1. Pertemuan 7 Reports and Proposals
Matakuliah : J Komunikasi Bisnis
Tahun : 2010
Pertemuan 7 Reports and Proposals

2. Workplace Writing Informational Reports Proposals Analytical Audience
Complexity
Format
Initiative
Informational
Reports
Proposals
Analytical
Reports are written accounts that objectively communicate information about some aspect of the business; proposals are a special category of reports that combine information delivery and persuasive communication. You’ll encounter dozens of reports in all shapes and sizes throughout your career, but they all fall into three basic categories:
Informational reports offer data, facts, feedback, and other types of information, without analysis or recommendations.
Analytical reports offer both information and analysis, and they can also include recommendations.
Proposals offer structured persuasion for internal or external audiences.
The nature of these reports can vary widely, depending on the circumstances surrounding them. Some of your reports will be voluntary, written at your own initiative and following the structure you find most effective. Other reports will be in response to a manager’s or customer’s request, and you may or may not receive guidance regarding the organization and content. You’ll also write reports that follow strict, specific guidelines for content and layout, as with most reports that are required by government agencies. You may write some reports only once in your career; others you may write or update annually, monthly, weekly, or even daily.
Your audience will sometimes be internal, which gives you more freedom to discuss sensitive information with less regard for potential misinterpretation. At others times, your audience might include customers, investors, community members, or news media, any of which can create additional demands as you present company information to such external groups.
Finally, your reports will vary widely in length and complexity. You may write one-page, memo-format reports that are simple and straightforward. Or you may write reports that cover complicated subjects, that run into hundreds or even thousands of pages, and that involve multiple writers and an array of technological tools.
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3. Three-Step Writing Process
Planning
Writing
Completing
Analyze Situation
Gather Information
Select Medium
Get Organized
Revise
Produce
Proofread
Distribute
Adapt to
the Audience
Compose
the Message
With a solid plan in place, you’re ready to choose the words and craft the sentences and paragraphs that will carry your ideas to their intended audiences.
Planning business messages. To plan any message, first analyze the situation by defining your purpose and developing a profile of your audience. With that in mind, you can gather information that will meet your audience’s needs. Next, select the right medium (oral, written, or electronic) to deliver your message. With those three factors in place, you’re ready to organize the information by defining your main idea, limiting your scope, selecting an approach, and outlining your content. Planning messages is the focus of Chapter 4.
Writing business messages. Once you’ve planned your message, adapt to your audience with sensitivity, relationship skills, and style. Then you’re ready to compose your message by choosing strong words, creating effective sentences, and developing coherent paragraphs. Writing business messages is discussed in Chapter 5.
Completing business messages. After writing your first draft, revise your message to make sure it is clear, concise, and correct. Next produce your message, giving it an attractive, professional appearance. Proofread the final product for typos, spelling errors, and other mechanical problems. Finally, distribute your message using the best combination of personal and technological tools. Completing business messages is discussed in Chapter 6.
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4. Analyzing the Situation
Define
the Purpose
Prepare
the Work Plan
The complexity of most reports and the magnitude of the work involved heighten the need to analyze the situation carefully. With an or other short message, you can change direction halfway through the first draft and perhaps lose only a few minutes of work. In contrast, if you change direction halfway through a major report, you could lose days, weeks, or even months. To minimize that chance, pay special attention to your statement of purpose. In addition, for anything beyond the simplest reports, take the time to prepare a work plan before you start writing.
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5. Audience Adaptation Learn Their Needs Build Relationships
Control Style and Tone
Effective reports and proposals are adapted to the intended audience as much as possible. To ensure your own success with reports, be sensitive to audience needs, build strong relationships with your audience, and control your style and tone.
Chapter 5 discusses four aspects of audience sensitivity, and all four apply to reports and proposals: adopting the “you” attitude, maintaining a strong sense of etiquette, emphasizing the positive, and using bias-free language. As you’ll see later in this chapter, part of that attitude includes helping your readers find their way through your material so that they can understand critical information. In addition, various audience members can have widely different information needs. With previews, summaries, appendixes, and other elements, you can meet the needs of a diverse audience—provided you plan for these elements in advance.
Whether your report is intended for people inside or outside the company, be sure to plan how you will adapt your style and your language to reflect the image of your organization. Consequently, choose your content and language with care. Also, since many companies have specific guidelines for communicating with public audiences, make sure you’re aware of these preferences before you start writing. As discussed in Chapter 5, establishing your credibility is vital to successful communication. To gain your audience’s trust, research all sides of your topic, and document your findings with credible sources.
If you know your readers reasonably well and your report is likely to meet with their approval, you can generally adopt a fairly informal tone—provided that doing so is acceptable in the situation and in your company’s culture. A more formal tone is usually appropriate for longer reports, especially those dealing with controversial or complex information. You’ll also use a more formal tone when your report will be sent to other parts of the organization or to outsiders, such as customers, suppliers, or members of the community.
