business presentation title

Unsupported browser

This site was designed for modern browsers and tested with Internet Explorer version 10 and later.

It may not look or work correctly on your browser.

• Entrepreneurship

15 Unique & Interesting Presentation Topics for Business in 2024

Are you a business owner who needs to give a presentation, but you're unsure of finding interesting business topics to present? Do you need to make a good impression with your next presentation? Perhaps you need to impress investors or other stakeholders...

Interesting presentation topics paired with professional presentation templates can help.

Why use a professional presentation template? A professional presentation template saves you time. Just add the information that you want to present and you're ready to go. 

A template also ensures that your presentation looks professional and impressive. Slides that are unprofessional and sloppy distract from your topic. Not to mention, they reflect poorly on your business.

In this article, we'll help you find some interesting business presentation topic ideas. And once you've found your unique speech topics, you'll want your presentation to look good. Along with the topic ideas, we'll share some professional presentation templates from Envato Elements.

Check Out Our Free Online Presentation Guide

If you're reading this article, you're probably about to create a presentation. We'll help you out with some topic ideas below. But we've got even more presentation help available.

In our free presentation guide, The Complete Guide to Making Great Business Presentations , we'll take you through the complete process to get you ready for your next business presentation—from start to finish. Avoid common mistakes and learn how to plan and write powerful business presentations.

Don't miss our new free online presentation guide. It's chock full of powerful business presentation advice. It will help you make your next business presentation your best yet. Why not take a look at the Complete Guide to Making Great Business Presentations in 2024 today?

Where to Find Professional Presentation Templates

You can find hundreds of the best PowerPoint presentation templates for your unique speech topics on Envato Elements. Envato Elements has a great offer: download as many as you want for one low price. 

Explore Presentation Templates

All you've got to do is pay one low price for a subscription. Then you get unlimited use of the PowerPoint presentation template of your choice.

15 Interesting Presentation Topics for Business (With Unique PowerPoint Designs) 

If you're unsure about what to cover in your next business presentation, here are some ideas. We've also included a template suggestion to go with each unique speech topic.

Here are the business presentation ideas:

1. Meet The Team

Getting to know your coworkers is crucial for a healthy work environment. When your team members get to know each other, they'll be able to collaborate better. A simple presentation can work really well for this purpose. 

You can include a brief professional bio and a few interesting facts about each team member. You can even make it more interactive. Share the professional bio and invite each team member to share interesting facts. 

The Agio template is a multipurpose PowerPoint presentation template. It comes with several slides that are perfect for highlighting team members. It includes over 600 slides, custom icons, media placeholders, and more. It's also fully customizable and comes with nine premade color schemes.

2. Portfolio

Showcasing your skills and past projects is always a good idea. You can use this type of presentation to explain your process. Or speak about the results you've gotten for your clients. 

Use this type of presentation to explain your process and style to new employees. You can also use it to pitch new potential clients. 

The Clea PowerPoint template works beautifully for portfolio presentations. It features a modern design with 30 unique slides. You'll find plenty of image placeholders to share your past work. The template also includes other important slides for a complete presentation. Present your team members, share product information, and more. 

3.   Marketing Plan or Strategy

Marketing is important. Your marketing strategy depicts your company as both professional and appealing. Every business should have a marketing plan. It makes a great business topic for presentations to investors or managers. A marketing presentation informs the audience what your business is all about. 

This template is great for anyone wanting to present their marketing plan. The Marketing Plan template comes with over thirty different slides. Add as much information as you need to your presentation. 

This template also comes with ten premade color schemes. Plus, it includes device mockups. You can show what your website looks like on different devices. It also comes with infographics and data charts.  

4. New Products

Is your company coming out with a new product? 

This is a good management topic for a presentation in PowerPoint. When you introduce a new product, it's important that everyone in your company know what it is and how it works. If they don't know about the product, they can't effectively use, explain, show or sell it. Presenting information through a presentation is a professional way to introduce new products.

The Product Presentation template comes with twenty slide masters. This gives you plenty of layout choices. This template package also comes with charts, diagrams, and table slides. This allows you to put your data into the presentation in a visually appealing way. 

Most objects in the template can be moved, reshaped, and edited. This template has a nice modern feel that'll allow you to present your new products.

5. Business Plan

Business plans document your long-term and short-term objectives. A business plan can help you generate ideas on what to do when your business encounters problems. 

