Summer Project Report Format (2012-13)

K J Somaiya Institute of Management Studies & Research Mumbai

Summer Project Report Format in nutshell

Page/Section Cover Page Fly Leaf Title Page Declaration from student Certificate from Summer Project Guides Acknowledgement Chapter Scheme List of Tables List of Graphs List of Charts List if Abbreviations, if any Executive Summary Introduction Background of the study Background of the topic Company profile Statement of the problem/assigned work Need of the study Scope of the study Objectives of the study Review of Literature /Company profile

Page No. i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi Approx. 15-20 pages

Chapter 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.6 1.5 1.6 Chapter 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Chapter 3 3.1 3.2 3.3

Approx 10 pages

Introduction to Company Historical Development Vision, mission and objectives of the company Lines of business Financial background Description of The Business Problem Approx 15-20 pages Description of work assigned Description of work carried out Limitations and constraints experienced
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Chapter 4 4.1 4.2 4.3

Conclusion and Recommendation Observation and Learnings Conclusions Recommendations/Suggestions Bibliography Appendices Glossary Index

Approx 10 pages

Summer Project Title

(Arial 18 points)

By (Arial 11 points)

Name
(Arial 14 points) Roll No (Arial 12 points) Under the guidance of

Shri XXXXXXXXXXXX Designation Organisation

Dr. XXXXXXXXXXXXXX Designation K J SIMSR

K J Somaiya Institute of Management Studies & Research

(Arial 14 points) Month, Year (Arial 11 points)

DECLARATION

I, Mr. /Ms. hereby declare that this project report is the record of authentic

work carried out by me during the period from ----------to -----and has not been submitted to any other University or Institute for the award of any degree / diploma etc.

Signature Name of the student Roll No

Date

(On the letterhead of the Company/ Organisation, given and signed by the concerned authority in the Company / Organisation where student has done the Summer Training. It should also have Company/ Organisation Seal /Stamp.)

Certificate from Industry Guide

This is to certify that Mr. /Ms. XYZ, a student of the Post-Graduate Diploma in Management/ PGDM-IB/PGDM-RM/PGDM-FS, has worked in our organisation on a project assigned by us. To the best of our knowledge, this report is a product of the students own effort on the project conducted under our guidance and supervision.

Organizational Guide Designation Organization Address Date

(To be printed on a plain sheet with SIMSR logo on the top right. To be signed by the faculty guide who guided the student during the summer project..)

Certificate from Faculty Guide

This is to certify that Mr. /Ms. XYZ, a student of the Post-Graduate Diploma in Management/ PGDM-IB/PGDM-RM/PGDM-FS, has worked under my guidance and supervision. This Summer Project Report has the requisite standard and to the best of our knowledge no part of it has been reproduced from any other summer project, monograph, report or book.

Organizational Guide Designation Organization Address Date

Table of Contents
(To be written sequentially as they appear in the text)
Every Summer Project Report must contain a table of contents, which provides a view of the organisation of the Summer Project Report material.

Chapter No.

Title

Page No.

1 2 3 4 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

List of Tables
(To be written sequentially as they appear in the text)
Table No. Title Page No.

Guidelines . Table title should be placed on the top of table Title and Table center alignment Table header should be aligned center and the font should be in bold and title case Table text Left alignment The usage of numbers in the table should be center aligned Table-fit to window Output from SPPS should not be copied directly but required to be as per table text format. Source of the Table should be given immediately underneath of the table, if applicable. Table number should be numbered in accordance with the chapter number E-g 3.1 ,4.1 ,4.2 etc

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List of Figures
(To be written sequentially as they appear in the text)
Figure No. 1 2 3 4 5 . . Title Page No.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guidelines for Figures . . Figure title should be placed underneath of the figure Title and Figure Center alignment . Legend of the Figure should be bottom and center aligned . Figure number should be numbered in accordance with the chapter number e.g. etc . . n

3.1 ,4.1 ,4.2

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List of Charts
(To be written sequentially as they appear in the text)
Chart No. Title Page No.