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6. Planning Informational Reports
Monitor and
Control Operations
Demonstrate
Compliance
Implement Policies
and Procedures
Report Progress
Informational reports present data without analyses or recommendations. Common types of informational reports include those for monitoring and controlling operations, statements of policies and procedures, compliance reports, and progress reports.
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7. Organizing Informational Reports
Comparison
Importance
Sequence
Most informational report use a topical organization, arranging material in one of the following ways:
Comparison. If you need to show similarities and differences (advantages/disadvantages) between two or more entities.
Importance. Build up from the least to most important if you think the audience will read the entire report. Start with the most important and progress to the least important if readers are interested in more important items only.
Sequence. Information that concerns a process or procedure can be arranged sequentially, discussing steps or stages in the order in which they occur.
Chronology. When investigating a chain of events, organize the study according to what happened in January, in February, and so on.
Spatial orientation. To explain how a physical object works or a physical space looks, describe it from left to right, top to bottom, outside to inside, or whatever order makes the most sense.
Geography. If location is important, organize the study according to geography, perhaps by regions of the world or areas of a city.
Category. If asked to review several distinct aspects of a subject, look at one category at a time – such as sales, profit, cost, or investment.
Chronology
Spatial
Orientation
Geography
Category
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8. Organizing Analytical Reports
Indirect
Direct
Balanced
Resistant
Audiences
Receptive
Logical
Arguments
Feasible
Recommendations
Bottom-Line
Conclusions
Common Structural Approaches
To create powerful analytical reports, consider your audience's likely reaction before choosing the most effective organizational strategy:
Receptive audiences. When you expect your audience to agree with you, use a structure that focuses attention on conclusions and recommendations (direct approach).
Skeptical audiences. When you expect your audience to disagree with you or to be hostile, use a structure that focuses attention on the rationale behind your conclusions and recommendations (indirect approach).
The three most common structural approaches for analytical reports are (1) focusing on conclusions (direct), (2) focusing on recommendations (direct), and (3) focusing on logical argument (indirect).
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9. Planning Analytical Reports
Assess Opportunities
Solve Problems
Support Decisions
The purpose of analytical reports is to analyze, to understand, to explain—to think through a problem or an opportunity and figure out how it affects the company and how the company should respond. In many cases, you’ll also be expected to make a recommendation based on your analysis. Analytical reports fall into three basic categories:
Reports to assess opportunities, such as market analysis reports or due diligence reports
Reports to solve problems, such as trouble shooting reports or failure analysis reports
Reports to support decisions, such as feasibility reports or justification reports
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10. Defining the Problem What needs to be determined?
Why is this issue important?
Who is involved in the situation?
Where is the trouble located?
How did the situation originate?
When did it start?
In some cases, the problem or opportunity you address may be defined by the person who authorizes the report. In other cases, you will have to define it yourself. To help define the problem that your analytical report will address, answer these questions:
What needs to be determined?
Why is this issue important?
Who is involved in the situation?
Where is the trouble located?
How did the situation originate?
When did it start?
Not all these questions apply in every situation, but asking them helps you define the problem being addressed and limit the scope of your discussion.
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11. Planning Proposals Internal Requests External Requests Funding
Investments
Although the specific formats for proposals are innumerable, they can be grouped into two general categories:
Internal Proposals. Used to request decisions from managers within the organization, internal proposals may include funding proposals, which request funds and management support for new projects, and general project proposals, which request permission to take action on specific projects.
External proposals. Used to request decisions from parties outside the organization, external proposals include investment proposals, which request funding from external investors such as venture capitalists; grant proposals, which request funds from government agencies and other sponsoring organization; and sales proposals, which suggest individualized solutions for potential customers and request purchase decisions.
Management
Support
General
Projects
Grants
Sales
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12. Drafting Proposal Content
Attention
Interest
Solicited
Proposal
Unsolicited
Proposal
Introduction
Body
Like reports, proposals have an introduction, a body, and a close. The content for each section is governed by many variables—the most important being the source of your proposal. If your proposal is unsolicited, you have some latitude in the scope and organization of content. However, the scope and organization of a solicited proposal are usually governed by the request for proposal. Most RFPs spell out precisely what you should cover and in what order so that all bids will be similar in form.
The general purpose of any proposal is to persuade readers to do something, such as purchase goods or services, fund a project, or implement a program. Thus, your writing approach for a proposal is similar to that used for persuasive sales messages. Your proposal must sell your audience on your ideas, product, service, methods, and company. Just as with any persuasive message, you use the AIDA plan to gain attention, build interest, create desire, and motive action.
