MODUL PERKULIAHAN

Mata Kuliah English for Business

Modul 5:
Business Report

Menjelaskan cara membuat laporan bisnis.

Fakultas Program Studi Tatap Muka Kode MK Disusun Oleh

Tim Dosen

14
 UNIT 14
WRITE BUSINESS REPORT
The structure
To help you write your report, let‘s go over some steps you should not miss.
Determine and state the purpose: as we stated in the previous paragraph, defining your
goals according to the needs of your audience is important. As we said, a report usually assists in
decision-making and addresses certain issues. You can state them at the beginning of the report.
The clearer and more specific the goal, the better will be the content. You won‘t lose time on
adjusting information when you present your purpose in a clear and well-defined manner.
Gather and organize the information: now that the purpose and scope are clearly defined,
you can start gathering the data under any form needed that can address the issue. Thanks to that
information you will carry out data analysis to understand what lies beneath and to extract
valuable insights. These findings need to be balanced and justifiable – what significance they have
to the purpose of the report. Identifying Key Performance Indicators for a specific business,
organizing, comparing and evaluating them on the needed level, can be one of the most important
parts of creating this kind of report. Example of business report that shows how to extract and
define your analysis can be found below in the article.
Present your findings: explain how you uncovered them, and how you interpreted them that
way. Answer to the original issue by detailing the action to take to overcome it, and provide
recommendations leading to a better decision-making process. A best practice to present the
insights you have drawn out are the use of business dashboards that communicate data visually in
a very efficient way. A dashboard software like Datapine‘s can precisely answer that need, while at
the same time help you with the data exploration, which is a crucial part. When you click on a
specific part of the dashboard, you can easily access your data in a more in-depth approach.
Comparing your findings is also one of the features you can use if you are
asking yourself what has changed in relation to a specific period. When you assess these datasets
in just a few clicks on your monitor, the whole reporting process and measurement of your business
strategy can be done in minutes, not days. Evaluating findings in today‘s digital world has become
one of the main focus of businesses wanting to stay competitive on the market. The faster you can
do that, the more information you gain, the more successful in your actions you become.

Business Report Examples and Templates

Examples of business reports that we used in this article can be utilized in many different
industries, the data can be customized based on the factual information of the specific department,
organization, company or enterprise. Interdepartmental communication can then effectively utilize
findings and the content can be shared with key stakeholders.
Now that we know what they are, their purpose, and how to write them, let‘s go over some
concrete,
real-world business report examples of visuals you will need to include in your reports.

This first business report example focuses on one of the most important and data-driven
department of any company: finance. It gathers the most important financial KPIs a manager needs
to have at his fingertips to make an informed decision: Gross Profit Margin, Operational Expenses
Ratio (OPEX), both Earning Before Interests (EBIT) and Net Profit margins, and the income
statement. Next to these are the revenue evolution over a year compared to its target predefined, the
annual evolution of operational expenses for various business departments as well as the evolution
of the EBIT compared to its target. The different sets of visual representation of data can clearly
point out specific trends or actions that need to be taken in order to stay on the financial track of a
company. All your financial analysis can be integrated into a single visual. When the presentation
becomes interactive, clicks will provide even deeper insights on your financial KPIs, findings and
desired outcomes to make a company healthy in its financial operations. The importance of this
dashboard lays within the fact that every finance manager can easily track and measure the whole
financial overview of a specific company while gaining insights into the most valuable KPIs and
metrics. Empowering a steadfast and operation-sensitive plan is one of the most important goals a
business can have, and finance is right in the middle of this process.
Thanks to all this information displayed on a single dashboard, your report is greatly
enhanced and backed with accurate information for you to make sound decisions. It becomes easier
to implement a solid and operation-sensitive management plan.

As mentioned earlier, holding account of your activity, performance, and organization‘s assets is
important for people outside of the company to understand how it works. When these people are investors, it
is all the more critical to have a clean and up-to-date report for them to know how successful the company is
they invest in, and for you to increase your chances to have more funds. This example business report
provides just that: an exact overview of the most important findings and specific values in a particular time-
frame.

Calculating and communicating operational KPIs about the overall company situation is what this
investors‘ relationship dashboard tries to focus on. You learn about the Return on Equity and Return on
Asset, the Debt-Equity ratio, Working Capital ratio, but also see the evolution of a share price over time.
Each of these metrics is crucial for a potential shareholder, and if they are not monitored on a regular basis
and kept under control, it is easy to lose investors‘ interest. Tracking them and visualizing them through a
modern dashboard is a competitive advantage for your investors‘ business report. You can even see on this
visual a clear set of data, so you don‘t have to dig through a numerous amount of spreadsheets, but clearly
see the specific development over time, the percentage gained or lost, ratios and returns on investments. Not
to be limited just to these data, you can always customize and make a sample business report for your
specific

needs.

