Example: business report (intro & subheadings)
time to complete: 15-20 minutes
In the next few pages, we will look an another example of a business report and do more tasks to raise awareness of its organisational and linguistics features.
Task: Read the beginning of the report and think of your answers to the following questions:
- What is the context?
- What is the issue to be discussed?
- What is the purpose of the report?
- Is there an outline?
- How is this report different from what we have seen so far?
Executive Summary
Our company should, as a matter of urgency, look to find alternative suppliers for our products. We should also consider reducing credit terms in order to mitigate any risk in the meantime. The financial stability of Somerfield when compared to Tesco looks precarious and although some performance and profitability metrics have improved over the past year, their position looks precarious. Of concern to us as suppliers are the higher creditor days, but from a wider perspective there are problems with sales margins, profit per employee and returns to shareholders, amongst a number of other things. This company is not in a healthy state and represents a significant supply risk.
Introduction
This report concerns Somerfield. Approximately 45% of Welsh Bakeries sales are to Somerfield and the company therefore places great reliance on them as a customer. This analysis is being undertaken with the objective of analysing the performance of Somerfield from the perspective of being a major supplier to them, and highlighting any risks or causes for concern which may need to be acted upon.
In order to provide context to the analysis, Somerfield will be compared and contrasted with the market leader in the sector, Tesco.
The report will contain four sections – Context, Overview, Ratios and Evaluation. This will enable a full analysis of the company in the context of the market that it is operating within, which is vital to be able to properly evaluate company performance.
Text adapted from the British Academic Written English corpus via Flax
Now, compare your notes to the answers below. Click on the arrows to reveal them.
Read the introduction again and pay close attention to how the four elements are closely connected.
- Context
- Issue to be discussed
- Purpose
- Outline
Introduction
This report concerns Somerfield. Approximately 45% of Welsh Bakeries sales are to Somerfield and the company therefore places great reliance on them as a customer. This analysis is being undertaken with the objective of analysing the performance of Somerfield from the perspective of being a major supplier to them, and highlighting any risks or causes for concern which may need to be acted upon.
In order to provide context to the analysis, Somerfield will be compared and contrasted with the market leader in the sector, Tesco.
The report will contain four sections – Context, Overview, Ratios and Evaluation. This will enable a full analysis of the company in the context of the market that it is operating within, which is vital to be able to properly evaluate company performance.
The report does not begin with an introduction; instead, it begins with something called executive summary. This paragraph seems to offer recommendations based on the findings of the report.
Executive Summary
Our company should, as a matter of urgency, look to find alternative suppliers for our products. We should also consider reducing credit terms in order to mitigate any risk in the meantime. The financial stability of Somerfield when compared to Tesco looks precarious and although some performance and profitability metrics have improved over the past year, their position looks precarious. Of concern to us as suppliers are the higher creditor days, but from a wider perspective there are problems with sales margins, profit per employee and returns to shareholders, amongst a number of other things. This company is not in a healthy state and represents a significant supply risk.
Note: Executive summaries are frequent in business reports as they help readers quickly identify the main findings of a long report and the recommendations. However, the specifics of the content, organisation and length of an executive summary are beyond the scope of these materials. To find out whether your discipline requires a similar summary/conclusion at the beginning of your report, we recommend that you consult your tutors, module handbook and/or assignment brief.
Let’s now explore one of the sections of the body of the report. This is the Overview section, and it aims to present and discuss the key numbers for both Somerfield and Tesco.
Task: Read the section of the report and put the subheadings in the correct place.
Text adapted from the British Academic Written English corpus via Flax