Question 2 - Part a

In this lesson

1. 0:00 Introduction to JOLT's BPR evaluation
2. 0:21 Understanding JOLT's business profile and strategy
3. 2:40 Identifying organisational weaknesses and opportunities
4. 5:30 Competitor strategy and market pressures
5. 7:26 Overview of the outsourcing proposal
6. 9:13 Proposed reorganisation and team structure
7. 11:07 Defining business process re-engineering characteristics
8. 12:18 Cost comparison: manufacturing versus outsourcing
9. 15:43 Evaluating cost savings with additional factors
10. 17:37 Assessing impact on lead times and quality
11. 22:15 Whether proposal qualifies as true BPR
12. 25:02 Structuring marks across theory and evaluation

About this lesson

This lesson covers Question 2 Part a from a case study exam, showing you how to build a structured answer that addresses customer demands, performs cost calculations, and assesses whether a proposal truly qualifies as BPR. You'll work through the Jolt case scenario step by step, learning how to extract relevant information from the brief and identify what matters for your answer. The lesson demonstrates practical techniques like using SWOT analysis as a planning tool, spotting weaknesses in the company's current position, and recognising how strategic context—in this case, Jolt's differentiation strategy and ethical standards—shapes your evaluation. You'll see how to challenge assumptions and think critically about proposals that might look good on the surface. The core of this lesson focuses on financial analysis. You'll follow detailed calculations comparing manufacturing costs against outsourcing costs, working through shipping expenses, import duties, and foreign exchange considerations. Crucially, you'll learn why the headline savings figure can be misleading and how to account for fixed overhead absorption when production is only partially outsourced. The lesson also covers how to evaluate the proposal against Jolt's two key customer demands—lower prices and improved lead times and quality—showing where the proposal strengthens the position and where it creates real risks. Throughout, you'll pick up exam technique tips: how to signal your thinking with clear annotations, why balancing arguments for and against matters for professional skills marks, and how to structure your conclusions to demonstrate analysis and evaluation. By the end, you'll have a complete answer framework worth around six marks for the financial evaluation plus additional marks for discussing whether the proposal truly represents BPR or is simply an outsourcing project.

Duration: 28m