cima operational level case study

Management Accounting Mastery

Master the skills needed to pass the cima exams and become a chartered global management accountant, a breakdown of the cima operational case study exam (ocs).

T he aim of the CIMA Operational Level Case Study Exam (OCS) is to teach you how to APPLY your knowledge from the three objective test papers in the workplace.

Here you’ll play the part of a Finance Officer (at a fictitious organisation) who is responsible for implementing strategy and focuses on the short-term elements of the business.

Some of the competencies you’ll be expected to demonstrate are:

• An understanding of costs and cost accounting, in order for you to start preparing budgets, and advise on short-term changes to products, volume and prices.
• An understanding of how the business is structured and how to communicate aspects of the budget, during both preparation and delivery, to non-finance staff.
• To prepare financial reports to show how the business is performing.
• To produce Management Information such as raw data, performance information, cost reports and present reality through numbers.
• Know about the regulatory environment, financial reporting, and business taxation.
• Making decisions on working capital, cash and short-term finance.
• Influencing your colleagues and peers in the finance department (e.g. product managers).

Exam Window

The OCS will be held during the fourth week (generally five days) in every exam-month –February, May, August and November.

Brought Forward Knowledge Required

You’ll be expected to remember all the key theories, models, frameworks, and calculations etc you learnt in the three objective test papers so that you can apply them to the business setting of the fictitious organisation in the OCS

Learning Outcomes and Syllabus Content

There is no additional syllabus content for you to learn as you should have all the knowledge you need from your studies of the three objective test papers.

However, in the OCS, you must be able to demonstrate that you can apply the following skills from the learning outcomes tested in the three OT exams to the particular business context of the case:

• Technical skills – 64% of your score
• Business skills – 16% of your score
• People Skills – 14% of your score
• Leadership Skills – 6% of your score

Let’s look more closely at these skills below..

1. Technical skills – 64% of your score

Rather than performing specific calculations or simply demonstrating technical knowledge as you would in the objective tests, the OCS goes beyond this and you’ll be expected to:

• Explain the benefits of applying certain techniques to the scenario
• Interpret the findings of a previously prepared analysis/report

The technical skills required in the case study will be drawn from across the CIMA E1, P1 and F1 papers

The OCS will examine you more on higher level skills such as analysis, synthesis, interpretation and justification of recommendation

2. Business skills – 16% of your score

What the OCS is really testing here, is whether you can appreciate that any given syllabus topic from E1, P1 or F1, can have different benefits or drawbacks given different business situations

To develop this awareness ahead of your exam, it’s important that you take an interest in the business news and practice analysing business based case studies.

You will NOT earn credit for business skills if you produce a list of benefits and drawbacks of a management accounting technique without saying WHY they are a benefit or a drawback given the context of the case.

There’s no set list of business skills that you should be aiming to develop and tick off before the exam but you should make sure you are familiar with the fictitious organisation in the case.

3. People Skills – 14% of your score

To be a ‘business ready’ trainee management accountant you are expected to develop people skills including communication, persuasion and understanding others’ needs

4. Leadership Skills – 6% of your score

The tasks you will have to perform in this exam will require an analysis of the situation to consider how to drive performance or to manage organisations and teams through change.

Although the E1 presents some theories on this area for testing in the objective test exams, the OCS will assess application of those theories by asking you to respond to different issues presented in the exam.

0800 048 7804   |   [email protected]

About Us Testimonials Exam Dates About CIMA Quick Purchase Basket Help Contact Us studyHUB Home

CIMA Operational Case Study

Pre-seen analysis pack

The pre-seen is at the core of every case study. To pass you MUST fully understand the company and its industry .

Why? Because the examiner expects you to apply EVERYTHING to the pre-seen scenario. It’s not about knowing the theory anymore (you’ve proved you can do that in the OT exams) it’s about showing how that theory relates to the pre-seen company.

And yet…

Almost every post-exam report the examiner notes that people are doing poorly because they are not applying answers to the pre-seen.

So how can we help? Our case study experts are here to support you with a range of pre-seen materials designed to make this part of your revision as easy as possible!

