Strengthening SABMiller’s financial teams by teaching them how to write clear reports for a specific audience and outcome

SABMiller’s treasury department are responsible for producing reports, papers and project notes. These documents are often very long and must effectively communicate technical information to a board-level audience.

The writing issues that the team faced often unnecessarily protracted an already lengthy process. There were delays at every stage of the writing process with the outcome often being a document that lacked a clear purpose and was difficult to read.

The training solution: A tailored, Structured Business Writing course to provide clear processes to follow alongside valuable hints and tips from professional writers.

Writing Machine Academy had a briefing call with David Mallac, SABMiller’s group treasurer, to establish what exactly his team wanted from a business writing course. It was decided that Writing Machine Academy would essentially retrain the team, from the basics of report writing to the finer points of structure and style. The course covered everything from initial messaging discussions to the final proofread.

Client feedback

Delegates were asked to give a score out of five on a list of feedback questions, such as ‘Quality of the training content’, ‘Quality of the trainer’ and ‘I have learned new techniques that will enhance my writing’. The average score was 4.5 out of 5.