Formal business reports are long documents, typically of five pages or more, that offer depth information sometimes with analyses on topics relevant to business decision making. To achieve your goals with the report, it is useful to keep in mind that such reports are created and consumed by audiences within specific contexts, which are as varied as there are types of businesses in existence.

To plan any business report, it is important to consider the many factors relating to context and audience, which will influence:

• the content included in the report
• types of visual aids
• document type and structure
• tone and style
• language and terminology

So, completing a thorough audience and context analysis is essential to getting started. Regarding the audience, consider the following to make specific decisions about your document:

Table 1 Audience Factors Affecting Document Planning

It is always good practice to tailor the contents of the report to suit not only your purpose, but also to address the needs of the audience, which is why doing a good audience analysis will make achieving this goal much easier than if you did not do one.

Remember also that contextual factors influence both you and the reader. Contextual factors vary from organization to organization, but essentially would include some of these:

• Communication flows (top-down, lateral, or bottom-up)
• Environmental considerations
• External factors like the economy, politics, social issues
• Mobility (on the road or in a fixed location)
• Organizational structure (hierarchical or lateral)
• Place of work: at home or at work
• Regulatory, policy, and legal considerations
• Technical, financial, and resource constraints
• Workplace culture

Starting your document planning process with these analyses will get you off to a good start and will save you time by helping you focus on your goal.