It also helps your stakeholders know that you have a well-thought-out strategy. This tells them that you take your business seriously and it shows that you know what you're doing.

This business plan template has a contemporary and professional design. With this template, you get thirty unique slides and 150 total slides. That'll allow you to add as much information as you need to your presentation. Easily add any images you need to by dragging and dropping them into the image placeholder. This template comes with five color schemes. You can choose the colors you want to have in your presentation.

6. Pitch Deck 

Maybe you're starting out, and you're pitching your business to stakeholders or investors. A pitch deck template is a perfect way to present your business professionally. 

Using the Pitch Deck template permits you to present all your information in one place. The graphics and charts will help your investors understand and remember the information. It shows your potential investors everything they need to know about your business idea.

This template also features modern colors so that your presentation doesn't look outdated. This template comes with over 120 slides. Infographics, data charts, timelines, and price tables slides are also included. The flexibility and options make it easy to present any type of data you may have. This presentation will impress anyone who hears your presentation.

7. Data Analysis

Do you have a lot of data to present?

Going over your data analysis can be a good business presentation topic idea. A data analysis presentation allows you to present how your business is doing. When presenting data, it's common to present it in different ways. This template package gives you the tools to do that. 

Analyzing your data helps you and your audience recognize current and future problems. Putting your data in charts makes it easier for people to visualize it.

This data analysis template has 35 total slides. The slides provide ample space to present all your data. This template comes with 11 color schemes. This allows you to choose what you want your presentation to look like. You also get handmade infographic templates that help your presentation look more professional. This template also comes with graphs and charts making it easy to present your data in many visual ways.

Your business finances are important. Presenting finances makes a good business topic for presentations. 

There are many types of interesting finance presentation topics. You could give a quarterly financial report that allows you to show how great your business is doing. Or you could explore ways that your business could improve. They can also be useful when you're trying to receive financial backing for a new business idea or a new product.

This Finance PowerPoint template comes with 30 multipurpose slides. That gives you enough slides to add all your financial information. This template also comes with five premade color schemes. This template has a modern design yet remains professional.

9. Diversity

Whether you're a new company or you've been around for a while, diversity in your company is important. Having a diverse company helps the company to be more creative and productive. 

The Diversity presentation template has a vibrant and creative design. This template is a great if you want to present information about diversity. It comes with over 50 unique slides. This allows you to add as much information as you need to on why diversity is important in the workplace. 

Also, this template can be easily edited. Choose to change the colors or add images. It's got visual elements such as infographics and icons. All this allows you to make your presentation more visually appealing.

10. Newsletter

This allows you to update your employees about what's happening. Likewise, it's important to keep employees updated with a graphical, well-written newsletter. Why not combine the two?

Use this Newsletter presentation template to present important information to employees or stakeholders. This template has a modern and creative design on all 30 template layouts. It comes with five color scheme options. You can choose the colors you want in your presentation. You can also add any image of your choice by dragging and dropping the image into the image placeholder. 

11. Sales Data

This interesting presentation topic is an important part of a company. Sales are how many companies make money. So, it's good to inform your company stakeholders how your product is selling. A sales presentation can also be used to present information on a new product. 

Use this Sales Data presentation template to show projected sales or show how a product is currently selling. The template could also be used when trying to get funding or investors for a new project. With a template, you'll show your audience that you're serious about your product. 

This template comes with over 150 total slides. That's enough slides for detailed product information and projected sales. This template comes with five unique color schemes. A bonus is that this template comes with a sales expectations slide, a product information slide, and a company budget slide—making this a versatile package.

12. Business Organization and Processes

Keeping your business organized is an important problem that many businesses face. When a business is disorganized, it causes problems. These problems could end up costing your business a lot of money. A presentation on the importance of a company organization can convince your employees to take action.

Organizer is a multipurpose presentation template. This template comes in standard format and widescreen format. This allows your presentation to look good on different devices. Organizer comes with 32 different slides. You can put as much information as you need in your presentation. This template comes with five premade color schemes. Giving you options to choose from on how you want your presentation to look. This template has a modern design while remaining professional. This template can easily be edited to customize the presentation to fit your needs.

13. Brand Guidelines

Brand consistency is important. It's how you develop familiarity and trust with your customers. Brand consistency involves using the same messaging. It also means using a consistent visual style across all your marketing channels. 

