D4 Negotiating May 2015 Exam Review

CIPS has some fancy stock photography of landscapes, bugs, owls, etc on their covers but imagine this photo on the D4 cover!

I sat the May series exams for D4. Everyone said it was going to be hard and had a low pass rate. So, I was surprised when it wasn't as tough as expected because the majority of questions were the same/similar to previous years. I'll go through each question below:

Question 1

Explain FIVE requirements for ensuring the creation of a legally binding contract.

Easy. This was a past exam question from November 2013 and everything you needed to answer this question are found on pages 18-21.

Question 2

Explain FIVE ways a buying organisation can improve its leverage with suppliers in a commercial negotiation.

Again, pretty easy. This was a past exam question from May 2014. Answers can be found on page 87.

Question 3 

Question 3 was broken up into three parts which required you to:

• Calculate the breakeven point;
• Calculate the margin of safety; and
• Describe two implications on the supplier if the order was above the breakeven point.

This was a new question that hadn't been asked before. Previous exams didn't require any calculations, so I didn't memorise the formulas. It's a bit harsh to require people to remember formulas. The formulas can be found on pages 115-118.

Question 4

Question 4 was broken up into two parts, which required you to:

• Explain three negotiation tactics that may be used in a commercial negotiation; and
• Explain three tools for structured reflection.

The first part is similar to a question in November 2014. The table of negotiation tactics can be found on page 118.

I thought there was a similar question in previous exams but couldn't find it. Answers can be found on pages 214-215.

Final Note

One thing that annoys so many students that there is so much to read and recall yet the exam tests only a fraction of it. So, the course book is 222 pages but the material required for the exam is found on 13 pages.