ACCT5910 Major Project—Individual Strategy Component

Detailed Instructions

Task Description

You are required to conduct in-depth strategy analysis on a company (either a2 Milk Company

Limited (ASX: A2M) or Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT)) and evaluate its key accounting policies or

estimates. The case company is assigned through your group registration. Please note that this

component must be completed individually. You should not share your work with anyone at this stage,

including peers in your project group.

Specifically, you are required to complete the following tasks (with grading weights in the parentheses):

• Task 1: Identify the THREE most important strategic factors that determine the long-term

profitability and sustainability of the company. Provide detailed reasoning and/or evidence to

support your arguments. (60% of the assessment)

• Task 2: Read the company’s disclosures and identify ONE specific accounting policy or

estimate that is most prone to earnings management. Explain the potential incentives for the

managers to manipulate accounts through this policy or estimate. (40% of the assessment)

Submission Guidelines

• You must submit your individual report through the Turnitin link on the course Moodle page

• This assessment accounts for 20% of your total course grade.

• The maximum number of pages assessed is five (5), inclusive of all texts, tables, figures,

references, and appendices.

• A4 page setup is required. No cover page should be used.

• All texts must be formatted using Times New Roman font, size 11 and 1.5 spacing.

• The individual report is due by 3pm, Friday 21st March, 2025.

• The submitted file name should be formatted

as: “__ACCT5910_Strategy_Project. pdf”.

Tips and Hints

Task 1

In order to identify most important strategic factors, it is useful to read the company’s recent conference

call transcripts and media articles. Search for topics that are repeatedly mentioned by the management,

analysts and journalists. Conference call transcripts may be found in Factset or the company website,

and journal articles are searchable through Factiva.

Task 2

Annual reports typically include a dedicated section summarising key accounting policies. The

footnotes to financial statements contain many details of accounting methods and estimates used to

recognize or measure specific line items.

Marking Criteria

Relevance and specificity (30%)

Your responses must directly answer the questions and appropriate methods and information sources.

The arguments used must be specific to the case, free of generic comments.

Analytical Rigor (30%)

Predictions and explanations must be supported by hard facts, statistics, and tight logical reasoning.

All calculations and derivations are accurate and clearly documented.

Research Depth and Breadth (20%)

Your report should reflect extensive research into corporate disclosures and other sources of

information.

Exposition (20%)

The writing should be free of spelling or grammatical errors. The language should be concise and

clear. All tables and figures are professionally annotated and presented. References are appropriately

made to external data or analysis.

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