To ensure brand consistency, everyone needs to be familiar with your brand guidelines. That's where a presentation on your brand guidelines comes in.

The Brand Guidelines PowerPoint presentation will help you put this presentation together quickly. It's got a modern design and includes 30+ creative slides. You can include all the important elements of your brand strategy. 

14. Customer Lifetime Value

Knowing your customer's lifetime value is important. It costs less to keep an existing customer than to get a new one. So, it's in your company's interest to nurture your customers and get them to buy from you again and again. Customer Lifetime Value refers to the total amount a customer spends with your business for the duration of the relationship. 

You can use this presentation to show stakeholders how much your customers are worth. This metric can also show you early signs of attrition which you can use to improve your offers. 

The CLV Customer Lifetime Value Presentation template is handy in this situation. It comes with 20 unique slides and ten premade color schemes. You'll also find many different charts, graphs, and other infographic elements. 

15. Sales And Digital Funnel

Sales and digital funnels are the backbone of every business. They can be simple or complex. But what's important is that everyone understand how your funnels work. 

Why not create a simple presentation that outlines every step of your funnel? This ensures that everyone in your company understands the whole process. It also ensures that each funnel is created in a similar fashion. 

The Sales and Digital Funnel PowerPoint template comes with plenty of infographic elements. It also includes other slides necessary to outline your sales strategy.

5 Quick Business Presentation Tips for Great Impact in 2024

Choosing a great topic and the right template is only the beginning of a great presentation. Here are five quick business presentation topic tips on designing and writing presentations:

1. Tailor the Template to the Topic

Pick a template that was designed with your presentation topic in mind.

For example, for a business presentation, choose a business-themed template. Similarly, for a fashion presentation, opt for a fashion presentation template. This will ensure that you’ll get slides that are in line with the topic. Plus, they can easily be customized with your information. 

Armio Business PowerPoint template is great for all kinds of business presentations.

2. Use the Built-In Slides to Help You Come up With Content Ideas

All the best PowerPoint templates have tons of content ideas built in. If you’re wondering what to include in your presentation besides raw data and facts, look to your PowerPoint template for inspiration.

3. Show Data Visually

Abstract data is hard to visualize and understand. Use the built-in charts, graphs, and infographic elements to display data. This will make it easier to understand. 

Circles PowerPoint template is an excellent example of an infographic template done well. Use it for any sort of unique topics for presentations. This includes business communication PPT topics to commerce topics presentations.

4. Keep Your Audience Engaged With a Question Slide

You spent hours working on your presentation. The last thing you want is for your audience to get bored and stop paying attention. Keep them engaged by including a question slide and encourage them to take part in a discussion.

5. Use Color 

The use of color is the perfect opportunity to build brand recognition. Color adds emphasis to your unique presentation topics. Use it to draw attention to important information. Another way to use color is to put it as an overlay over your images to make the text stand out more. 

The Sparrow PowerPoint template uses color in many creative ways. It would serve marketing presentation topics well.

Where to Find the Best PowerPoint Templates in 2024 

Envato Elements is a top choice for finding modern and beautiful PowerPoint templates . And they all have stunning designs. But what makes Envato Elements a great choice?

1. Key Benefits of Envato Elements

Envato Elements is a premium subscription service. Once you sign up, you can download unlimited creative templates. They cover different digital asset needs for a low monthly fee. That’s certainly a compelling offer. 

Download as many PowerPoint templates as you need. Plus, you can download web templates, fonts, add-ons, and other graphic assets. There are tons of quality PowerPoint templates with on-trend designs on Envato Elements:

If you own many brands or if you’re a designer working with many clients, Envato Elements is a perfect choice. It'll give you the best bang for your buck. Sign up for Envato Elements now .

Learn More About Using PowerPoint

Now that you have some interesting presentation topics, put them into a business presentation. We can help you learn more about using PowerPoint. 

Start with our ultimate guide on how to use PowerPoint . Or turn to one of the tutorials below:

Find More Great PowerPoint Templates for Your Business Presentation Ideas

If none of the templates in the article were what you were looking for, check out the articles below:

Download a Professional Presentation Template for Your Unique Speech Topics

Making a presentation is a good way to present important information. Now you have some good business topics for presentations that you can create quickly. 