1 2 3 4 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . n
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List of Abbreviations (To be written alphabetically)

Abbreviation Full form

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Each Summer Project Report must include an executive summary of a maximum of two pages in single space (about 500-800 words). It should state clearly and concisely the topic, scope, method and conclusions reached. The emphasis should be on the conclusions and recommendations and should be in greater detail than the other sections. The word limit should be strictly adhered to. Examples of good and poor executive summaries are given in the appendix. Here is a GOOD example from an Accounting & Finance Report. Executive Summary This report provides an analysis and evaluation of the current and subject matter prospective profitability, liquidity and financial stability of Outdoor Equipment Ltd. Methods of analysis include trend, horizontal and vertical analyses as well as ratios such as Debt, Current and Quick ratios. Other calculations include rates of return on Shareholders Equity and Total Assets and earnings per share to name a few. All calculations can be found in the appendices. Results of data analysed methods of analysis show that all ratios are below industry averages. In particular, comparative performance is poor in the areas of profit margins, liquidity, credit control, and inventory management. The report finds the prospects of the company in its current position are not positive. The major areas of weakness require further investigation and remedial action by management. Recommendations discussed include: improving the average collection period for accounts receivable improving/increasing inventory turnover reducing prepayments and perhaps increasing inventory levels The report also investigates the fact that the analysis conducted has limitations. Some of the limitations include: current data was not available, limitations of time and resources

Findings Conclusions Recommendations (note that conclusions and recommendations can be bulleted)

Limitations of the report.

Excerpt from Woodward-Kron, R. (1997) Writing in Commerce: a guide to assist Commerce students with assignment writing, (Revised edition), Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, The University of Newcastle.

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This is a GOOD example of an executive summary from a marketing report. This report was commissioned to examine why the sales volume Terms of reference of Choice Chocolate has dropped over the past two years since its Statement of problem/ topic peak in 1998 and to recommend ways of increasing the volume. The research draws attention to the fact that in 1998, the market share of Choice Chocolate was 37%. The shares of their key competitors such as Venus and Bradbury were 22% and 18% respectively. The size of the chocolate market then was $36 million. Over the next two years, although Choice Chocolate retained its market share the volume of sales in the whole market decreased to $29 million. Further investigations reveal that this market shrinkage coincided with an increase in health awareness amongst consumers who regard the milk and sugar ingredients in chocolate as negative; moreover, since the second half of 1999, an increasing number of rival health candies had appeared on the market. These claimed to offer the consumers a healthy alternative. These factors appear to be the major causes of the decreased sales volume of Choice Chocolate. Slim Choice is the latest chocolate range put forward by the R & D Department of Choice Chocolate. The report evaluates this range and concludes that it would be an ideal candidate to meet the challenge presented by the market and could satisfy the new consumer demand since it uses significantly reduced milk and sugar ingredients and is endorsed by renowned health experts. According to 97% of the 2000 subjects tested recently, it also retains the same flavour as the original range. It is recommended: that Choice Chocolate take immediate measures to launch and promote Slim Choice alongside its existing product range; that Slim Choice adopt a fresh and healthy image; that part of the launch campaign contains product endorsement statements by renowned health experts; that Slim Choice be available in health food shops as well as in traditional chocolate retail outlets Problem solution summarised

Formal language appropriate to report writing Key findings summarised

Recommendations summarised

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
References should be cited in the style prescribed in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed.). Indicate the position of the reference in the text within brackets by the author's last name and the year of publication; e.g.: The importance of marketing can be considered to be core at the management heart (Porter, 1980). or Incorporate it into a sentence, eg: as pointed out by Hannan and Freeman (1977), we can find the importance of marketing at the core of management heart. At the end of the text, references should be listed in the alphabetical order of the last names of the authors, with a title REFERENCES. Examples of how the references are to be listed at the end of the paper are given below. (If it is a book): Porter, M.E. (1980) Competitive Strategy, New York: Free Press. Books One Author Basu, A. (1963), Consumer Price Index: Theory, Practice and Use in India, Modern Book Agency, Calcutta. Two Authors Singh, M. and Pandya, J.F. (1967), Government Publications of India, Metropolitan Book Co., Delhi. Three or more authors Authors Mote, V.L. et al (1968), Tables for Capital Investment Analysis, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Edited Book Basu, G. (ed.) (1962), Indian Tax Laws and Foreigners Having Investment in India or Having Business Connections in or with India, Oxford Book & Stationery, Calcutta.

