Business reporting & Analysis

BBA TY-IB
Contents :

Business reporting, definition

Importance and scope

Uses of business report

Factors affecting business reporting

Introduction & Meaning of Business reporting

Organizations conducts wide range of reporting, including financial and regulatory

reporting, environmental, social and governance reporting and integrated reporting.

Implementation of effective reporting processes is essential for organizations to be

able to provide this information.

All the sections in the business reporting process – the people and the process

involved in the preparation, review, approval, audit, analysis and distribution of

reports, need to be strong and closely connected to generate high quality business

reports in an efficient and timely manner. Effective and transparent business

reporting allows organizations to present a unified explanation of their business

and helps them to engage with internal and external stakeholders, including:

customers, employees, shareholders, creditors, and regulators.

Many organizations are increasingly complex and have large

economic, environmental and social footprints. As a result,

various stakeholders groups are demanding increased ESG

information, as well as greater insight into how these factors

affects financial performance and valuations.

High-quality reports also promotes better internal decision

making. It is essential to the successful management of the

business and is one of the drivers of sustainability of any

business.
If the reports to the business problems are not transmitted successfully to

others, the report holds less importance.

a good report writing demands professionalism, deep understanding of the

subject and a sound ability to put ideas and thoughts in writing. The audience

for business reports comprises of upper level managers, and the need of

audience should be considered while forming the report.

The word report can be used in different senses. It can be any presentation of

information but mostly its usage is limited to only most of formal

presentations. Thus, a report can be described as statement prepared to present

facts relating to planning, co-ordinating and performing. It is summery of

managerial performance.
A business report is standard form of business communication combining

of both qualitative and quantative information in logical format, serve as a

critical corporate documentation.

A business report is a brief description of business events and financial

activities and carries a written presentation in which one analyses a real

situation or a case study of business and applies necessary theories to

produce a range of suggestions in order to improve the situation.

There should standard format of business reports, hence, the process and

functions of business reports are almost same.

Definition:

Lesikar and Petit defined as, “ A business report is an orderly, objective

communication of factual information that serves some business purposes.”

Bettly and Kay stated as “A Business report is a written message presenting

information that will help a decision maker to solve a business problems.”

Louise E. Boone and Others quoted as, “A business report is a document

organizes information on a specific topic for a specific business purpose.”

From the above definition, it can be said that, business report is a systematic

presentation of business performance to take the decisions and solve various

business problems. And if should be effectively used for the fulfillment of

organizational goals.
Importance of Business Report:

1. Planning and decision making: a report provides valuable information for

planning and decision making.

2. Measure employee performance: it helps in measuring employee performance

and there by assists in managerial control.

3. Changing business conditions: a report aims at analyzing the impact of changing

business conditions on the performance and growth of an enterprise. With such

analysis, management can develop measures to combat changes.

4. Means of keeping in touch: it proves as a means to keep in touch and

maintaining contacts with customers, shareholders creditors, and government.

5. Measuring Executive performance: A report helps an executive to perform his

functions of planning, measuring and evaluating performance of employees

efficiently.
Importance of Business Report:

6. Means of communication: A report act as an effective vehicle of communication. The

person who prepares a report on a particular subject, convey this information in the form of a

report.

7. Helpful in decision making: A report provide systematic, reliable and useful information

after investigation and research, on the basis of which, it becomes possible for the

management to arrive at a decision.

8. Useful in knowing unknown information: while preparing reports, investigation and

research projects may reveal unknown information, which provides new insight to the users.

9. Trains the writer: A report trains the writer in an orderly procedure and logical

representation of ideas and information. It also helps to find the faults and strategy which

confusion of day to day working conceals.

10. Useful to the people working in diverse field of activity:

Scope of Business Report:

• Reports communicate information which has been complied as a result of research and analysis

of data and issues. Reports cover a wide range of topics, but usually focuses on transmitting

information with a clear purpose to a specific audience.

• Good reports are documents that are accurate, objective oriented, and complete. It should also be

well-written, clearly structured and expressed in a way that holds the reader’s attention and

meets their expectations. The true value of the research may accessed through a report since the

written report may be the only tangible product of hundreds of hours of work.

• Often reports are structured in a way that reflects the process of finding information and the

writing up of the findings i.e. summery of the contents, introduction or background, methods

results, discussion, conclusion and recommendations. The recommendations are useful for

decision making. The scope and style of reports varies widely. It depends upon three key factors:

the report’s intended audience, it’s purpose, and the type of information to be communicated.
Scope of Business Report:

• For e.g. technical reports communicates technical information so the degree of technicality in

the report will depend on the reader’s familiarity and understanding the technical concepts.

• The nature and objectives of business reports significantly influences the scope of the report.

• Business reports are broadly used in formulating and upgrading organizational policies and

procedures.

• Business reporting provides opportunity to look into available investment area for future

investment.

• It also helps in developing the idea and concept for a new product. As well as it helps the

company to formulate the marketing strategies

• Reports speak about customer’s opinion and hence helps the companies to bring necessary

changes in product or services.

Scope of Business Report:

• The scope of business reporting is set in a practical learning task required to apply the

theories to the real world situations. For e.g. accounting and finance person may be

asked to analyze company’s financial data and write a report detailing their findings.

• A commission, committee, panel is required to present its findings, observations and

recommendations in the form of a report.

• Therefore there is need to adopt and enhance the skills of report writing as reports have

a wide scope and are required at each and every step of work.
Users of Business Report:

• Business reports are quite often projected for a wide variety of different users or audience like:

managers, employees, management, suppliers, customers, investors, creditors, government etc.

• The audience are basically of three kinds:

1. Primary Audience: People who make decisions on the basis of business report.

2. Secondary Audience: The people who are affected by the actions the primary audience would

take response to the position of business report.

3. Immediate audience: People responsible for examining the business report, weighing its

viability and distributing the report to a broader audience.

Some of the report consumers are as follows:

1. Report Consumers

2. Interactive Report Consumers

3. Production Report Consumers

Factors Affecting Business Report:

1. Absurd Information: If the report is based on the absurd or untrue, illogical information, business report

will not be authentic.

2. Subjectivity or Partiality: If the report writer if subjective or partial to anything, then it will affect the

reliability of the business report.

3. Complexity: complexity may be in language, phrases will make the report difficult to grasp fast

4. Ambiguity: Ambiguity or uncertainty in sentences will make the report doubtful and with lot of efforts.

5. Should not be based on excessive predictions.

6. Improper formatting of the report.

7. Incorrect method of data collection.

8. If the report is not addressed properly, and not signed by the responsible authority, it does not carry any

value.

9. Incomplete reports will not give clear picture of the business and don’t help in decision-making.

10. Lengthy and tedious reports are boring, expensive and difficult to analyze.
Thank You…!!