A board report can be used to accomplish various goals, including fostering discussion, acknowledging achievements and outlining the strategic plan, and ensuring accountability and transparency. Many reports fail to reach their objectives due to various reasons. This can be due to a lack of structure and a poor visual presentation.
Understanding your audience is the first step towards making a well-structured report. To make data more understandable you can make use of clear headings. Similar to that, a mix of visuals can help board members quickly get the information they need.
Once you’ve set the tone, it’s now the time to share specific metrics and numbers that can be compared against previous performance. This is also a great occasion to include a brief review of any planned initiatives or strategic needs that require board approval. Connect these projects to the goals and strategy you’ve outlined earlier to make them more meaningful for your board members.
It’s also worth including a section that evaluates your business’s performance with respect to price and performance with other companies. This can help the board to understand the relationship between valuation, positioning, and growth expectations while providing valuable insight on investor perception. A table of consensus estimates can reveal to the board where Wall Street is currently positioned in key metrics. This is an extremely useful piece of information for firms with sell-side analyst coverage.