SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTANCY
DIPLOMA IN ACC/BS/BFS/BIT (2004/2005)
Writing Short Informal Reports Tutorial Questions
1. As Purchasing Director for Versace, rewrite the following
Periodic Report using the Memorandum report format. Please ensure
use of appropriate descriptive report headings and report writing
principles.
To: Monica Lewinsky, CEO
From: Saddam Hussein
Re: Monthly Report
Date: 31 Aug 2004
Our regional buyers have now completed their monthly visit to
regional outlets worldwide. Their buying decisions and suggestions
reflect their observations about sales trends. All outlets report
brisk sales.
They noticed that winter wear was a hit especially outlets in
France and Hungary. They will have to restock trench coats, leather
jackets and thermal wear. Cotton clothes for children are more
popular than they have been for the last two years, and they have
ordered more heavy cotton clothes for the next year. Sales for
cotton childrens wear are up by 90%.
Of course, cotton clothes for teenagers and adults: both men and
women, continue to be popular all year round. In the ladies
fashion section, leather off-shoulders, fur coats and felt evening
dresses had higher sales than they did at this time last year,
probably because of the recent trends in rich fabrics. The regional
buyers want immediately to increase the prices of these items by
20%, in order to push sales before their popularity dies. They also
have decided to increase our order of the Softly line of lingerie.
This luxury line is moving faster than the others. In menswear,
overall sales figures are on target and buyers plan to continue our
normal volume of purchasing. Felt sweaters continue to outsell
woollen ones. The only shift in our buying patterns will be an
increase in natural fabric pants instead of detachable
shirts.
2. SPA Anti-Piracy, a division of the Software and Information
Industry Association is concerned about the increased use of
pirated software by students. The 2003 software piracy estimates
indicated that more than one in every three software applications
in use during 2003 was pirated.
The continuing problem meant lost jobs, wages, tax revenues, and a
potential barrier to success for software start-ups around the
globe.
SPA Anti-Piracy has asked you to conduct an investigation on the
usage of pirated software by students in Ngee Ann
Polytechnic.
SPA Anti-Piracy wants you to include three recommendations to solve
this problem.
You conducted a survey with 100 Diploma in Business Studies
students and 100 Diploma in Business and Information Technology
students from Year 1. Your survey results showed that 90% of the
respondents had used pirated software before.
Although lecturers had consistently reminded students not to do so,
50 % of the respondents used pirated software during lessons. Out
of this percentage, 44% of them refused to use legal software
whilst 6% forgot to un-install pirated software in their
laptops.
Requirements:
Based on the information given above, write an investigative report
using the short report format (indirect approach) with appropriate
headings and numberings.
3. Three months ago, Hawaiian Furnishings Ltd (an international
lifestyle furnishing retailer) launched a new product line of DIY
furnishing Furnish-X. It has been very well-received. Orders have
surpassed their projections and sales have increased by 150%.
This success, however, has created considerable overtime for the
customer service and logistics staff. The overworked staff has been
stretched to their limits during this peak period. This has
resulted in wrong customers orders, delayed deliveries and
deteriorating service standards.
Many customers have been complaining about the dreadful attitude
and abhorrent service from the customer service staff. Besides,
customers are upset with the mistakes made in their orders and the
delays in delivery despite advance scheduling with the logistics
department.
Hawaiian Furnishing Ltd has always been fretful about its costs of
operation. Profit is the top priority.
Imagine that you are the Manager of Hawaiian Furnishing Ltd., write
a justification report (short report format) to convince the
General Manager, Tamara Ong to hire 30 customer service and
logistics staff. This is to ease the unanticipated workload.
Your report should describe the proposed recommendation, 2
advantages & 1 disadvantage.
Note:
You will need to discuss in-groups at class before presenting the
answers on Word document. Please ensure that there are at least 4
notebooks at the tutorials next week.