The management KPIs presented above in an example of a business report focuses on the Revenue
and Customer Overview seen through a specified quarter of a year. With just a click you can easily change
your specific date range and make an overview of different months or years. When analyzing insights on a
more specific level, you can easily spot if the revenue is approaching your target value, compare it to the
previous year and see on how much of the target you still need to work on. The average number of your
Revenue per Customer compared to your targets can also identify on a more specific level how much do you
need to adjust your strategy based on your customers‘ value. If you see your values have exceeded your
goals, you can concentrate on the KPIs that haven‘t yet reached your target achievement. On this specific
example of business report, we have gained insights on how to present your management data, compare
them and evaluate your findings to make better decisions.
This clear overview of data can set apart the success of your management strategy, since it is not
possible to omit vital information. By gathering all your findings into one single visual, the information
presented is clear and specific to the management‘s needs. The best part of this example business report is
seen through its interactivity: the more you click, the more data you can present and the more specific
conclusions you can look for.
These business report templates that we have analyzed and presented in this article can be a
roadmap to effectively create your own report or customize your own data to tailor your needs and findings.
 You now know what business reports are, how to design it, and how they can benefit your business.
Doing the right reporting and information delivery can have a significant impact on your organization and
orientate its strategy better.

UNIT 15
EXERCISE ON REPORT WRITING

Look at the report below. Evaluate it based on the following questions:

1. What things should you write about in the introduction of the report?
2. What is the reason why the different sections on the report are in the order they are?
3. Why are certain words in the report in a larger font than others?
4. What style of vocabulary should you use on a report?
5. Why in the findings of the report does the author write about 'call procedures and
processes', when they aren't causing any problems to performance?
6. What is the main reason for including a section called 'procedure' in a report that you
write?
7. Why are two charts included in the report?
8. What is the main reason why you would include a contact section at the end of the report?

Report on the customer help desk's inbound customer call performance

Introduction
The following report evaluates the current performance level of our customer help desk
based in Pudsey, Leeds. It focuses on its performance when dealing with inbound/incoming
customer enquiries made by phone.
This report was produced in response to the results of a recent customer survey. This survey
identified a high level of customer dissatisfaction with our company's help desk. Of the 1506
customers who left a rating for the help desk in the survey, 1254 of those rated the service as bad or
terrible. Of this 1254, 67% gave the reason for their dissatisfaction as 'call waiting time', while 25%
said that the 'service is unhelpful'.
The purpose of this report is to identify failings with the current set up of the help desk
which could account for this low customer rating. And to recommend changes to the help desk to
improve the service provided to customers.

Procedure
The findings which are contained in this report are predominantly based on a combination
of statistics from the help desk's call management system (CallCom) and random monitoring of
calls (100 in total) between customers and help desk analysts. Both the statistics and the call
monitoring stem from the same 7 day period (4 May to the 11 May 2015).
In order to ensure the integrity of the results, during the period of evaluation, nobody in the
help desk section was aware that an evaluation was being conducted. After this 7 day period, a
number of interviews with staff at the help desk (the manager of the section, a team leader and 6
help desk analysts) were then conducted to hear their views and opinions.
In addition to the above, I also reviewed the processes and procedures in place at the help desk for
dealing with inbound/incoming call customer enquiries.
Findings
Customer waiting time
From reviewing the statistics from CallCom, one thing did stand out, the customer waiting
time (before a call is answered by an help desk analyst). The length of customer waiting time
varied throughout the day. During most of the day, the average waiting time for customers was
around 25 seconds, but during 5pm to 9pm (except on weekends), this rose to an average of 3
minutes and 44 seconds. These 4 hours of the day, coincide with the highest call volume of the day
for the help desk. On average, 41% of all calls each day were received during these 4 hours.
Chart showing the average customer weekday waiting time and the average percentage of calls
received during the period of the study.
During these peak hours of call volume, the help desk does have more analysts answering customer
calls. On average 10 extra staff (mainly part-time) are answering customer calls during these peak
hours.

Length of call
Not only did customer waiting time increase during these peak hours, but there was also an
increase in how long staff were actually speaking with customers during these hours as well.
During 5pm to 9pm (except on weekends), the average time that analysts spoke to customers
increased from 4 minutes 23 seconds to 7 minutes and 59 seconds.

