The Scenario
Q1 is over. The marketing team spent R680K against a budget of R600K — 13% over. The CFO wants to know why and whether it will happen again.
The Brief
Write a variance analysis report. Decompose the R80K overspend into specific line items, classify each as controllable or uncontrollable, and recommend corrective actions for Q2.
Deliverables
- A variance table: Line Item, Budget, Actual, Variance (R and %), Controllable/Uncontrollable
- An explanation for each significant variance (>5%) with root cause
- A recommendation for Q2: which spending to cut, which to maintain, and what approvals to tighten
Submission Guidance
Not all overspends are bad. If the team overspent on a campaign that generated 3× ROI, that is a good overspend. Show this judgment.
Submit Your Work
Your submission is graded against the rubric on the right. If you pass, you get a public Badge URL you can share on LinkedIn. There is no draft save, so work offline first and paste your finished response here.