The pre-seen materials:

• Let you see the pre-seen through the eyes of our OCS expert , picking out all of the key information
• Apply key theory and models to the pre-seen
• Investigate the top 10 most likely issues to appear in your exam
• Give a detailed analysis of the pre-seen industry , helping you to build more rounded answers in your exam
• Test how well you have understood the pre-seen with a set of knowledge-based questions

“I have used Astranti for OCS pre-seen (their notes are a great guide and the analysis helps you familiarize with pre-seen in depth) and then went on to buy full package for both MCS and SCS and managed to get first time passes on both exams. Their material is great and the marked Mocks especially help you get ready for exam writing (for which theory knowledge is not enough). Would highly recommend it to everyone!”

CIMA Qualified , January 2023

Pre-seen knowledge questions

Once you have worked your way through the pre-seen materials, you can now test your understanding with our pre-seen knowledge questions.

These challenging questions cover a wide variety of topics that you should be familiar with before moving onwards with your case study revision.

• 30 challenging questions
• Picking up the key knowledge you should know before the exam
• Test yourself and learn
• Each question comes with a detailed solution

What our students say

Please see our  testimonials page  for our latest student reviews. Here are a couple of examples:

“ I have used the Astranti pre seen package for OCS and it was a great way to analyze the preseen and understand key focus areas for my review, allowing to pass smoothly the case being a self study student with a full time job! Great material and insights!”

CIMA Operational Case Study Student , January 2021

“ Top 10 Preseen Issues allowed me to focus on the key topics when meant in my variant I could apply my knowledge to the paper without trying to relearn everything but be strategic in my choices.”

CIMA Operational Case Study Student , July 2019

Purchase the pre-seen pack

The pre-seen materials are included on both our Essentials and Premium Courses . Head to the course page to see what else our courses have to offer.

OCS Pre-seen Pack May/August 2024

One-off payment of… £199

OCS Pre-seen Pack May/August 2024 (Instalments)

6x monthly instalments of… £36

OCS Pre-seen Pack November 2024/February 2025

OCS Pre-seen Pack November 2024/February 2025 (Instalments)

Note: Your pre-seen materials will only be available once the CIMA pre-seen for your chosen exam sitting has been released. You can purchase before this date if you wish, and your materials will available as soon as they are ready.

To qualify for the pass guarantee you need to ensure you complete ALL of the following steps. Failure to complete all of these steps will mean you will not qualify.

View & Print:

1. Click the “View + Print” link to view the study text.

2.  Wait  for all of the pages to load , this can sometimes take a couple of minutes depending on the size of the document (scroll to the last page to ensure that every page loads).

3.  Click  on the print icon within the document viewer (NOT the print icon in the browser menu).

4.  Follow  the steps to print.

Other things to try:

Please try an alternative browser.   Google Chrome and Firefox are recommended, but other  browsers may also work.  Updating your browser to the latest version can help your document load more quickly.

If you are using Windows XP and a version of Internet Explorer older than 9, we cannot guarantee  that printing will be possible. We recommend obtaining access to a computer with at least Windows 7.

Updating to the latest  version of flash can help to resolve some people’s printing issues ( download the latest version of flash .)

If your document fails to load, try clearing your cache and browser history. If your documents still do not load it may be due to the network you are on. We suggest trying to print on a different network.

If you still cannot print your document we suggest using a different computer and/or printer in case you are experiencing a hardware issue.

This Content is Locked

To access this resource you will need to purchase it, or join our complete course. Visit our quick purchase page to get the resources you need.

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar

Free ACCA & CIMA online courses from OpenTuition

Free Notes, Lectures, Tests and Forums for ACCA and CIMA exams

20% off ACCA & CIMA Books

OpenTuition recommends the new interactive BPP books for June 2024 exams, Get your discount code >>

Top tips for Operational Case Study examination

• Application is so important. Generic textbook answers do not score well. The secret here is assimilation of the technical knowledge with the context and details of the pre-seen scenario.
• Use the company name/ staff members/ key themes of the pre-seen -eg environmental or innovative plans to underpin your suggestions & make them relevant & applied.
• Make sure you know your pre-seen inside out… eg if the company does not offer credit sales at the moment, be careful not to suggest debt factoring as a way to ease cashflow!!
• CIMA examiner has asked that students assume life as normal for their case-study answers (Eg a life before COVID pandemic began)… Although, all relevant comments will be awarded if correct and in context, but you should avoid excessive references to COVID/ lockdown/ impact of health social distancing etc on the company.
• Students should be familiar with the CIMA Blueprint… particularly the I – CAN statements. 

https://www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/Future%20of%20Finance/1901-9263%20Operational%20Exam%20Blueprints%20FINAL%20ONLINE%20v4.pdf

The ‘I CAN pages from this link are pasted below..