Government Publication Ministry of Law, Government of India (1960), the Copyright Act, 1957, the Manager of Publications, Delhi.

(If it is an article in a journal): Hannan, M.T. and Freeman, J. (1977) The Population Ecology of Organizations, American journal of Sociology, 82 (5): 929-964. 16

 (If it is an article in an edited book): Kanter, R.M. (1988), When a Thousand Flowers Bloom in B. Staw and L. Cummings (eds), Research in Organizational Behaviour, pp.169-211, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. pp. stands for page number. Article in a Newspaper Gandhi, V. P. (1968), Will the Budget Achieve Its Aims? Certain Doubts, the Economic Times, Mar. 8, pp. 5-6. Conference Paper Bhattacharyya, S.K. (1967), Control Techniques and Their Applicability, paper presented at the Ahmedabad Management Association, Ahmedabad, Nov. 22, pp. 11-17. (If it is from website): Kanter, R.M. (1988) When a Thousand Flowers Bloom as appeared in www.allbusiness.com/india/marketing. Downloaded on Dt. / / Time : Notes: Do not use footnotes. Minimize endnotes. Figures and Tables: Figures and tables are to be separately numbered, titled and attached in the report in APA style. For e.g. if it is Table 1 in Chapter 1, then heading is Table 1.1 History of Marketing. For Figure Figure 1.1 Sales of XYZ Co. Ltd. from 1998 to 2008.

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A Brief Note on Other Parts of the Report

Introduction: This should begin with a very brief summary of the company and its business, and then the complete details of the managerial problem and the background to the problem, its genesis, consequences of the problem on the business, current practices, etc. It should start from a broad overview and then move to the specific focus of the study. This should include the specific business or functional problem being faced by the organisation. Next, it should describe the rationale for the study and the benefits of the project in terms of knowledge, skill, practices, systems, etc. and how it will help the organisation. All of these should be specified. The next part is to delimit the scope of the project, and to specify the area of enquiry under the project. It should continue with a subsection titled 'Problem Formulation'. This should describe the specific business problem faced and the related issues involved in greater detail than above. The variables involved would then clarify the focus of the project, what is going to be studied, why it needs to be studied. This would clarify the objectives targeted in the summer project. It should then end by touching upon the managerial concepts learnt by the students in the first year of study. For this purpose, students may refer to earlier summer projects, books, journals, reports, magazines, newspaper cuttings etc. In short, the Introduction talks of the following: What is going to be studied? the subject/topic of the study How is it going to be studied ? The Method When is it going to be studied? The Timeframe Where is it going to be studied? The location Why is it going to be studied? The rationale and scope of the project, objectives, problem definition and expected outcomes The Business Problem: On the basis of the brief given at the place of work and the discussions with academic and industry guides, a student has to formulate the business problem he/she is going to study or work on during the summer work. It must be explained how the students work would be of use in the managerial context and the business. Any methods of research and analysis that may have been utilized need to be explained in detail. Observations and Learnings: This section should include all the observations and learnings that the student derived by doing the work work. It should be noted that all the tables and figures should be properly titled and numbered, and listed in the table of contents.

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Next, the conclusions and inferences that are drawn from the analysis of the observations, should be stated clearly and specifically. The conclusions should directly relate to the objectives of the work that the student set out to achieve in the first place. Most importantly, the findings and conclusions should be tied in to the objectives of the study. Recommendations: The Summer Project Report should conclude with a set of concrete recommendations by the student. This is a critical section and should highlight the students specific contributions keeping in view the purpose of the summer project. It should demonstrate learning and use of skill and knowledge in actual problem solving. The last part of this chapter will describe the limitations of the study and suggest directions for further work in this area. These should again be the direct outcome of the study and not an extraneous addition with no link to the work undertaken. References: References should be complete in all respects. Cross referencing: All references (books, journals, magazines, news papers, reports, proceedings, etc.) listed in the Summer Project Report should be cross referenced in the text at appropriate places eg. The needs and skills required to manage todays businesses in a global environment are far different than they were just a decade ago. Clearly we need a new way of looking at manufacturing, for the way we have considered it in the past in no longer sufficient. With the rapid changes in IT and manufacturing technology, firms are therefore getting increasingly interested in managing the strategy-technology connection to develop new ways of achieving competitive advantage (Porter, 1985). Firms are attempting to link manufacturing strategy with business strategy (Skinner, 1985; Wheelright, 1981), to examine the strategic impact of rapidly changing manufacturing and information technology (Jelinek and Goldhar, 1983; Kantrow, 1980), and to find new ways of viewing manufacturing as a competitive weapon (Hayes and Wheelright, 1984; Jelinek and Goldhar, 1984; Skinner, 1985). Information technology is a key ingredient in this emerging trend of getting competitive advantage through manufacturing.

