Misguided Business Student

My year of 2016 at the age of 25 as an entry level accounting/auditing professional at KPMG: Sri Lanka was havoc.

As an undergraduate who follows two professional courses, one in "accounting" and other in "banking" who happens to have an addiction to excessive entertainment and tendency to get depressed like I said going to Colombo was high-risk decision making.

And it happened as always the way we expected it to happen.

Many of my "academic and professional life goals" were achieved with marginal success rates.

Academically and professionally combined my priority as education should be passing and getting to touch with CIMA: Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

But since I used self-study techniques and also my mistake of over-prioritizing banking and the degree negatively impacted on me.

So basically I failed CIMA which should be the foundation to my accounting and auditing career.

And my career was also extremely volatile.

It did not respond as positively as I hoped it would. It was my fault.

Like I said Lack of knowledge in MS Excel, Sri Lanka Accounting Standards (LKAS) and Sri Lanka Auditing Standards (SLAuS) negatively impacted on me.

And then again I myself as a professional did showed a lack of interest at work due to a variable lifestyle in the year 2016.

The established skill set from 2015 during the Internship at Sampath Bank PLC (June 2015 to December 2015) and from NIBM (National Institute of Business Management) was uprooted in a year due to misguided personal behavior by me.

I also had to follow a strict social media guideline of our entity. I did not break any legal areas but there were many ethical concerns in my opinion.

My degree in business management was a degree specialized in business administration. It helped me out to build on the overall professional life, but my prioritizing on three academic courses was a failure in the sense of grasping core subject matter.

And in conclusion, the final ending for this article is simple. This is like a simple walkthrough of a year of an accounting/auditing professional and accordingly identifying his or her problems to be a better business student and a professional in future which is highly required and this is the guideline through 1-year experience by me.

This is more like a self - evaluation. So others can learn from my mistakes.

References

Image: Chalkboard with question marks (2017). Format : (jpg) Available at http://www.freepik.com/free-photo/chalkboard-with-question-marks-and-a-hand-with-a-chalk_1030091.htm#term=confused&page=1&position=4 (Accessed date: 2017/01/28) 

Business Management Your Mind (BMYM)

Now, this article on "managing your mind" may look like covering aspects like "business psychology", "strategic human resource management" and "marketing".

But basically it’s a simple depiction of the use of "fundamental management principles" in day to day activities, and especially referring it to "studying" for a six month intermediary level accountancy subject specializing in the "banking sector" of Sri Lanka, which I sat for and studied for in "two weeks" and passing the exam with "an acceptable result".

Now let’s lay down the principles of theoretical tools used in this practical scenario of "the project" of passing the business accounting module in the "Intermediary of Applied Banking and Finance (IABF)".

Basically "basic 4 steps of management" as per the knowledge gained from "the bachelor’s degree in business management" is used, which is laid down below,

      (01) Planning and decision making   

      (02) Organizing

      (03) Leading

      (04) Controlling

Now, these "four steps" are the basics of decision making in any organization’s management function.

Now BMYM or “Business Management Your Mind” is an "abbreviation" use to reflect on the implementation of "four steps in management principles" to achieve an exam based objective attainment which is related to "professional" and "academic" life.

Now basically the "first step" as per the above situation is,

 

      (01) Planning and decision making

First of all the study guide issued by the Institute of Bankers of Sri Lanka (IBSL) was used to extract basic guidelines for the exam.

(i)                  The results categories and it’s variety are,

A – Distinction – 85 < xxxx

B – 75 – 84

C – 65 – 74

S – 45 – 64

F – 45 < xxxx [Fail]

(ii)                Business accounting syllabus "objectives" and "contents"

Now that the targets, goals, and objectives are clear, a "plan" on how to achieve these in two weeks was established.

And also "syllabus areas of the subject" was also studied and the "relevant study material" was gathered.

                            

From IBSL class notes, external study material related to business accounting (Chartered Accountancy study material and Chartered Institute of Management Accountancy [CIMA] study material) and past papers for IABF from IBSL were collected to prepare for the exam.

And also an external tutor from newspapers was found to gain study support. His name was Mr. Chandana Prasad. He was contacted and the relevant objectives attainment plan was established.

      (02) Organizing

Now since with work at "the external audit firm", "studies at the bachelor’s degree program", "self-studies of Chartered Institute of Management Accountancy (CIMA) : UK" and "self studies for Banking" is a lot of functions at once, it is required to "organize" the relevant work properly.

Therefore prior to the exam before two (02) weeks sequentially the following functions were established and checked off from the list in "(03) Leading" and "(04) Controlling" which are the next two functions in the basic objectives.

The "list of functions" to be achieved is basically…….

(i)                  Four (04) classes of 2 hours were put on the "last weekends" prior to the exam contacting the tutor "Mr. Chandana".

(ii)                Since prior to the exam requires "study leave" it was applied with the discussion of the supervisor at the firm not clashing with professional life.

(iii)               A study schedule was established to work on the exam according to the different study areas categorizing them for the 14 days in 2 weeks prior to the exam. This was based on past paper references.

(iv)              Getting approved the exam admission.

      (03) Leading

Leading a personal, singular and individual objective should be based on personal discipline.

The study was personally followed up with the "daily diary" and "problem areas" were studied accordingly.

The "admission" was approved and all the above "checklist" was followed up accordingly.

      (04) Controlling

   

      To avoid deviation of work performance entertainment and additional activities were reduced to achieve examination, objectives, and goals. 

      

      The examination was passed with a “Result of an S” which is satisfactory considering the time period and the workload.                                                                                                                                   
   
      But since it is marginal, the "effectiveness" of the relevant function is questionable. "Efficiency" was there since the objective of passing the exam is existent. Basically, the management function is half done.                                                                                                                                                   
   
      Productivity (Efficiency + Effectiveness) is not there.

      

      Now the purpose of this article is to provide a guideline to personal goal attainment using business management principles.

      This function is related to professional and academic life goal attainment.

Hope it helped.

Thanks.


References

Presentations and lectures

•               Ranawaka. K. (2013), Principles of management.

Websites

·        Chapman. A. (2016), Time management techniques and systems, Businessballs.com. Available at: http://www.businessballs.com/timemanagement.htm (Accessed date: 25^th December, 2016 / Time: 11:23 PM)

·       CollegeBoard.com (2016), Principles of Management, Available at: https://clep.collegeboard.org/business/principles-of-management.html (Accessed date: 25^th December, 2016 / Time: 11:30 PM)

Images

·       Bellier, F (2014), Clear Mind Factory (Image : Jpg), Available at : http://clearmindfactory.com/ (Accessed date : 25^th December, 2016 / Time: 11:42 PM)