Chart showing the average length of help desk analyst speaking time with customers during the
period of the study.
During these peak hours of call volume, the nature of the calls did not differ significantly from those
received during the rest of the day. But what did stand out was a difference between the length of time that
full-time analysts spoke to customers during these peaks hours (on average 6 minutes and 56 seconds) and
part-time analysts (on average 9 minutes and 28 seconds).
The statistics from ComCall indicated that although part-time analysts performed only slightly slower than
their full-time counterparts on simple enquiries (e.g. confirming account and balance information), they
performed significantly slower on more complex enquiries (e.g. freezing and resetting accounts).

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Monitoring of customers calls supports this. On more complex enquiries, part-time staff put their customers
on hold more often and for longer while they consulted with other staff to find out what they had to do.

Call procedures and processes

The procedures and processes that are in place in the help desk for dealing with customer enquiries meet the
industry's highest standards (the standards set down in the Financial Services Association's customer service
best practices).
Through monitoring calls between customers and help desk analysts, I can confirm that the vast majority of
analysts always followed set procedures when dealing with customer enquiries.
Furthermore, except for one or two occasions, they dealt with customers in a professional manner (even
when customers were aggressive).

The help desk's customer application system

From conducting interviews with help desk analysts, one of the things they stated was an issue was the
slowness of the help desk's customer application system. In particular, they stated that the system had a
tendency to run slow at peak hours (between 5pm to 9pm on weekdays). Resulting in them taking longer to
deal with customer enquiries.
The monitoring of customer calls seems to confirm this. Analysts performed tasks using the system a lot
slower when there were more staff taking calls (during peak call volume hours) than when there were less
staff taking calls during the rest of the day.

Conclusion
The findings of this report on the help desk's performance would strongly seem to indicate that there is a
problem with dealing with customer calls only during the hours of peak call volume (between 5pm to 9pm
on weekdays). During these peak hours, the average waiting time for customers was nearly 10 times higher
than during other times of the day (from an average of 25 seconds to an average of 3 minutes and 44
seconds).
Although it would appear that simply increasing the number of help desk staff taking calls would resolve
this issue, the rise in the average time that analysts spoke to customers when dealing with enquiries (an
average of 7 minutes and 59 seconds at peak call volumes in comparison with an average 4 minutes 23
seconds outside of these hours) would indicate that it is not only a problem of not having enough staff on at
these times.

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Although having more staff taking customer calls at these times should reduce the average customer waiting
time, it would not address the issue of customer enquiries taking longer to resolve at these times. It would
appear that this is the main factor causing the longer waiting times that customers are experiencing.
The findings would appear to demonstrate that this issue is caused by two main reasons:
 The help desk's customer application system
 The underperformance of part-time staff
The first (and most important) reason is that there appears to be a problem with the help desk's customer
application system. It appears to run a lot slower during periods of peak call volume when more analysts are
logged on and using it.
The second reason is that part-time staff complete tasks slower on average than their full-time colleagues.
This would appear to not stem from a lack of willingness on their part to answer calls quickly, but that they
have less experience on resolving more complex customer enquiries.

Recommendations
On the basis of the above findings, I make the following recommendations:
1. Request the I.T. department to perform an investigation into the problems experienced with the help desk
customer application system as soon as possible.
2. Undertake a training programme for part-time help desk staff to improve their knowledge and speed in
dealing with customer enquiries (especially more complex enquiries).

Contact
If you require any clarification or further information on the report, please do not hesitate to contact myself
(James Smith) by email (jsmith@suttonbank.com) or by phone (01535 666541).

Presentations in English - How to Give a Presentation - Business

English
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzIxD1jXn44
Video#1

Transcript Video #1
Hi, I‘m Gina.
Welcome to Oxford Online English!

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In this lesson, you can learn how to make a presentation in English. Do you have to make presentations in
English in your job? Imagine you have to give an important presentation in English tomorrow. How would
you feel about it?
This lesson will help you learn useful phrases and techniques to introduce yourself and your topic, keep your
ideas organised, deal with problems, and respond to questions from audience members.
Imagine you‘re standing in front of your colleagues. You need to introduce yourself and what your
presentation is about. What are some words and phrases you could use? If some people in the audience don‘t
know who you are, you should introduce yourself and your position.
In a more formal setting, you could say something like this:
 Good morning everyone. For those who don‘t know me, my name‘s Simon, and I work in the
marketing department.
 Or: Hello everybody. Before we begin, let me introduce myself briefly: I‘m Reese and I‘m the
head
of HR.
If you work in a more informal company, you could say:
 Hi guys; if you don‘t know me, I‘m Sylvia and I work in digital marketing.
 Or: Hello! I see some new faces, so I‘ll introduce myself first: I‘m Julia and I‘m one of our
customer service team.
Next, you need to introduce your topic. If your presentation topic is simpler, you could just say one
sentence, like this:
 Today, I‘m going to be talking about our new HR policies and how they affect you.
 Or: I‘d like to talk to you today about quality control and why we‘re all responsible for quality
control, whichever department you work in.
If your topic is more complex, you might add more detail to break your idea into stages.

