Effective Report

1 Introduction

Nowadays, as a distinctive organization form, the joint venture became more and more prevalent in our society. At the same time when the formation of joint venture provides companies with new creative knowledge and opportunities, it brings a lot of challenges to the parent companies during the integration process. The inefficient internal and external communication is among the conflicts arising from the integration process of the joint venture. The objective of this report is to help to improve the current status of report writing in ÐŽ®DigbyЎЇ and ÐŽ®DunfordЎЇ joint venture.

The report begins with an overview of the main issues to consider when writing business reports. Secondly, the report focuses on the guidance on report structure and contents. Thirdly, there will be the advice on matters relating to written expression. Finally, according to the requests of the commissioners of this report, the key recommendation will be presented.

2 An Overview of the Main Issues to Consider When Writing Business Reports

2.1 Consider the target readers

Before you start writing, in terms of target readers, you should consider:

Ñ"8§4 Who is the reader or user?

Ñ"8§4 What do they expect to learn from the report?

Ñ"8§4 What do they already know?

Ñ"8§4 How familiarly do they know about the subject?

Ñ"8§4 Do they come from different cultures?

Ñ"8§4 What is the target readerЎЇs background and personal preferences?

Ñ"8§4 Are they looking for some knowledge or for an answer to a specific problem?

Ñ"8§4 How do they regard the subject of the report?

Ñ"8§4 What decisions may be made after reading your report?

The needs of the potential readers determine the purpose of the report. At the same time to turn away presuming the reader is knowledgeable enough about the subject, you should also avoid over explaining the general simple stuff. Clarify what your reader really wants but allow the possibility that other people may want to read your report.

2.2 Determine the purpose of the report

Before writing the report, in terms of the report objective, ask yourself:

Ñ"8§4 Why did the commissioner want this report?

Ñ"8§4 What are the real issues?

Ñ"8§4 How did these issues arise?

Ñ"8§4 Should the report help them to make a decision?

Ñ"8§4 Should the report rationalize a decision which was already made?

The answer to all of these questions can help you decide what to focus on and how to organize the report most efficiently. Accordingly, it is quite necessary to take some time to think carefully about these questions before writing the report. Without this process, it is most unlikely that you will write a report that definitely targets these questions by chance.

2.3 Collect information thoroughly

After understanding what the purpose is and who is the target reader, you are now ready to collect and organize the supporting information. You can consult some experienced experts, read previous reports, surveys and publications for your reference and do some research by yourself if necessary.

In this process, you should distinguish carefully the materials with direct relevance to your report from those with peripheral relevance though interesting. You will need to only use the former which would contribute to the integrity and coherence of your final report but give up the latter which would distract the attention of the readers to the real subject.

As you are gathering the supporting information, it is critical to generate a methodology on how to record and organize the information. Meanwhile, it is important to interpret the methodology that you use to present the supporting information in the report. This supports the credibility of the data and helps the target reader to weigh the significance of the included information.

On the other hand, various patterns of presenting the data will facilitate effective communication with the target readers. They are:

Ñ"8§4 Tables

Ñ"8§4 Pie charts