SIP REPORT FORMAT

The entire report should be between 20-25 pages with a plus or minus 10% variation. The
contents of the SIP report typically include:
1. Title Page
2. TOC
3. Executive Summary
4. Introduction
5. Client Profile
6. The business and market environment
7. Problem/Opportunity to be studied
8. Background of the problem
9. Defining the company’s objectives
10. Main results
11. Responsibilities held during internship
12. Learnings and skills required
13. Conclusion
14. Bibliography
15. Appendices

Title Page
The cover page should carry the title of the report along with some extra information that will
help all concerned people who may want to file it for later use. It should have VJIM logo and
name on the top most upper page, followed by title in the middle and the bottom part should
have your name and roll no.

Table of Contents
A table of contents serves three purposes.
 Helps readers to easily locate specific chapters/sections. In addition, it provides an
overview of the report’s scope and contents before they begin reading it in its entirety.
 Also, the table of contents serves as a direction tool for writers of the report by outlining
a road map and outlay of how the report should be presented. This “superstructure” or
“boilerplate” should be helpful during the planning stages because it suggests how
information should be organized and presented.
 The table of contents also gives a list of appendices, charts, tables and references.
Between these two sections (TOC and Executive
Summary) you need to put in some formal documents
such as:
1. Company SIP guide certificate
2. Faculty guide certificate
3. Declaration from the student
4. Acknowledgments

Executive Summary (Page 1-3)

An executive summary as the name suggests helps the top executives seeking advice to grasp the
main findings/conclusions right in the beginning of the report itself to facilitate decision-making
and pursue a course of action. The main conclusions/findings are captured in brief and succinct
manner. It is usually around three pages. They are typically used by decisionmakers to
understand the main messages while their advisors read and evaluate the rest of the report.
The executive summary should concentrate on listing the tasks performed by the intern. This
would involve: summarizing problem/opportunity areas, methodology, conclusions, and
recommendations. Ideally, it should be written towards the end to properly reflect your report.

Introduction to the Report (Page 4-5)

The introduction allows your readers to preview the nature of the project you have undertaken.
Essentially, the introduction forecasts the basic organization of the report. It discusses what is the
nature of the project undertaken, who is the company, a brief profile, a quick briefing on the
nature of the problem/opportunity being studied, what are the main findings and suggestions.

Client Profile (Page 6-7)

The purpose of the Client Profile is to present a brief intro to the client. It includes
 Name of the company
 Brief history of the company
 Headquarters
 Number of employees
 Main geographic markets where the company is operating
 Product line
 Snapshot of last 3 years financial performance (revenues, CAGR, net profits/losses and
some key ratios)
 Organizational structure
The Business and Market Environment (Page 8-10)
This section describes the business and market climate of the company. The focus here should
be on the business and economic conditions that affect the firm’s operation. For instance, a
small financial services company is affected by the macro environment in which it operates that
includes govt. policies, competitors, general economic condition of the country, investment
climate, etc.
You must look at the local, national and global climate that impacts your client’s business
prospects. Seeing the firm in this context can be crucial in understanding its problem and
prospects.
Highly generalized statements such as "the economy is in a recession at the moment" provide no
value addition to the client and cast a shadow of doubt about the amount of insight and advice
you can provide. Rather, you should say a 2% decline in GDP growth could potentially lower the
industry annual growth rate of mutual fund industry to 4% and thereby reduce UTI’s revenues by
3%. That is how specific you need to be.

Problem or Opportunity to be Studied (Page 11-12)

Some useful tips are:
What is the business problem or the opportunity? Be specific. Whenever you can, quantify.
Describe the problem or opportunity in monetary terms, because any proposal is useful only if it
results in monetary gains or savings. For instance, “Between 2012 and 2017, there was over a
50% percent decline in the economic profit of Carrefour owing to increasing commodity prices
and labor costs and aggressive competition from low-priced formats such as discount chains and
dollar stores.”
Also, remember that every proposal that you make will include a budget and you want to
convince your reader that its worth spending that kind of money. For example, “Our
recommendation is going to result in cost savings of $4,500 per day in lost productivity for the
company”.
Typically, the purpose of the proposal is included in the objectives of the study. It is used to
describe a problem or opportunity and propose a course of action.

Background of the Problem/Setting the Scene (Page

13-15)
What is the background of the problem or the opportunity? Your goal here is to demonstrate to
your readers that you have completely understood the problem or opportunity, as well as the
relationships or events that will affect the problem and its solution.
Divide the background section into sub-sections that help to frame your analysis. The sub-
section headings need to be specific.
The Background section is an important phase in researching and coming to understand your
client, the firm, and the situation and environment in which they operate.
Please remember that the Background section is not the place to analyze problems and
opportunities. These sections provide the background and frame of reference for the analysis of
the problems.