TYPING INSTRUCTIONS After thoroughly checking the draft of the report, it should be given for final typing. This section deals with important instructions for typing the report. The different items which are to be concentrated are paper, margins, indention, spacing between .lines and spacing within a sentence. Paper The size of the Paper sheet: A4 19

Typing should be done on one side of the paper. Font Type: New Times Roman, Size:12 Line Spacing Body of the text: 1.5 lines List of tables/ graphs/charts/bibliography: Single line Alignment Title page: Centre Chapter heading: Centre Sub heading: Left Body of text: Justify

Margins: The left margin and the right margin of the report should be 1.5 inch and 1 inch, respectively. The top as well as bottom margin should be I inch. But, in the pages starting with a chapter, the top margin should be 3 inch. Indention: The paragraph can be classified into general and indented. The first line of general paragraph is not indented, whereas in indented paragraph, the first line of the paragraph is indented by 10 spaces from the left margin. Spacing between lines the entire report should be typed with 1.5 except indented paragraphs, tables and footnotes. The indented paragraphs, tables and footnotes are to be typed with single spacing. Triple spacing should be given for the following cases: Before each paragraph heading Before and after each centre heading, centre subheading, side heading and indented paragraph. Spacing within a sentence: The details of spacing within a sentence are summarized in Table 1.

Details of Spacing within a Sentence Description of item Between words Number of spaces 1 20

After a semicolon After a colon After a comma After a full stop Before the first parenthesis or bracket Between the fast letter of a word in a sentence and each of comma, semicolon, colon, exclamation mark, question mark, last parenthesis and last bracket. Between the first quotation mark and the very next word. Between the end quotation mark and the immediate preceding word. Before and after a hyphen (-) Before and after a slash (/)

1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0

Titles All titles and subtitles should be printed in BOLD. All the Tables/ Graphs /Charts should have appropriate titles. Numbering of tables/graphs and charts Table /Graph/ Charts should be numbered in the following fashion. Second table/ Graph/ Chart in Second Chapter should be numbered as Table /Graph/Chart No 2.02 where first digit stands for Chapter No.and digits after (.) period stand for Number of Table / Graph / Chart in that chapter. Same numbering system should be followed for other chapters. Table /Graph /Charts must be followed by proper explanation and analysis. Pagination (Page numbers): The Title page should not carry any page number. For initial pages, (i.e. from Student s Declaration to Executive numbers should be given in small Roman Numbers. (Like i, ii, iii, iv, etc.) The report should contain main page numbers (i.e. 1, Summary)

2 ) after Executive Summary.

Main page numbers should start from first page of Chapter No. 1 and will continue until last page of the report. 21

Page numbers are to be given at the center of bottom of the page. Pages separating Chapters should not be numbered but be counted. Binding of the report The project should be hard bound in black with golden embossing as per the standard format Number of Copies to be prepared Three Other points to remember The draft of the report should be reviewed for an appropriate number of times so that the errors are completely avoided. While reviewing the draft, certain guidelines are to be followed, as indicated below: The text should convey the intended message. The report should be organized in hierarchical form with chapters, main sections, subsections etc. There should be continuity between chapters and also between sections as well subsections. The abstract at the beginning should reveal the essence of the entire report which gives the overview of the report. The content of the report should fully reveal the scope of the research in logical sequence without omitting any item and at the same time it should be crisp and clear. A reading of abstract and conclusion of a report should give the clear picture of the report content to the readers. Each and every table as well as figure should be numbered and it must be referred in the main text. The report should have appropriate length. The number of Pages should be restricted to 50-75 pages.

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