Planning and Organizing Business Reports

Dorinda Clippinger

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781631574139
• eBook ISBN: 9781631574146
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Business

This book emphasizes the importance of planning reports to ensure they do what you, the writer or presenter, want them to do. Inside, the reader will discover useful information to make reports more effective, including: the steps involved to plan written and oral report presentations for individuals as well as teams, models for ethical reporting, exclusive tips for preparing webinars, well-thought out steps for preparing a research proposal, and so much more. Numerous examples, helpful illustrations, and a concise writing style let you acquire vital information rapidly, and each chapter ends with a convenient checklist. In Planning and Organizing Business Reports, you have a how-to guide for the various types of reports you will need to generate throughout your career!

CHAPTER 1

Report Characteristics

What do a manager at Bank of America, a BestBuy.com manager, a broker for Unique Import Export Company of Houston, and an executive director of the nonprofit organization United Way have in common? Although their jobs involve widely different duties, one task is common to all: preparing reports.

The word report may remind you of your student days when you wrote term papers, book reviews, and case studies. But those documents differ from on-the-job reports in many respects. While students write term papers to demonstrate their knowledge of a subject, you will create business reports to influence the actions of other people. Although school reports usually flow upward (from student to instructor), business reports move up, down, and across the formal organizational structure and even across organizational boundaries. For a college term paper, you may have searched the Web and accessed books, databases, and periodicals in your school library. But your business reports will frequently contain data drawn from company files or your own experiences and observations, as well as from electronic and print media. While the quality of a term paper may have affected your grade, the quality of a business report can determine the success or failure of your career—and that of your company.

Such differences in writing characterize what is known as a genre: a distinctive type or category of composition. You are familiar with different music genres, such as classical, jazz, hip hop, and rock. Although some elements of music overlap those genres, each also has style elements and conventions that are unique, differentiating one genre from another. The same is true of writing genres. The writing style used in a critical essay, a lab report, or a poem usually is not effective in a business report. The business writing genre uses certain conventions not common to scientific or literary writing. Those conventions are based on the function that each report serves and require thoughtful analysis of the writer’s or presenter’s purpose and audience needs.

Functions of Business Reports

Business reports can be defined as organized, objective presentations of observations, experiences, or facts used in the decision-making process. To understand the functions of business reports, several words in the definition need further analysis: organized, objective, and decision-making process.

Business Reports Are Organized

To be organized, a report—whether in a written medium or oral—must be planned and presented with both the receiver’s needs and the sender’s objectives in mind. Effective report creators define the report objective in terms of desired action—what the sender wants the receiver to do. But to achieve that action, the sender must consider the receiver’s needs— both information needs and ego needs. Information needs are met when the sender supplies facts and data the receiver needs for understanding and fulfillment. Ego needs are a person’s desire for recognition and an acknowledgment of that person’s worth to the organization. A report may provide all the information a person needs; but unless the report also satisfies ego needs, the receiver may have no motivation to act. Information needs and ego needs influence the structure of a report as well as its content.

Two basic strategies for most messages are the direct and the indirect structure. Direct structure simulates deductive reasoning, which moves from generalizations to specific examples or facts to support those generalizations. The following paragraph demonstrates direct structure.

In the redesign of our office space, the number of individual work spaces will be reduced, and each space will be shared by two employees. The amount of common work space will be increased and will be appropriately configured for both individual and collaborative work as well as client meetings.

Last year’s 15% increase in office staff has required us to examine the efficiency or our space usage. Since many employees already telecommute as many as three days a week, approximately 60% of our desks are vacant at one time. Instead of renting additional office space, we will be redesigning the current office space with the goal of reducing the average amount of individual work space and increasing the amount of collaborative work space.

Direct structure is effective when the receiver is likely to agree with the main point of the message. That structure is also effective with receivers who are efficiency conscious—they want to know your main point immediately, whether or not they agree with it.

Indirect structure is patterned after inductive reasoning, which moves from specific examples or facts to generalized conclusions. The following paragraph illustrates indirect structure.

Last year’s 15% increase in office staff has required us to examine the efficiency of our space usage. Since many employees already telecommute as many as three days a week, approximately 60% of our desks are vacant at one time. Instead of renting additional office space to accommodate staff growth, we will be redesigning the current office space. The goal is to reduce the average amount of individual work space and increase the amount of collaborative work space.

Consequently, in the office redesign, the number of individual work spaces will be reduced, and each space will be shared by two employees. The amount of common work space will be increased and will be appropriately configured for both individual and collaborative work as well as client meetings.

Indirect structure is effective for complex or controversial information. For such a message, the reader may need exposure to the detailed data before being able to understand and accept the conclusions and recommendations of the report.

Business Reports Present Information Objectively

Since reports are used in the decision-making process, a user must be able to trust the information contained in a report. Objectivity refers to the selection of report content as well as to the presentation of that content. Deliberately excluding information that may be unpleasant to the writer or the receiver violates the objectivity criterion, which requires that all available relevant data be presented.

Report data may be drawn from a variety of sources. It is not uncommon for a report to contain observations of the person preparing it. For example, a manager may observe that employees are abusing the privilege of visiting social media sites while on the job; a report could follow in which the manager describes the observed practices and reminds the employees of a company policy related to conducting personal business on company time.

In another example, if an employee writes a trip report after attending a technical conference, much of the report content would be based on the employee’s personal experiences during the trip; but the report likely would also include data about new products or techniques as well as facts about the costs incurred for travel, food, and lodging.

Similarly, as you report the status of a project, include objective statements about what has been accomplished and any difficulties encountered. If the project is behind schedule, include factual statements about what can or cannot be done to put it back on schedule, not your feelings that everyone should work hard and get the job done.

Although report writers may present personal observations or experiences in addition to impersonal facts, all information must be presented objectively—without distortion by feelings, opinions, or prejudices.

Business Reports Aid Decision Making

Some reports supply information necessary for decision making; others convey information about decisions that have been made and must be implemented. Since people at all levels of every organization must make or carry out decisions, reports are used in every kind of job. For example, a report may be as simple as a bank manager’s oral reassignment of a teller from an inside workstation to a drive-up window after the manager observes that cars are lining up at the window. Or a report may be as complex as a retail store manager’s written analysis of the store’s operations, competition, and goals, concluding with a recommendation that the business be relocated.

The function of business reports in the decision-making process is shown in Figure 1.1, page 6.

The illustration suggests seven reports related to one business situation—entering an international market. The first report is an informal oral report by a sales associate of A&P, a (fictitious) U.S. manufacturer of gas grills, to the vice president for marketing. The sales associate recently returned from a vacation in Brazil, which is a significant regional producer and consumer of meats. While in Brazil, the sales associate noticed that many restaurants serve grilled-to-order meats—including lamb, beef, pork, fish, and fowl—and that many families enjoy outdoor grilling as well. However, the grilling is done primarily over charcoal. Although gas is readily available to homes and restaurants, the use of gas grills appears to be minimal. The sales associate thinks there is a potential opportunity to enter the Brazilian market with A&P’s top-of-the-line gas grills.

The initial oral report by the sales associate could lead to a series of reports related to the feasibility of marketing gas grills in Latin America (see Figure 1.1). Those reports may be simple or complex, oral or written, formal or informal. Moreover, reporting occurs at every level of the organizational structure. Reports perform many f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Report Characteristics
• Chapter 2. Planning and Organizing Business Reports
• Chapter 3. Planning Research
• Notes
• References
• Index
• Adpage