our services.”

BOC spends about £100 million a year on information management with some £60 million globally but the emphasis is changing, as Fundrey reports, towards providing support and project-evaluation services.

Enabling Functions also covers financial standards. Here Fundrey’s responsibilities are more systems focused. He explained, “It is a question of ensuring that our strategic enterprise software (SAP’s R/3) works on a consistent basis across our geographies. We are rolling out a global template and defining the Finance components of that template and helping people out as we put it in.”

Fundrey is also responsible for the group’s consolidation and monthly reporting system. “We have over 200 reporting units around the world and those results are consolidated centrally on an Essbase database,” he explained. Summing up his role, he said, “Half my role is the finance function and half is systems-based responsibilities.”

Fundrey sees the contribution to BOC as being about helping driving IT/IM costs down. In his words, “Data and hardware costs fall consistently within the industry, so we need a continual review of our cost base. For example, we spend significant amounts of money with IBM and so we continually evaluate whether we are getting a good deal from them and our other suppliers. And we are driving down our systems costs. For example, with a standardized template, data flows more consistently. We need to create more process efficiency.”

Fundrey sees the added value that his efforts provide for BOC as being intertwined with the four main BOC core values: accountability, collaboration, transparency and stretch. “It is all about being very clear about what our financial objectives are and ensuring that we deliver against them. Within the finance function, it can be a tricky balancing act helping our information management colleagues deliver against their objectives.” Fundrey added, “They have a duty to their finance colleagues to ensure that accounting-wise it’s above board and viable. There is also the cultural point with a dislike of surprises. There is a duty of confidentiality to information management customers but at the same time you owe ‘no surprises’ to the finance function. It is a question of understanding the issues and an understanding of the information management issues and an ability to bring to bear financial tools and strategy. ”

Fundrey started his career in public practice.

He recalled, “I am one of the last refugees from the Big Eight. I qualified with Deloitte, Haskins & Sells in 1984 and moved into their management consulting systems side.” From there, he joined BOC in 1990. Several attractions led to this decision. “BOC is a large company and is well regarded. It does innovative things and is a global concern,” he remarked. Within the group, he has had six or seven very different roles, from selling a small computer training business to implementing an early form of EIS (Executive Information System).

Potential conflicts between corporate and professional obligations are well managed. Fundrey explained, “BOC’s core value of transparency does hold true. We have always been conscious of it but Sarbanes-Oxley reinforces it. BOC has finance as a strong point of its corporate structure. ‘If in doubt do what’s right.’ Where there might be a conflict is the capital versus revenue conflict. I need to ensure that something needs to be expensed rather than capitalized.

Also there are implications, for example with international financial reporting standards. Provisions on leasing could mean a greater amount of disclosure for us. But BOC has never been ‘financially innovative,’ meaning creative accounting. And that policy has been reinforced in recent years,” he stressed.

On the topic of continuing professional development, Fundrey called it a mixture.

“There is a fair amount of in-house work, for example, on implementing international financial reporting standards and providing information and training on them,” he remarked.

But he thinks that most value can be achieved from networking at conferences, noting that discussing issues with your peers in the industry can be the most valuable approach.

Summarizing his thoughts, Fundrey said, “The accounting profession is becoming more relevant to professional accountants in business. It is a question of the basic positioning of ourselves. In BOC we are clearly viewed as the control side of the business. And we also fulfill the ‘trusted advisor’ role, so we have a high degree of credibility and that is valued.”

Slogan:

“The accounting profession is becoming more relevant to professional accountants in business.”

Source: <The Diverse Roles of Professional Accountants> in Business Published by the Professional Accountants in Business Committee Nov. 2004, Available on http://www.ifac.org/