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Author Topic: How to Write a Business Report  (Read 31363 times)  Share 

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isaacdelatorre

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How to Write a Business Report
« on: July 24, 2017, 09:55:32 pm »
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Struggling to write a business report? Don’t worry, you’re not alone!! I found it incredibly difficult to write a business report in a sustained logical and cohesive form whilst also demonstrating enough knowledge of the content as well as apply it to the business – it’s a crazy amount to do in 40 minutes!!!

With the upcoming trials *cries* I thought I would write up a quick guide on how best to approach business reports – once you know the secrets, you’ll be able to offer advice to even the most indebted businesses.

To show you this, I’ll be integrating a business report in exam conditions:

Planning
It’s super important that you spend the first few minutes reading and understanding the question – I highly recommending underlining/highlighting the keywords to isolate them and ensure that you are definitely answering what is being asked of you. Take a look at my page!



Next you should always look at the directive verb – this should dictate how you structure your response – you should definitely know the vast majority as they are often used in your other subjects in short answers and essays! If you need to refresh your memory check out here

For every single extended response type answer I ever did, I always dedicated the first page to “planning” I would brain dump everything/anything I knew about the topic and then decide what parts I would use, what structure to take. This allowed me to not freak out and forget something but also provided direction and clarity for when I was writing it. Here’s what mine looked like.



Overall Tips
  • Use the business name frequently – minimum twice per paragraph  this ensure that you are applying the scenario to the syllabus
  • Use a system of headings, subheadings and numberings. This often confuses students but a good guide is:
1.   Executive Summary
2.   Heading
   2.1.   Subheading
   2.2.   Subheading
   2.3.   Recommendation
3.   Conclusion

For example:
2. Global Marketing Strategies
    2.1.  Global Pricing
          2.1.1. Advantages
          2.1.2. Disadvantages
    2.2. Customisation
          2.2.1. Advantages   
          2.2.2. Disadvantages
    2.3. Recommendation

  • Try to keep it simple and succinct – imagine that this report is being read by a busy CEO who has a billion other things to do and doesn’t want to be reading your report for more than 5 minutes.
  • You want your language to be simple to understand whilst using and explaining any relevant business terminology as well as graphs.
  • You should write in third person, present tense to make it sound sophisticated.

Executive Summary
I often get question about how to write an executive summary. How long they should be, how in depth, do I bring in case studies? Here is my guide to a super succinct and clear executive summary that details what your report will be talking about. This is incredibly important as this is the first impression your marker gets of your report – you want to leave the best impression on your marker as a bad exec summary that is riddled with errors and doesn’t provide a clear direction will leave the marker confused and biased against your report without even reading the body.

Sentence 1 should always start with “The purpose of this report is to address concerns that insert business name is facing with respect to” and list what the major concerns are – you should get a sense of this from the business scenario.
Sentence 2 should elaborate on these concerns and specify exactly what your report aims to do – you can usually directly copy the questions from the previous page and elaborate a little!!
Sentence 3 should give a one sentence summary of the business scenario.
Sentence 4 should sum up your executive summary in relation to the overall question.

1.0 Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to address concerns that CULP Pty Ltd is facing with respect to:
    •   Staffing production facilities offshore
    •   Marketing products to a global audience
In particular, this report aims to:
    •   Explain the importance of interdependence between human resources and marketing
    •   Describe the processes of separation and development relevant to CULP should it decide to relocate
    •   Discuss global marketing strategies of global pricing and customisation that CULP could implement.
CULP Pty Ltd is a clothing manufacturing business that targets youth, which has recently lost market share to cheaper imports.
Thus this report will address these issues and provide insight into global operations (offshoring and marketing).


Body Paragraphs
These paragraphs will vary greatly depending on the question but they should all follow the same basic structure:

1. Topic sentence that introduces the concept/strategy/influence you will be talking about in this paragraph.
2. Definition of this concept/strategy/influence
3. Explain what it is and what causes it in a general business setting.
4. Apply it to the business scenario drawing out implications.
5. This part depends on the question but usually you would give a series of effects or give advantages/disadvantages.
6. Linking sentence summing up paragraph and linking to question.

That’s it – it’s super simple and basic when you break it down like this. Take a look at one of my paragraphs below to see what it would look like!

2.0 Human Resources Processes
As CULP considers relocating its manufacturing to cheaper labour cost countries in Asia; it must consider the human resources processes that will be affected. These processes are evident in figure 1 dictating the HR cycle.



In particular, separation and development will be heavily impacted by CULP’s decision to relocate.

2.1 Separation
Separation involves the processes of employees leaving the business and employment contracts being terminated. This can be achieved voluntarily (retirement, resignation) or involuntary (retrenchment, redundancy). If CULP were to relocate to a cheaper labour cost country; it would need to get rid of its employees at its current manufacturing plant that is based in Australia.

This will have many repercussions on CULP. It may save money by having a cheaper workforce and hence maximise profitability. However, it will incur fees when retrenching its workers and may have to pay significant redundancy payouts. Moreover, the letting go of a large number of workers will create a negative image of the business which could see a decline in sales due to unethical business practices (not supporting local communities). One way to minimise this would be to use an ethnocentric approach using some of the existing employees and relocate them with CULP to surprise production and thus minimise retrenchment and the aforementioned repercussions. Thus, separation is a relevant HR Process CULP must consider when deciding whether or not to relocate.

As you can see I added advantages, disadvantages and even a possible solution and related them all to the business. After every “section” you should have a “recommendation” as to whether the business should or should not adopt that strategy or to sum up the information you’ve provided.


Conclusion
This is basically the last part and it’s super simple but really important to round off your response and cement your argument into the marker’s mind. Try to keep this simple and a brief summary of your whole report. A good rule of thumb is that you should be able to read your introduction and your conclusion and be able to know what you have talked about and what you have recommended. Here’s a quick snapshot:

1. One sentence summary of business scenario
2. Sentence summarising the main point of this report in addressing concerns of X, Y and Z.
3. Then outline what each of your sections has talked about, including any recommendations you’ve made along the way.

4.0 Conclusion
CULP is considering relocating overseas and marketing/selling to global markets. In doing so, it must consider aspects of HR and marketing that will be affected. This report has outlined:
    •   The interdependence of marketing and HR
    •   Processes of separation and development relevant to CULP’s possible decisions
    •   Marketing strategies of global pricing and customisation CULP should implement in order to succeed on a global scale.


That’s it!! You’ve smashed a business report and you’re basically on your way to becoming a top consultant in the commercial industry. I know that when I first started writing business reports in year 11, I was so confused as to what to talk about, how to structure it, how to integrate diagrams… But I really hope you are a little bit more at ease now and have some direction. By all means, this is not the be all and end all structure; feel free to mix up body paragraphs and go into depth about one particular strategy/concept/influence/process or split up all of your advantages/disadvantages or strategies – this is just a simple rough guide that can be moulded to suit your particular style and question. As always, if you need help or clarification on anything, be sure to make an account and post your questions!! There are many people that definitely have the same questions as you, no question is too stupid!!

Isaac :D
HSC 2016:   ATAR: 99+
Mathematics - 97    Economics - 96     Legal Studies - 95     Advanced English - 91    Business Studies - 95

2017: B Commerce/B Law @ UNSW  

brenden

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Re: How to Write a Business Report
« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2017, 11:53:57 pm »
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omggggg yaaassssss Isaac
✌️just do what makes you happy ✌️

rh1A

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Re: How to Write a Business Report
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2017, 04:55:23 pm »
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wow THANKS A HEAP!!!! :) :) :) :)