Closing
Action
Desire
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13. Reports and Proposals The Introduction : Body Sections :
Report Context, Subject / Purpose,
Main Ideas and Overall Tone
Closing Section :
Emphasize Main Points, Summarize
Benefits and Reinforce Structure
Body Sections :
Present, Analyze,
Interpret and Support
With a clear picture of how you need to adapt to your audience, you’re ready to begin composing your first draft. As with other business messages, the text of reports and proposals has three main sections: an introduction, a body, and a close. The content and length of each section varies with the type and purpose of the document, the document’s organizational structure, the length and depth of the material, the document’s degree of formality, and your relationship your audience.
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14. Components of Formal Reports
Type of Report
Prefatory
Parts
Text of
the Report
Supplementary
Audience Needs
Report Length
A formal report's manuscript format and impersonal tone convey an impression of professionalism. A formal report can be either short (fewer than 10 pages) or long (10 pages or more). It can be informational or analytical, direct or indirect. It may be written for internal or external audiences. What sets it apart from other reports is its polish.
The parts included in a report depend on the type of report you are writing, the requirements of your audience, the organization you're working for, and the length of your report. The components fall into three categories, depending on where they are found in a report: prefatory parts, text of the report, and supplementary parts.
Type of Company
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15. The Prefatory Parts Cover Letter of Authorization Title Fly
or Title Page
List of
Illustrations
Executive
Summary
Synopsis
or Abstract
Acceptance
Table of
Contents
Transmittal
Note that many of these parts—such as the table of contents, list of illustrations, and executive summary—are easier to prepare after the text has been completed, because they directly reflect the contents. Other parts can be prepared at almost any time.
Many companies have standard covers for reports. If your company has no standard covers, look for a cover that is appropriate to the subject matter.
The title fly is a plain sheet of paper with only the title of the report on it. You don't really need one, but it adds a touch of formality.
The title page includes four blocks of information: (1) title of the report; (2) name, title, and address of the person, group, or organization that authorized the report; (3) name, title, and address of the person, group, or organization that prepared the report; and (4) date on which the report was submitted.
If you received written authorization to prepare the report, you may want to include that letter or memo in your report. This letter of authorization (or memo of authorization) is a document you received, asking or directing you to prepare the report. If you wrote a letter of acceptance (or memo of acceptance) in response to that communication, accepting the assignment and clarifying any conditions or limitations, you might also include that letter here in the report’s prefatory parts. The letter or memo of transmittal conveys your report to your audience.
The table of contents indicates in outline form the coverage, sequence, and relative importance of the information in the report.
Some reports refer to all visual aids as illustrations or exhibits. In some, tables are labeled separately from figures. Regardless of the system used to label visual aids, the list of illustrations gives their titles and page numbers.
A brief overview of a report's most important points is called a synopsis (or abstract in technical or academic reports). An executive summary is a fully developed "mini" version of the report.
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16. Supplementary Parts Appendixes Bibliography Index
Supplementary parts follow the text of the report and provide information for readers who seek more detailed discussion. Supplements are more common in long reports than in short ones, and typically include the appendixes, bibliography, and index.
An appendix contains materials related to the report but not included in the text because they're too lengthy or bulky or because they lack direct relevance. Frequently included in appendixes are sample questionnaires and cover letters, sample forms, computer printouts, statistical formulas, financial statements and spreadsheets, copies of important documents, and complex illustrations; a glossary may be put in an appendix or may stand as a separate supplementary part. The best place to include visual aids is in the text body nearest the point of discussion. But if any visuals are too large to fit on one page or are only indirectly relevant to your report, they too may be put in an appendix.
You have an ethical and a legal obligation to give other people credit for their work. A bibliography is a list of secondary sources consulted when preparing the report.
An index is an alphabetical list of names, places, and subjects mentioned in the report, along with the pages on which they occur (see the index for this book). An index is rarely included in unpublished reports.
Index
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17. Distribution of Reports and Proposals
Physical
Electronic
Web-Based
For physical distribution, consider spending the few extra dollars for a professional courier or package delivery service, if that will help your document stand apart from the crowd. On the other hand, if you've prepared the document for a single person or small group, delivering it in person can be a nice touch. Not only can you answer any immediate questions about it, but you can also promote the results in person—reminding the recipient of the benefits contained in your report or proposal.
For electronic distribution, unless your audience specifically requests a word processor file, provide documents in PDF format. Most people are reluctant to open word processor files these days, particularly from outsiders, given their vulnerability to macro viruses and other contaminations. Moreover, PDF format lets you control how your document is displayed on your audience’s computer, ensuring that your readers see your document as you intended.
If your company or client expect you do distribute your reports via a web-based content management system, intranet, or extranet, be sure to upload the correct file(s) to the correct online location. Verify the on-screen display of your report after you've posted it, too; make sure graphics, charts, links, and other elements are in place and operational.
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