All the featured templates are easy to edit. They will save you time from having to make your own presentation. A template also ensures that your presentation is professional looking. If you're looking for more professional business templates check them out on Envato Elements.

Editorial Note : This tutorial was originally published in September of 2019. It's been revised to make it current, accurate, and up to date by our staff—with special help from Brenda Barron .

Home Blog Business Business Presentation: The Ultimate Guide to Making Powerful Presentations (+ Examples)

Business Presentation: The Ultimate Guide to Making Powerful Presentations (+ Examples)

A business presentation is a purpose-led summary of key information about your company’s plans, products, or practices, designed for either internal or external audiences. Project proposals, HR policy presentations, investors briefings are among the few common types of presentations. 

Compelling business presentations are key to communicating important ideas, persuading others, and introducing new offerings to the world. Hence, why business presentation design is one of the most universal skills for any professional. 

This guide teaches you how to design and deliver excellent business presentations. Plus, breaks down some best practices from business presentation examples by popular companies like Google, Pinterest, and Amazon among others! 

3 General Types of Business Presentations

A business presentation can be given for a number of reasons. Respectively, they differ a lot in terms of content and purpose. 

But overall, all types of business presentations can be classified as:

• Informative
• Persuasive 
• Supporting 

Informative Business Presentation 

As the name suggests, the purpose of an informative presentation is to discern the knowledge you have — explain what you know. It’s the most common type of business presentation out there. So you have probably prepared such at least several times. 

Examples of informative presentations:

• Team briefings presentation 
• Annual stakeholder report 
• Quarterly business reviews
• Business portfolio presentation
• Business plan presentation
• Project presentation

Helpful templates from SlideModel:

• Business plan PowerPoint template
• Business review PowerPoint template
• Project proposal PowerPoint template
• Corporate annual report template

Persuasive Business Presentation 

The goal of this type of presentation is to persuade your audience of your point of view — convince them of what you believe is right. Developing business presentations of this caliber requires a bit more copywriting mastery, as well as expertise in public speaking . Unlike an informative business presentation, your goal here is to sway the audience’s opinions and prompt them towards the desired action. 

Examples of persuasive presentations:

• Pitch deck/investor presentations
• Sales presentation  
• Business case presentation 
• Free business proposal presentation
• Business proposal PowerPoint template
• Pitch deck PowerPoint template
• Account Plan PowerPoint template

Supporting Business Presentation 

This category of business PowerPoint presentations is meant to facilitate decision-making — explain how we can get something done. The underlying purpose here is to communicate the general “action plan”. Then break down the necessary next steps for bringing it to life. 

Examples of supporting presentations:

• Roadmap presentation
• Project vision presentation 
• After Action Review presentation 
• Standard operating procedure (SOP) PowerPoint template 
• Strategy map PowerPoint template 
• After action review (ARR) PowerPoint template 

What Should Be Included in a Business Presentation?

Overall, the content of your business presentation will differ depending on its purpose and type. However, at the very minimum, all business presentations should include:

• Introductory slide 
• Agenda/purpose slide
• Main information or Content slides
• Key Takeaways slides
• Call-to-action/next steps slides

We further distill business presentation design and writing best practices in the next section (plus, provide several actionable business PowerPoint presentation examples !). 

How to Make a Business Presentation: Actionable Tips

A business presentation consists of two parts — a slide deck and a verbal speech. In this section, we provide tips and strategies for nailing your deck design. 

1. Get Your Presentation Opening Right 

The first slides of your presentation make or break your success. Why? By failing to frame the narrative and set the scene for the audience from the very beginning, you will struggle to keep their interest throughout the presentation. 

You have several ways of how to start a business presentation:

• Use a general informative opening — a summative slide, sharing the agenda and main points of the discussion. 
• Go for a story opening — a more creative, personal opening, aimed at pulling the audience into your story. 
• Try a dramatic opening — a less apparent and attention-grabbing opening technique, meant to pique the audience’s interest. 

Standard Informative Opening 

Most business presentation examples you see start with a general, informative slide such as an Agenda, Problem Statement, or Company Introduction. That’s the “classic” approach. 

To manage the audience’s expectations and prepare them for what’s coming next, you can open your presentation with one or two slides stating:

• The topic of your presentation — a one-sentence overview is enough. 
• Persuasive hook, suggesting what’s in it for the audience and why they should pay attention. 
• Your authority — the best technique to establish your credibility in a business presentation is to share your qualifications and experience upfront to highlight why you are worth listening to. 

