Scenario:

ABC is a Melbourne-based company. The company currently owns and operates two branches – one in Melbourne and one in Sydney. The owners of the business are interested in expanding. They have identified Brisbane as a possible location for a third branch.

*Note: ABC can be a company that provides either accounting or ICT services.

Requirements:

The candidate is required to write a business report on the viability of the expansion to Brisbane. The impact of political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, environmental, legal and industry influences must be considered. Recommendations on the company’s expansion project should be included in the report.

The report must:

• first, be adequately planned. Download Template CPW.05 Ass2.1. v1.0. Use this template to develop your report plan. Ensure all sections are completed.
• be structured in the following way: Title page, contents, Executive Summary, Introduction, Main body, Summary, Recommendations, References, Appendix. Download SupplementCPW.05 Ass2 v1.0. This supplementary guide demonstrates the structure and provides further detail on the report content.
• follow the defined report format style – see “Style Guide” below. (Note: the guide referenced above is not in the required report format)
• use Harvard reference style
• present data, information and knowledge aggregated, interpreted and summarised in accordance with business report’s purposes and objectives
• contain no unexplained abbreviations except for standard abbreviations such as ICT
• contain no words/phrases which are too informal for a business report such as slang, emphatic language, emotive language or text language
• be grammatically correct in terms of articles, prepositions, tenses, subject-verb agreement
• use correct capital letters (proper nouns, first person singular, first word of a sentence)
• use no gender specific language or other generalisations
  • gender specific language might be the use of the word ‘he’ when speaking about both genders.
  • ‘Other generalisations’ means assumptions made to a broad section of society for which there is no evidence to substantiate the claim. An example, ‘elderly people do not like living in retirement villages’.
• have a topic with a topic sentence for each paragraph
  • each topic has its own sentence.
  • the first sentence of the paragraph introduces the reader to the idea.
  • the other sentences expand upon this idea.
• identify data and information’s gaps
• include suitable graphics and basic design elements to suit with audience and the report’s aims

Style Guide

Font Type

In the report, the following fonts are to be used:

Arial – Base font for document and appendix body text, heading levels, table and figure titles.

Arial Italic– Text Notes and other emphasis purposes.

Font Sizes

All text material should be in eleven (11) point type size. Fonts used for internal tables and graphic materials may be scaled down to fit available space, as appropriate.

Margins

In main body text, the top and bottom margins are set at 2 cm and the left and right margins are set at 2.5 cm.

Page Header

The page header shall consist of the document title and a 0.1 cm rule extending from the left margin to the right margin. The document title shall be placed at the left margin. Where appropriate, the Company logo shall be aligned to the right margin.

Page Footer

The page footer will be utilized for the purpose of numbering the pages. The page footer consists only of the page number, centred between the left and right margins. Page footers will start on the page of Introduction part of the business report.