These tell student the weightings and mix of the topics they can expect in EVERY OCS exam…

For example -from the ICAN table..– Section F ( working capital) will be between 7 and 13% of every op case study exam paper – so this table shows the importance of those topic areas – eg we know from this that working capital will be examined in EVERY OCS exam paper going forward (at least 7% of the marks) – so this topic is guaranteed…

Use your objective test knowledge ( 2019 syllabus) notes & Open Tuition lectures to revise – bearing in mind P1 is the LEAD paper for OCS, but F1 and E1 both important too,

When working through your P1/ F1/ E1 notes –try to keep a high level overview – rather than drilling down to the detailed calculations – instead be able to explain/ define/ know the pros and cons of techniques and whether they would be ‘useful’ for the pre-seen company in your scenario.

Graphs are common in the OCS – so be sure you can explain and interpret graphs ( linear programming for example).

Always write enough – ensure you expand/ explain & apply. Leave lots of white space – use subheadings to present your answers & help markers award marks that you deserve.

Avoid bullet points – unless you are out of time

Use the percentage weightings of each exam SUBTASK to guide how much time to spend on each part of your answer

Visit CIMA website & find detailed examiner reports & past exam questions to see errors and weaknesses made by students in recent sittings. Also a good way to see the types of questions to expect and level of detail CIMA are requiring in their answers.

• Accountancy and Tax
• Accountancy and Tax - Professional Qualifications
• CIMA Operational

CIMA's CGMA® Operational Level

The first level of CIMA's CGMA® Professional Qualification, we work closely with CIMA to align our teaching to the qualification and assessments. Progress through your studies using our data driven learning methodology, BPP Momentum, proven to increase your chances of passing by at least 25% compared to other providers.

CGMA Operational level papers

The CGMA Operational level requires you to complete three Objective Test exams subjects and a Case Study exam. You can only attempt the Case Study exam, which tests your knowledge of the level, once you have passed all three Objective Test exams. Successful completion of the tests and case study allows you to progress onto the CGMA Management level.

Courses available (swipe to view more)

A combination of Taught and Revision phases, providing core syllabus knowledge and an opportunity to apply it to real exam questions.

Your tutor will guide you through the syllabus, help you build your knowledge and how to apply it in the exam.

Attempt an exam standard mock, testing your technique under timed conditions. Includes comprehensive feedback to focus your final preparations.

Choose your courses

Entry requirements and exemptions

There are no formal entry requirements to start your CGMA journey, but learners are expected to have a good level of mathematics and English language in order to succeed.  

If you have no relevant degree or other accounting credentials, the  CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting (Cert BA)  will be a good starting point. You might also gain some exemptions if you have completed the final level of  AAT  or equivalent. To find out more, use the  CIMA exemptions calculator . 

Booking your CGMA exam

Choose the exam to suit you by booking directly with CIMA. You will pay directly to the institute for your exam sitting. 

“The material provided by BPP is of a high standard and volume. Teachers will guide you through a comprehensive set of notes and provide a highly detailed textbook and summary cards and you utilise an online learning environment containing the course material, practice questions and lectures allowing you to recap and test yourself at your own pace. Without this, I do not think I could pass the course!”

Jack Murphy, Accountancy student, BDO

Exam timetable

View key dates to help you plan your studies. Plan your CIMA’s CGMA® exams. On-demand tests are available all year. There are four windows a year when you can sit the Case Study Exams (February, May, August, and November).

Every purchase you make from the AICPA & CIMA is safe and secure. We also guarantee 100% customer satisfaction on most of our products. If you’re not satisfied with your purchase, please contact us.

To start the return process, please contact us first. View all products eligible for refunds .

This site is brought to you by the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, the global voice of the accounting and finance profession, founded by the American Institute of CPAs and The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

CA Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Exam Resource

May-aug24 management pre-seen material.