Opening best suited for: Formal business presentations such as annual reports and supporting presentations to your team/business stakeholders. 

Story Opening 

Did you ever notice that most TED talks start with a quick personal story? The benefit of this presenting technique is that it enables speakers to establish quick rapport and hold the listener’s attention. 

Here’s how Nancy Duarte, author of “Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations” book and TED presenter, recommends opening a presentation: 

You know, here’s the status quo, here’s what’s going on. And then you need to compare that to what could be. You need to make that gap as big as possible, because there is this commonplace of the status quo, and you need to contrast that with the loftiness of your idea. 

Storytelling , like no other tool, helps transpose the audience into the right mindset and get concentrated on the subject you are about to discuss. A story also elicits emotions, which can be a powerful ally when giving persuasive presentations. In the article how to start a presentation , we explore this in more detail.

Opening best suited for: Personal and business pitches, sales presentations, other types of persuasive presentations. 

Dramatic Opening 

Another common technique is opening your presentation with a major statement, sometimes of controversial nature. This can be a shocking statistic, complex rhetoric question, or even a provocative, contrarian statement, challenging the audience’s beliefs. 

Using a dramatic opening helps secure the people’s attention and capture their interest. You can then use storytelling to further drill down your main ideas. 

If you are an experienced public speaker, you can also strengthen your speech with some unexpected actions. That’s what Bill Gates does when giving presentations. In a now-iconic 2009 TED talk about malaria, mid-presentation Gates suddenly reveals that he actually brought a bunch of mosquitoes with him. He cracks open a jar with non-malaria-infected critters to the audience’s surprise. His dramatic actions, paired with a passionate speech made a mighty impression. 

Opening best suited for: Marketing presentations, customer demos, training presentations, public speeches. 

Further reading: How to start a presentation: tips and examples. 

2. Get Your PowerPoint Design Right

Surely, using professional business PowerPoint templates already helps immensely with presentation deck design since you don’t need to fuss over slide layout, font selection, or iconography. 

Even so, you’ll still need to customize your template(s) to make them on brand and better suited to the presentation you’re about to deliver. Below are our best presentation design tips to give your deck an extra oomph. 

Use Images, Instead of Bullet Points 

If you have ever watched Steve Jobs’s presentations, you may have noticed that he never used bullet-point lists. Weird right? Because using bullet points is the most universal advice in presentation design. 

But there’s a valid scientific reason why Jobs favored images over bullet-point texts. Researchers found that information delivered in visuals is better retained than words alone. This is called the “ pictorial superiority effect ”. As John Medina, a molecular biologist, further explains :

“Hear a piece of information, and three days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%.”

So if your goal is to improve the memorability of your presentation, always replace texts with images and visualizations when it makes sense. 

Fewer Slides is Better

No matter the value, a long PowerPoint presentation becomes tiring at some point. People lose focus and stop retaining the information. Thus, always take some extra time to trim the fluff and consolidate some repetitive ideas within your presentation. 

For instance, at McKinsey new management consultants are trained to cut down the number of slides in client presentations. In fact, one senior partner insists on replacing every 20 slides with only two slides . Doing so prompts you to focus on the gist — the main business presentation ideas you need to communicate and drop filler statements. 

Here are several quick tips to shorten your slides:

• Use a three-arc structure featuring a clear beginning (setup), main narrative (confrontation), ending (resolution). Drop the ideas that don’t fit into either of these. 
• Write as you tweet. Create short, on-point text blurbs of under 156 symbols, similar to what you’d share on Twitter. 
• Contextualize your numbers. Present any relevant statistics in a context, relevant to the listeners. Turn longer stats into data visualizations for easier cognition. 

Consistency is Key 

In a solid business presentation, each slide feels like part of the connecting story. To achieve such consistency apply the same visual style and retain the same underlying message throughout your entire presentation.

Use the same typography, color scheme, and visual styles across the deck. But when you need to accentuate a transition to a new topic (e.g. move from a setup to articulating the main ideas), add some new visual element to signify the slight change in the narrative. 

Further reading: 23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations

3. Make Your Closure Memorable 

We best remember the information shared last. So make those business presentation takeaways stick in the audience’s memory. We have three strategies for that. 

