ICMAP Strategic Level common mistakes
ICMAP Strategic Level · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Writing a textbook description of a framework (PESTEL, Porter's Five Forces, SWOT, Ansoff) and never tying a single point back to the named organisation in the scenario - e.g., listing 'threat of new entrants depends on barriers to entry' when the case gives a specific tariff change and a capital-intensive plant.
Candidates prepare by memorising model headings and, under time pressure, regurgitate the safest thing they know rather than searching the case for the two or three facts that actually drive the analysis.
What to do instead
Impose a 'fact → implication → so what' discipline on every bullet: quote or paraphrase a case fact, apply the model element to it, then state the consequence for the organisation's strategy or decision. Ban any bullet that could be copied unchanged into a different company's answer.
Answering the command word asked with a lower-order verb: 'evaluate' or 'critically assess' answered with a descriptive list, or 'recommend' answered with an analysis that stops before a decision; also ignoring the mark allocation and producing three points where eight were clearly expected.
Candidates read the scenario and the requirement once, then start writing immediately; the command word and mark tariff are skimmed rather than decoded, and the clock pressures them into producing volume instead of judgement.
What to do instead
Before writing, underline the command word and the mark tariff, and convert them into a plan: number of points = marks ÷ ~4, plus an explicit 'judgement/recommendation' line reserved for the end of the answer. Check the last sentence of every answer contains an evaluation or a decision, not a fact.
In relevant-costing and short-term decision questions, building the answer in the standard absorption-costing proforma and carrying allocated head-office overhead, sunk R&D, or apportioned fixed costs into the incremental analysis of a special order, make-or-buy, or shut-down decision.
Candidates have practised the absorption statement so often that the format is automatic, and they equate 'the cost appears in the accounts' with 'the cost is relevant'; they also fear that excluding a cost looks like an error.
What to do instead
Before any arithmetic, classify each cost item into a two-column table: avoidable/incremental vs unavoidable/committed/sunk. Only the first column enters the decision. Then state explicitly why each excluded item was excluded - the examiner awards the reasoning, not just the number.
Proposing performance measures that cannot be measured or acted on - e.g., 'improve customer satisfaction', 'increase employee motivation' - with no metric, target, data source or owner, and with no distinction between leading and lagging indicators across the balanced scorecard perspectives.
Candidates treat the scorecard as a list of desirable outcomes rather than a measurement design task, and they run out of time before converting objectives into metrics.
What to do instead
Use a fixed four-column grid for each perspective: objective (linked to a named strategic goal in the case) → measure with formula → target and timescale → initiative/owner. Label each measure as leading or lagging and state one behavioural risk it creates.
Constructing an NPV with inconsistent cash flows: discounting money-losing nominal cash flows at a real rate (or vice versa), omitting working-capital investment and release, omitting tax and capital allowances (or applying tax in the year the profit arises rather than the year it is paid), and deducting interest when the discount rate is WACC.
Candidates memorise a discount-factor table but not the logic of a cash-flow proforma; the mechanics feel familiar, so errors of principle go unnoticed under exam pressure.
What to do instead
Always lay out the proforma rows in a fixed order - T0 capital spend, operating cash flows, tax (with its lag), working-capital changes, terminal value/scrap - and add a header line stating 'nominal cash flows, nominal WACC' or 'real cash flows, real rate'. Never include financing cash flows when discounting at WACC; note this in one sentence.
Applying the company's existing WACC to a project in a different business line, or using an equity beta directly after a change in gearing, without unleashing and re-gearing the beta or adjusting for the risk difference.
Candidates treat WACC as a single memorised number for the whole company and skip the asset-beta/re-gearing mechanics because the formula chain looks long and error-prone.
What to do instead
Whenever a question mentions a new sector, a comparable company, or a change in capital structure, force the sequence: ungear comparables → average asset beta → regear at the target structure → CAPM → WACC. Write the four step headings before substituting any numbers, and add a sentence on why the existing WACC was inappropriate.
Reciting governance code provisions as universal rules without stating whether they are statutory requirements or 'comply or explain' recommendations, and describing good practice in the abstract instead of naming the specific governance failure present in the scenario (e.g., a former CEO sitting as a non-independent NED, or the audit partner also selling consultancy services).
Candidates revise codes as lists to be reproduced, and are anxious about misstating legal status, so they hedge by describing practice generally rather than committing to a position on the facts given.
What to do instead
For every governance answer, use three labelled parts: (1) the principle/requirement, with its status - statute, listing rule, or code with comply-or-explain; (2) the specific fact in the scenario that breaches or complies with it; (3) the recommended action and who should take it. Never write a governance point that does not name a person or body from the case.
Treating board composition as a box-ticking numbers game ('three NEDs out of eight, so compliant') without assessing independence in substance, and failing to allocate the scenario's issues to the correct committee (audit, remuneration, nomination, risk).
Candidates count heads because it is quick and looks objective, and they have not practised mapping a described event to the committee that owns it.
What to do instead
For each director or issue in the case, write one line of evidence for or against independence (former executive, material fee, family tie, lengthy tenure, cross-directorship). Then route each issue to a named committee and state the committee's specific responsibility - external audit appointment and oversight to audit, executive pay design to remuneration, succession and board balance to nomination.
Identifying an ethical dilemma, labelling it 'unethical', and stopping - with no recognition of the competing pressures, no structured analysis, no stakeholder impact, and no practical resolution that a named person could actually carry out.
Candidates are afraid of 'getting the ethics wrong' and so retreat to safe condemnation; they have also not practised applying a decision framework under time pressure, so the answer becomes assertion rather than reasoning.
What to do instead
Use a fixed template: facts → stakeholders and their claims → options (at least three, including a compromise) → test each option against consequences, duties/rights and fairness → recommended course with the exact steps, the person to escalate to, and the safeguard if overruled. Always include the internal escalation route and any professional or legal reporting obligation.
In business-law questions, jumping straight to a conclusion ('the contract is void', 'the director is liable') without establishing the elements of the claim or offence and without citing the governing provision or authority, and answering a two-part question (liability and remedy) with only one part.
Candidates reason from intuition and general fairness rather than from a rule-based structure, and they misjudge the time needed for legal questions so the remedy or defence is left blank.
What to do instead
Adopt an IRAC skeleton - Issue, Rule (statute section or case principle), Application to the facts, Conclusion - and for any formation or liability question run the element checklist explicitly (offer, acceptance, consideration, intention, capacity; or duty, breach, causation, loss). Number the parts of the requirement and give each its own headed section so no part is left unanswered.