WHAT IS AN EXECUTIVE REPORT AND HOW TO DO IT? - JOB - 2025

An executive report is a document that is attached to a business plan and that summarizes one or more justifications or recommendations to be followed in a proposal.

Before presenting a new product to the market, there must be a preliminary study that justifies the insertion of the product to the market.

This research is based on the study of customer needs, on a balance of production expenses, on projected profits, on the execution phases and the time that each of these phases would take to be executed.

Without a business plan, creating a new product or service to offer customers would be extremely risky and potentially costly, not considering the market, costs, and timing.

What is an executive report?

An executive report is a short-format report, ideally one page or two at most, that explains the benefits, costs and risks briefly, giving a clear overview of times and costs but without going into very specific details.

Executive reports are not limited to new product creation. They can be made in relation to any investment or acquisition made by a company.

They can also analyze the economic activity of the past semester or make projections about the economic future of the company.

Any study or research is subject to the creation of an executive report because it clearly and simply explains the content of a much longer document that could take days to analyze.

How do you make an executive report?

To make the executive report you can ask these questions / steps:

Who are we addressing?

Before starting to prepare the report, it is necessary to know who will be our recipient to determine how to address us, what to ask and how to do it. It will not be the same to address a potential investor as the CEO of the company.

A report must resolve the doubts that may arise to your audience, so the approach must be clear at all times, avoiding ramblings and information that does not add up. The content must be totally focused on the project.

Elaboration

Ideally, it should start with a clear title on the content of the report, followed by a short text (no more than a quarter page) that clearly implies what the report is about.

Followed by this, it should be able to be clearly stated:

- What does the project or study content consist of?

- What is the current position of the company.

- Investment costs.

- Projection of earnings.

- Personnel who will execute the project.

- Periods contemplated for its execution.

- Justification of the execution.

You do not have to answer all these questions, but only those that explain the plan presented, which may vary from case to case.

The important thing is to be able to explain the "what", "how" and "why" of an idea, followed by the "when" and "where", if they apply.

The inclusion of simple graphics, tables and intertitles that section the content will make compression easier and allow faster reading, in addition to serving as an orientation to see specific points.

The language used also matters. If the project is about expanding an IT department and is presented to the administration area, it would not be beneficial to use specialized jargon; on the contrary, it distances the target audience from the content.

At the end of the writing, it is important to review the content of the report several times so that it is clear, free of spelling and grammatical errors, that the information is not wrong and that it is coherent, forceful and convincing.

How to present the executive report and other tips

Executive report with graphs and data.

The presentation is important so that all previous work does not lose credibility or become monotonous and boring for the recipient.

- Use a nice design to capture all the information created using illustrations, meaningful data and powerful headings.

- Try to synthesize everything you want to add and leave blank spaces. This improves the reading experience and does not overwhelm the receiver with too much detail.

- In whatever format (pdf, video, power point, etc.) try to deliver a printed copy to the recipient. This will create a good feeling and support you in case something is not clear to you.

References

1. Montse Peñarroya - How to make a good executive summary montsepenarroya.com
2. Wikihow - How to Write a Business Report wikihow.com
3. eHow - What is an Executive Summary Report? ehowenespanol.com
4. Wikpedia - Report en.wikipedia.org
5. Entrepeneur - How to write a good executive summary entrepreneur.com