Business & Financial Report Writing

Redcliffe’s business report writing courses are delivered by a trainer with a highly successful, long and varied “fast track” career at Lloyds Bank. His expertise led him to a very senior management position in the bank’s private banking and wealth management division at an early age.

After being “headhunted” to join a merchant bank at the main board director level, he now has over 40 years of experience in the UK banking and financial services sector.

A key feature of his duties during his career was delivering first-class reports and training others to do so. The range of reports included compliance, risk, credit, project finance appraisals and board submissions.

Our trainer has been a freelance training consultant since retiring, offering professional course sessions in several technical areas of finance. He is currently an external Master Trainer at both HSBC and Bank of China, where, in addition to report writing, he has delivered major projects on a wide range of topics. As an accomplished global trainer, he has delivered extensive programmes in the UK, USA, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

He is a highly adaptive, hands-on and highly sought-after private banking and wealth management facilitator who always receives excellent feedback from delegates. He is comfortable training at any level of seniority and experience, from “black belts” to novices. In addition to his financial report writing course specialism, his expertise includes Risk Management, Trade Finance, Regulatory Compliance, FCC & AML, and all aspects of Corporate, Private and retail Banking. He is also a highly experienced soft skills trainer and has completed numerous “train the trainer” assignments.

• Develop, improve or hone your report-writing skills as required
• Hit the ground running on project report writing as soon as you return to your regular work roles
• Practice completing several aspects of a report and the different styles of report needed to meet either internal or external, and even regulatory needs
• Empower you with confidence that you are already a competent report writer; practice is now needed
• Writing a sharp business report (e.g., commercial, financial) for either internal or external recipients (know your audience)
• Understand the impact of AI as a report writing tool and how it can enhance report writing as a process.
• Business reporting training emphasises the importance of the executive summary
• Learn a shortcut to begin writing reports and avoid writer's block
• Identify and justify the key conclusions and recommendations
• Understand that a clear and concise written report is often the most effective
• Recognise what can be removed or left out, including unnecessary detail which should be moved to an Appendix
• How to apply common sense and logic to convey what is important. Explaining why it is important, what the report reader needs to do and when
• Remember at all times to ask the “so what” question to avoid too much information and detail

This business report writing training course is a ‘must know’ for:

• All report-writing or report-creating staff looking for either a refresher or an opportunity to hone their report-writing skills
• Colleagues who want to understand the impact of AI on report writing
• Managers and Team Leaders who review reports and are responsible for coaching staff on improving report-writing skills
• Compliance & Risk Officers
• Internal Audit Staff

As this is such a critical skill in almost all industries, anyone likely to be exposed or invited to participate in reporting formally to key stakeholders will gain valuable insight with this course.

Effective report writing is one of those essential skills that look easy until you try to create one for the first time. We know what we want to say, but how do we say it concisely? How do you extract an executive summary, recommendations and conclusions if you still can’t decide where to start?

Redcliffe’s effective financial report writing course deals with these issues from the very outset and provides you with useful and effective suggestions for overcoming these initial barriers.

High-quality report writing requires both practice and experience. There is no shortcut. However, the journey for some is harder than it should be, as the pressure of most working environments means that not enough attention is paid to the “basics”. We address this challenge and offer practical solutions.

There is no doubt that report writing is an essential skill and an invaluable communication tool for both the individual and the business. But it takes practice to become good at effective report writing, and it helps enormously if you understand what matters and what matters less for both the individual and the business that employs them. The ability to create succinct, cogent and effective reports is extremely important and is a prerequisite skill for all levels of management and supervision.

The course also considers the impact of AI on report writing – still at an early stage and nort always authorised in every institution- but a potential game-changer as long as its shortcomings are understood fully.

Our technical course will take you through the process of report writing and will concentrate on the key skills needed to create effective business reports as quickly as circumstances dictate. We will write a report in stages as we proceed through the various subtopics. We will highlight examples of good practice as well as poor practice and will concentrate on the key requirements for any business report: namely a strategic overview, an executive summary, a list of recommendations and/or a set of conclusions together with enough detail – but not too much – to support the recommended outcome.