Assessment Description

This assignment is designed to assist you in the thorough investigation of your company, particularly the financial statements, governance, ethics and sustainability approaches of your company. This assignment requires you to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of your organisation through detailed research, including but not limited to interpretation of financial statement data and other information likely to be included in an annual report and relevant articles. Importantly, the business report must communicate key findings to accountants and nonaccountants alike.

Assessment Instructions

You are required to write a report that clearly articulates the organisation's recent performance and options for improvement.

Please evaluate the selected organisation’s employing the following structure:

• Analyse the company’s competitiveness against two other companies in the same industry.

• Evaluate the financial performance of the company (at least two years of data) and compare with industry standards.

• What is the company’s approach to governance and ethics?

• What is the company’s approach to sustainability?

• What is the likelihood of the company experiencing corporate failure?

• What is the likelihood of the company being creative with the construction of its financial statements?

• Recommend four actions that the company should undertake to improve its performance and viability.

In undertaking this analysis students are expected to include comparisons with competitor’s financial statements as well as an appreciation of industry norms and practices in the areas of financial statements, governance, ethics and sustainability. Students are required to develop recommendations to promote future performance improvements and demonstrate an understanding of financial matters that may have inhibited the company’s’ organisational development. Please also refer to any relevant accounting theories to explain findings and/or recommendations.

Sections of the report should include the following areas:

• An Executive Summary that summarises the key findings.

• An Introduction that summarises the purpose of the report.

• An evaluation of the company’s financial statements and concerns about the financial statements, including the risk of corporate failure and how does the company’s performance compare with other like companies of the same industry.

• A specific outline of the organisation’s approach to governance and ethics.

• A specific outline of the company’s approach to sustainability.

• The potential concerns of financial failure or likelihood of corporate failure.

• A summary of recommendations that identify areas of focus and opportunity to enhance the organisation's performance in the future.

• A conclusion.

• References.

Students are encouraged to use a wide variety of information sources including the following:

• The organisation’s annual report

• SWOT analysis of other airlines

• Benchmarking analysis of competitor airlines

• Competitor’s annual reports

• Media articles on the airline company

• Information from professional accounting bodies (e.g. CAANZ)