Use the Rule of Three 

The Rule of Three is a literary concept, suggesting that we best remember and like ideas and concepts when they are presented in threes. 

Many famous authors and speakers use this technique:

• “Duty – Honor – Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, and what you will be” . Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
• “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” are the unalienable rights of all humans that governments are meant to protect.” Thomas Jefferson 

The Rule of Three works because three is the maximum number of items most people can remember on their first attempt. Likewise, such pairings create a short, familiar structure that is easy to remember for our brains. 

Try the Title Close Technique

Another popular presentation closing technique is “Title Close” — going back to the beginning of your narrative and reiterating your main idea (title) in a form of a takeaway. Doing so helps the audience better retain your core message since it’s repeated at least two times. Plus, it brings a sense of closure — a feel-good state our brains love. Also, a brief one-line closure is more memorable than a lengthy summary and thus better retained. 

Ask a Question 

If you want to keep the conversation going once you are done presenting, you can conclude your presentation with a general question you’d like the audience to answer.

Alternatively, you can also encourage the members to pose questions to you. The latter is better suited for informational presentations where you’d like to further discuss some of the matters and secure immediate feedback. 

Try adding an interactive element like a QR code closing your presentation with a QR code and having a clear CTA helps you leverage the power of sharing anything you would like to share with your clients. QR codes can be customized to look alike your brand.

If you are looking for a smoother experience creating presentations on the fly, check out the AI PowerPoint maker —it offers everything you can ask forfrom presentation design in a couple of clicks.

12 Business Presentation Examples and What Makes Them Great 

Now that we equipped you with the general knowledge on how to make a presentation for business, let’s take a look at how other presenters are coping with this job and what lessons you can take away from them. 

1. N26 Digital Bank Pitch Deck 

This is a fine business pitch presentation example, hitting all the best practices. The deck opens with a big shocking statement that most Millennials would rather go to the dentist than step into a bank branch. 

Then it proceeds to discuss the company’s solution to the above — a fully digital bank with a paperless account opening process, done in 8 minutes. After communicating the main product features and value proposition, the deck further conceptualizes what traction the product got so far using data visualizations. The only thing it lacks is a solid call-to-action for closing slides as the current ending feels a bit abrupt. 

2. WeWork Pitch Deck

For a Series D round, WeWork went with a more formal business presentation. It starts with laying down the general company information and then transitions to explaining their business model, current market conditions, and the company’s position on the market.

The good thing about this deck is that they quantify their business growth prospects and value proposition. The likely gains for investors are shown in concrete numbers. However, those charts go one after another in a row, so it gets a bit challenging to retain all data points. 

The last part of their presentation is focused on a new offering, “We Live”. It explains why the team seeks funds to bring it to life. Likewise, they back their reasoning with market size statistics, sample projects, and a five-year revenue forecast. 

3. Redfin Investor Presentation 

If you are looking for a “text-light” business presentation example, Redfin’s investor deck is up to your alley. This simple deck expertly uses iconography, charts, and graphs to break down the company’s business model, value proposition, market share, and competitive advantages over similar startups. For number-oriented investors, this is a great deck design to use. 

4. Google Ready Together Presentation 

This isn’t quite the standard business presentation example per se. But rather an innovative way to create engaging, interactive presentations of customer case studies .

The short deck features a short video clip from a Google client, 7-11, explaining how they used the company’s marketing technology to digitally transform their operations and introduce a greater degree of marketing automation . The narrated video parts are interrupted by slides featuring catchy stats, contextualizing issues other businesses are facing. Then transitions to explaining through the words of 7-11 CMO, how Google’s technology is helping them overcome the stated shortcomings.

5. Salesforce Business Presentation Example 

This is a great example of an informational presentation, made by the Salesforce team to share their research on customer experience (CX) with prospects and existing customers.

The slide deck errs on the lengthier side with 58 slides total. But bigger topics are broken down and reinforced through bite-sized statistics and quotes from the company leadership. They are also packaging the main tips into memorable formulas, itemized lists, and tables. Overall, this deck is a great example of how you can build a compelling narrative using different statistics. 

6. Mastercard Business Presentation

This slide deck from Mastercard instantly captures the audience’s attention with unusual background images and major data points on the growth of populations, POS systems, and payment methods used in the upcoming decade.

