RHODES UNIVERSITY
3rd YEAR INTEGRATED ASSIGNMENT 2025
REQUIRED
Your group has been assigned to a specific company. You are required to research your
company using valid information available on the internet, the financial statements, and the
integrated report of the company to discuss the following:
Prepare a report wherein you address the following matters:
Professional Values and Attitudes and Acumens Weighting
PVAA 1: Digital Acumen 15%
1 Using pivot tables and Excel formulas, analyse the trend of the Statement 10%
of Profit or Loss for the five-year period ending in the most recent financial
year. Determine whether the company's net profit is increasing,
decreasing, stable, or fluctuating over these years.
Clearly outline the causes for changes in net profit during this period,
utilising basic Excel skills such as conditional formatting to highlight
variances, outliers, and anomalies that deviate from expected trends or
historical patterns. Based on your analysis, predict whether the net profit
for the following financial year will increase, decrease, or remain the same.
Additionally, create a bar graph to visually present the net profit for each of
the five years, and a pie chart to show the proportion of net profit each year
that contributes to the total net profit over the five-year period.
2 Examine the cybersecurity threats confronting the company, analyse their 5%
potential consequences, and propose strategies to mitigate these risks.
(Your answer must not exceed 800 words)
PVAA 2: Ethics 8%
3 How does the company balance the pursuit of profits with the need to
uphold ethical standards? Key factors to consider:
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● Corporate Social Responsibility
● Stakeholder Theory
● Transparency and Accountability
● Regulatory and Legal Compliance
PVAA 3: Business Acumen 7%
4 Conduct a PESTEL analysis for the company in which you outline the
following:
● Five key external factors that are identified as opportunities, and
five key external factors that are identified as threats.
● Five strategic recommendations on how the company should
respond to the identified external factors to capitalise on
opportunities and five strategic recommendations on effectively
mitigating the identified threats.
PVAA 4: Relational Acumen 10%
5
At the release of the assignment, each student was required to evaluate
their personality/ behavioural style prior to engaging in the group
assignment. The feedback from the evaluation provided students with
feedback on their own styles as well as on managing conflict with students
who have other behavioural styles.
Document a summary of your group reflection of how your understanding
of different personality styles influenced your behaviour, including
managing conflict with other students while completing the assignment.
Include two to three practical examples of how this knowledge has
particularly influenced your behaviour and conflict resolution.
40%
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TECHNICAL Weighting
Accounting 10%
6 Critically review the tax rate reconciliation included in the taxation note in
terms of IAS12. In your review:
• Discuss the movement from the statutory to the effective tax rate 7%
for the current and prior year,
• The movement of the effective tax rate from the prior year to the
current year through discussing the underlying reasons. 2%
• Use the taxation note and other notes to demonstrate an
1%
understanding of the underlying movements.
Auditing 10%
7 Discuss the Audit Strategy [Scope, Direction and Timing] as per ISA 300.7
that was adopted by the entity’s auditors as evidenced by the information
documented in the “Independent Auditors Report” included in the
entity’s Annual Financial Statements.
Your discussion must be informed by the entity’s Annual Financial
Statements alone.
Management Accounting and Finance 10%
8 Prepare a detailed SWOT analysis for your allocated company.
Further provide in detail examples from the company's integrated report
on why the identified issues comprise a strength, weakness, opportunity,
or threat.
Taxation 10%
9 Review the statement of changes in equity (and notes thereto) of the
company and identify any shares bought back and dividends paid. With
respect to both the share buyback and dividend payment, discuss the
taxation implications for the holders of shares and, if relevant, the company
in terms of the Income Tax Act No 58 of 1962, as amended.
Where a company does not have any share buy-back and dividend
payment, discuss on the assumption that there is share buy-back and
dividend payment.
40%
COMMUNICATION Marks 5%
Typed in Word 0.50
Font: Arial 11 0.50
Justify Text 0.50
Spacing: 1.5 0.50
Calculations in Excel using formulas 1
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Report Format:
● Executive Summary 1
● Table of Contents 1
● Introduction 1
● Conclusion 1
● Reference List – Harvard Method 1
● In Text Referencing 1
Grammar (will lose this mark for errors in spelling, syntax, and punctuation) 1
Logical argument throughout report 2
Clarity of expression 2
A mark will be lost for sentences that do not explain fully what is being 1
referred to/that leave out important information that cannot be gathered
from the context
Clear references to appendices (e.g. Excel calculations) 1
TOTAL 16
PRESENTATION 15%
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