Developing Exam Skills - POMFEO

On the way down to London yesterday I bumped into an old friend of mine, currently Head of Business in an outstanding North East school. He told me this really good activity that can be used to develop students exam skills, in particular, the last question on BUSS3.

As we know, the last question on BUSS3 requires students to argue the case for and against a particular strategy. It is expected that students will consider the main functional areas when arguing their case. POMFEO is a brilliant technique to develop that skill.

POMFEO is simply an acronym for:

P eople
O perations
M arketing
F inance
E xternal
O bjectives

What I like about POMFEO is not only is it a cool word and easy to remember, but it acts as a trigger for further analysis. So, M, what does the marketing data say about the strategy? Does it support it? What about F inance? O perations. Will the new strategy require new suppliers to be found? How will it impact on capacity? P eople. What does the HR data tell us? WIll the new strategy require a new approach to HR? What are the people like in the business.

A brilliant framework to develop students thinking. Which can’t be bad.

So, in the ‘stylee’ of a radio DeeJay..a ‘big shout’ goes out to Knight and Bird for this one. You know who you are.

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