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For example:
 I‘ll begin by outlining the policies, and then I‘ll go on to highlight what they mean for you and
your working habits. Finally, I‘ll briefly discuss why we feel these new policies are necessary and
beneficial for us all.
Here‘s another example:
 First of all, I‘ll explain why ‗quality control‘ has a broader meaning than you might expect. I‘ll
continue by giving examples of real quality control, and why this matters for all of us. To finish,
I‘ll be asking you to think of ways you can incorporate quality control into your working habits.
Here, you saw two examples. You can use these as templates to begin your presentation:
 I‘ll begin by… and then I‘ll… Finally, I‘ll…
 Or: First of all, I‘ll…I‘ll continue by… To finish, I‘ll…
Okay, now you can practice! We‘d like you to do two things.
First, practice introducing yourself informally, and explaining your topic in a simple way, with one
sentence. Then, practice introducing yourself formally, and explaining your topic in a more detailed way.
Pause the video and practice speaking. All the language you need is in this section. Ready?
Let‘s move on!
I‘m sure that in your life, you‘ve heard good speakers and bad speakers. Good speakers grab your attention
and don‘t let go. You want to hear what they have to say. You feel interested and energised by listening to
them.
Bad speakers are the opposite. Even if you try to make yourself listen, you find that your attention drifts
away. Your eyelids feel heavy, and you have to struggle to stay awake.
So, here‘s a question: what‘s the difference between good speakers and bad speakers? And, how can you
make sure you speak effectively when you make your presentation in English?
Here‘s one way to think about it: bad speakers don‘t think they have to earn your attention. Good speakers
understand that no one has to listen to them, so they work hard to make you want to pay attention.
What does this mean for you, and your presentation? Getting people‘s attention starts from the beginning.
You need to make it clear what people should expect from your presentation, and why they should care
about what you have to say.
Sounds like a nice idea, but how do you do this? Here are three techniques you can use.
One: establish a problem which many people in your audience have. Then, establish that you have a solution
to their problem.
For example:
 Have you ever felt unfairly treated at work, or felt that the work you do isn‘t appreciated? We‘ve
been working to design new HR policies that will make sure all staff get fair recognition for their

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contribution to the company. In this way, you take a boring-sounding topic like HR policies, and you make
it more relevant to your audience. How? By connecting it with their experiences and feelings.
The second technique? Mention an interesting fact, or a surprising statistic to get people‘s attention.
For example:
 Did you know that the average office worker spends eight hours a day at work, but only does four
hours of productive, useful work? I‘m here to tell you about ‗quality control‘, and how you can use
this idea to make better use of your time.
Finally, you can engage people by telling a short story and connecting it to your topic. Stories are powerful,
and they can add an emotional dimension to your topic if you do it well.
For example:
 I once met a young salesman—I won‘t mention his name. He spent several weeks building a
relationship with a potential client. He worked overtime, and he was working so hard that he was
under severe stress, which started to affect his personal life. In the end, he didn‘t close the deal—
the clients signed with another firm. Today, I‘m going to talk about confidence as a sales tool, and
how you can avoid the traps that this young man fell into.
Use one of these three techniques in your introduction to connect with your audience and show them why
they should be interested in what you have to say.
Here‘s a question for you: which technique would you prefer to use, and why?
Okay, now you‘ve introduced your topic and you have everyone‘s attention. What next?
There‘s a famous quote about making presentations: ―Tell the audience what you‘re going to say; say it, and
then tell them what you‘ve said.‖ Have you heard this before? Do you know who said it? This comes from
Dale Carnegie, a very successful American salesman and writer. He lived a long time ago, but his advice is
still relevant today.
So, here‘s a question: what does the quote mean? It means that your presentation shouldn‘t just give
information. You also need to show people how your information is organized. To do this, you need
signposting language. Let me give you an example to explain.
Imagine you go to a website. The website is full of really useful, interesting information. But the
information is all on one page. There‘s no organization, and you have to scroll up and down, up and down
this huge page, trying to find what you need. Would you stay on that website? Probably not. You‘ll find a
website which makes it easier for you to find the information you need.
What‘s the point here? The point is that having interesting or relevant information is not enough. How you
structure and organize your information is equally important. If you don‘t structure your presentation
clearly, people won‘t pay attention, just like you won‘t stay on a website if you can‘t find the information
you want.

