Strategic Business Leader (SBL)
An innovative case study examination
Integrated technical, ethical, and professional skills.
Paper Structure ACCA Strategic Business Leader
- 4-hour duration allowed (240 minutes)
- 100 marks, 80 for application of technical content, and 20 for professional skills
- 50 marks to pass
- 12-15 pages of case study information
- All questions are based on the same scenario
- The emphasis is on a combination of technical and professional skills
The skills and expertise you’ll need
A successful student should:
- bring forward the skill and knowledge from earlier learning and exam in the context of acting as a strategic business leader
- take a board interest in their day to day work, undertake wider reading, and develop business acumen in order to apply this to the scenario given
- demonstrate their technical skills in a practical context, professionalism, and professional skills
- show the ability to access, interpret and synthesize the scenario and other information to provide appropriate solutions to the tasks required.
1.1 Being Leader
As a leader, you are expected to be able to analyze a business situation and provide and implement an appropriate, effective and sustainable solution. This Means that can
- be clear and focused, identifying the key issues in any situation
- analyze and address ethical concerns
- use technical principles and quantitative study to move out key issues, confirm causality and integrate a broad range of circumstances into a coherent argument
- make recommendations that meet the needs of users and ‘are fit for purpose.
1.2 Thinking Strategically
Having a strategic perspective means that you can do the following:
- Take a long-term perspective.
- Look at the whole organization as well as individual products/divisions/ SBUs.
- Set the selection of the whole organization and integrate its activities.
- Consider the views of all stakeholders, not just shareholders.
- Analyze the organization’s resources and define resource requirements
- Relate the organization to its environment.
- Look at gaining a sustainable competitive advantage.
A quick guide to dividing your time in Exam
- 25% Leadership and Governance
- 25% Strategy and Risk
- 50% Delivering Strategy
Three Phases of study for Strategic Business Leaders
- Learning phase
- Revision phase, and
- final preparation (including mock exams and feedback) phase.
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