Research Methodology and Chapterization (Page 16-

17)
• The objectives of the study – for instance, to reduce production turnover time of Atlas
Cycles by 20% which will result in a cost savings of Rs. 10 crores annually for the company
• What are your sources of data? Include both primary and secondary sources of data. Review
the relevant literature, including internal reports, memos, external public articles, or even
books, so that your readers will understand the context of your work. Clients are looking to
you for sound advice. If your research is sloppy, incomplete, and superficial (for example,
you checked out a few websites that the client could do on his or her own free time), then
your report will be less convincing, and your image as a provider of sound advice will be
suspect. The proof of this research needs to be demonstrated to your client. The best reports
always contain complete and thorough research--and complete and thorough research cannot
be obviously completed in the final stages of your internship.
• What is the scope of your proposal? If appropriate, indicate what you are proposing to do as
well as what you are not proposing to do. It also includes your limitations. For instance, the
company did not give access to some confidential documents which could impact the
problem identification and recommendations of the study.
• What is the proposed time period of study?
• What is the organization of the project? Indicate the chapterization you will use in the
proposal. Relate and unify all of the sections so that it reads as a coherent whole. There
must be a logical flow and transition between sections.
• List out all the models, frameworks and tools used in your analysis, briefly describing the
context and outcome.

Defining the Company’s Objectives/Goals (Page 18)

This section is about what are the company’s expectations from the report. Including this section will
immediately tell your supervisor/company that you are giving definite consulting advice to them to either
identify a problem/opportunity. This includes:

 A description of the company’s short-term and long-term objectives

 Prioritization of primary and secondary objectives. Objectives should be stated as
specifically as possible (for example, “…the company plans to increase net income by
20% at the end of FY 2020”).
  Defining the company’s goals. For instance, for Airtel - goal one could be to understand
why revenues have declined by 3% in last fiscal; goal two to identify the factor
responsible for the high attrition of top level executives; goal three to understand why the
ROI on advertising is so low and so on.
 The next step is to outline the tasks. The project must clearly point out how a general task
for a goal breaks down into component tasks. For example, “Developing a Market Plan”
will involve several component tasks. The tasks may include: “Designing and
Administering a Market Survey”; “Designing an Advertising Strategy”, etc. Write about
these tasks in the past tense, as if the project and the tasks are already completed.

Main Results/Analysis of the Report (Page 19 -21)

 What were the main factors/causes/criteria identified?
 What are your main suggestions for the said problem or opportunity which map to them
specifically?
 What is the monetary aspect of your suggestion or how will it improve the client’s
business? For instance, by spending an additional Rs. 25 crores the company can generate
a savings of Rs. 10 crores every year which could potentially save crores of rupees down
the lane.
 Your analysis of these findings –
o For instance, if your finding is that the profitability ratios are declining, your
analysis is about investigating why they are declining, what is the impact on the
company due to this, and what is your suggestion to arrest this decline.
Some examples of results could include:
1. The advent of Jio which is armed with huge financial resources and a favorable govt.
policy is impacting profits, market share and revenues of Airtel. This could potentially result
in a financial crisis for the company, as revenues decline by Rs. 250 crores. Also, it could
eventually result in higher NPAs for those banks which are its lenders, if the company fails.
2. To counter the disruptive business models of food delivery apps such as Swiggy and
Zomato, grocery stores could come up with an online platform which serves ready-to-cook
packaged menus such as for instance, Madras sambar which has all the cut vegetables, spices
and ingredients which customers just need to boil and eat. This would save a lot of
processing and assembling time to the busy work force and they can still enjoy a home
cooked meal.
3. Online food delivery apps could also look at providing lunch dabbas prepared primarily by
housewives to cater to those segment of busy office going employees who want to relish a
delicious home cooked meal.

Positions and responsibilities held during internship

(Page 22)
Give a brief description about the nature of responsibilities and roles held by you in the
organization during your internship

Learnings and Skills Acquired (Page 23-24)

Here describe your key takeaways from your internship –
learnings/skills/achievements/experiences

Conclusion (Page 25)

This final section summarizes the main conclusions of all previous sections. It would be better
to capture this is in a graphic format so that it gives a bird’s eye view of the entire report

Tables and Graphs

Used properly, graphics can effectively reinforce the main points of the written text. Remember
the saying “A picture is equal to thousand words”
When using a graph, remember to direct your reader’s attention (“Please refer to Chart Three:
Company’s market share between 2017-20”). Same goes for tables.
When positioning the graph/table on the page, locate it as closely as possible to the point in the
text where it is referred. Tell your reader what you want them to see, and how you read /
interpret the graph.
Graphs should complement, not replace, key discussion in the text of the report. Use appropriate
graphs in professional colors. For example, use combo charts consisting of line and clustered
column graphs to illustrate CAGR. Remember to number them correctly in a sequential order,
reference it properly and also the same should be reflected in the TOC.
All tables and graphs should be numbered chronologically and listed in the TOC. At every
appropriate place in the report they should be properly presented, indexed, correctly sourced and
referenced.
For instance, table 1 on “Revenues at ITC between 2010-15”; source: annual report ITC 4th April
2015.

Bibliography
List all resources that you used for this report. Therefore, it is imperative that you maintain a
record in a word document of all the sources that you used – both online and offline. Do this
right from the beginning, so that when you are writing the bibliography it becomes very easy
and you don’t have to spend hours again trying locate the source.
You must also properly reference ideas or data taken from someone else. Where you have
borrowed the exact wording, including key phrases, you must use quotation marks.
Use APA citation style guides. Refer to http://www.bibme.org/citation-guide/apa/ for more
details.

Appendices
An appendix contains that material which supplements or clarifies a specific point or section in
the report. This could include statistical data such as big tables, reports, copies of surveys and
questionnaires conducted, article printouts, or excerpts from books, brochures, copies of letters,
etc.