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So, how can you do this? You use signposting language. This means using words and phrases to show the
audience where your points begin and end, to show what‘s coming next, and to remind them about things
you talked about before.
For example:
 Okay, that covers the new policies. Next, I‘d like to move on and discuss what these policies mean
for you.
 Or: Now that you‘ve heard a bit about what not to do, let‘s focus on positive advice to help you be
more effective salespeople and close more of your leads.
When you say something like this, you aren‘t giving people information about the topic of your
presentation. Instead, you‘re showing people where you are, and where you‘re going next. It‘s a kind of
signpost. You don‘t need signposts to travel from one place to another, but they can make it easier.
What else can you use signposting language for? You can use signposting language to move from one point
to the next.
For example:
 Next, I‘d like to talk about…
 Let‘s move on and discuss…
 Or: At this point, I‘d like to turn to…
You can use signposting language to add detail to an idea:
 Let me go into some more detail about…
 Let‘s examine … in more depth.
 Or: I‘d like to elaborate on…
You can use signposting language to show that you‘ve finished your main points, and you‘ve reached your
conclusion:
 To wrap up, let‘s remind ourselves of why this should matter to everyone here.
 Let‘s review the key points from this session.
 So, you‘ve heard what I have to say. What conclusions can you take away from this?
If you have an important presentation in English, practice using signposting language. Use signposting
language to move between points, to show when you‘re giving a summary or going into more detail, and to
signal that you‘ve reached your conclusion.
Okay, but things don‘t always go so smoothly in real life. We know that! Let‘s look at some advice and
language for dealing with problems during your presentation.
Imagine you‘re making your presentation in English. What could go wrong? What problems could you
have? There are many common problems:

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  You might forget where you were or forget an important word.
 You might realize that you said something wrong, or you didn‘t explain something clearly.
 You might forget to mention something important.
 Or, someone might ask you an awkward question, which you have no idea how to answer.

Of course, there are other possibilities! Let‘s think about these problems. What can you do, and more
importantly, what can you say in these situations?
First of all, it‘s a good idea to make a cue card with key points, as well as any important vocabulary you
need. If you lose your place, or you forget a word, it could help.
However, you can‘t prepare for everything. So, it‘s useful to learn some phrases to deal with problems
smoothly. If you lose your place, and can‘t remember what to say next, you can use a filler phrase like:
• Where was I?
• So, what was I saying?
• What‘s the word in English again?

If you still can‘t remember, look at your cue card with your main points. Of course, forgetting something
isn‘t ideal. But, if you do, it‘s better to keep talking, rather than just standing there in silence. What if you
make a mistake, or you realise that you didn‘t explain something well? You could say:
• Let me rephrase that.
• Actually, what I meant to say is…
• To clarify, I wanted to say that…
In this way, you can correct yourself without admitting that you made a mistake!
What if you realize that you forgot to mention something important? Use a phrase like this:
• Let me just add one more thing:…
• I‘d like to add something to a point we discussed earlier.
• Let me return to an earlier point briefly.
Again, this allows you to correct your mistake in a confident way, so you look like you‘re in
control.
Finally, what do you do if someone asks you a difficult question, which you can‘t answer? You have a few
options. First, you can delay giving an answer. For example:
• I‘ve allocated time for questions at the end of this session, so we‘ll address your idea later.
• Or: I‘m not in a position to answer that right now, but I‘ll get back to you later this week. This gives
you time to think of an answer and do some research if you have to!

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 Next, you can deflect the question, by asking a question back, or maybe by asking other audience
members what they think.
For example:
 That‘s an interesting question.
 Before I answer, I‘d like to know: what‘s your take on this?
 Or: You‘ve raised an important point there. What does everyone else think about this? Finally, if the
question is irrelevant, you can dismiss the question and move on.
For example:
 Thanks for your input, but I don‘t see how that‘s connected to what I‘m saying.
 I don‘t mean to be blunt, but I don‘t think that‘s relevant to today‘s discussion.
Notice how you can use phrases like thanks for your input, but… or I don‘t mean to be blunt, but… to
make
your language more indirect and polite.
So, for dealing with difficult questions, just remember the three d‘s: delay, deflect, dismiss!

References:
1. Durcevic, S. 2018. What Are Business Reports and Why They Are Important: Examples &
Templates. https://www.datapine.com/blog/business-report-examples-and-templates/
2. http://www.blairenglish.com/exercises/emails/exercises/how-to-write-business-reports/how- to-
write-business-reports.html
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzIxD1jXn44/Presentations in English - How to Give a
Presentation - Business English

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