Perhaps to offset the complexity of the subject, Mastercard chose to sprinkle in some humor in presentation texts and used comic-style visuals to supplement that. However, all their animations are made in a similar style, creating a good sense of continuity in design. They are also using colors to signify the transition from one part of the presentation to another. 

In the second part, the slide deck focuses on distilling the core message of what businesses need to do to remain competitive in the new payments landscape. The team presents what they have been working on to expand the payment ecosystem. Then concludes with a “title close” styled call-to-action, mirroring the presentation title.

7. McKinsey Diversity & Inclusion Presentation 

This fresh business slide deck from McKinsey is a great reference point for making persuasive business presentations on complex topics such as D&I. First, it recaps the main definitions of the discussed concepts — diversity, equity, and inclusion — to ensure alignment with the audience members. 

Next, the business presentation deck focuses on the severity and importance of the issue for businesses, represented through a series of graphs and charts. After articulating the “why”, the narrative switches to “how” — how leaders can benefit from investment in D&I. The main points are further backed with data and illustrated via examples. 

8. Accenture Presentation for the Energy Sector

Similar to McKinsey, Accenture keeps its slide deck on a short. Yet the team packs a punch within each slide through using a mix of fonts, graphical elements, and color for highlighting the core information. The presentation copy is on a longer side, prompting the audience to dwell on reading the slides. But perhaps this was meant by design as the presentation was also distributed online — via the company blog and social media. 

The last several slides of the presentation deck focus on articulating the value Accenture can deliver for their clients in the Energy sector. They expertly break down their main value proposition and key service lines, plus quantify the benefits. 

9. Amazon Web Services (AWS) Technical Presentation 

Giving an engaging technical presentation isn’t an easy task. You have to balance the number of details you reveal on your slides to prevent overwhelm, while also making sure that you don’t leave out any crucial deets. This technical presentation from AWS does great in both departments. 

First, you get entertained with a quick overview of Amazon’s progress in machine learning (ML) forecasting capabilities over the last decade. Then introduced to the main tech offering. The deck further explains what you need to get started with Amazon Forecast — e.g. dataset requirements, supported forecasting scenarios, available forecasting models, etc. 

The second half of the presentation provides a quick training snippet on configuring Amazon SageMaker to start your first project. The step-by-step instructions are coherent and well-organized, making the reader excited to test-drive the product. 

10. Snapchat Company Presentation

Snapchat’s business model presentation is on a funkier, more casual side, reflective of the company’s overall brand and positioning. After briefly recapping what they do, the slide deck switches to discussing the company’s financials and revenue streams.

This business slide deck by Snap Inc. itself is rather simplistic and lacks fancy design elements. But it has a strong unified theme of showing the audience Snapchat’s position on the market and projected vector of business development. 

11. Visa Business Acquisition Presentation 

If you are working on a business plan or M&A presentation for stakeholders of your own, this example from Visa will be helpful. The presentation deck expertly breaks down the company’s rationale for purchasing Plaid and subsequent plans for integrating the startup into their business ecosystem. 

The business deck recaps why the Plaid acquisition is a solid strategic decision by highlighting the total addressable market they could dive into post-deal. Then it details Plaid’s competitive strengths. The slide deck then sums up all the monetary and indirect gains Visa could reap as an acquirer. 

12. Pinterest Earnings Report Presentation 

Annual reports and especially earnings presentations might not be the most exciting types of documents to work on, but they have immense strategic value. Hence, there’s little room for ambiguities or mistakes. 

In twelve slides, this business presentation from Pinterest clearly communicates the big picture of the company’s finance in 2021. All the key numbers are represented as featured quotes in the sidebar with diagrams further showcasing the earning and spending dynamics. Overall, the data is easy to interpret even for non-finance folks. 

To Conclude 

With these business presentation design tips, presentation templates , and examples, you can go from overwhelmed to confident about your next presentation design in a matter of hours. Focus on creating a rough draft first using a template. Then work on nailing your opening slide sequence and shortening the texts in the main part of your presentation when needed. Make sure that each slide serves a clear purpose and communicates important details. To make your business presentation deck more concise, remove anything that does not pertain to the topic. 

Finally, once you are done, share your business presentation with other team members to get their feedback and reiterate the final design.

Like this article? Please share

Business Presentations, Corporate Presentations, Design, Design Inspiration, Examples, Executive Reports, Inspiration, Presentation Ideas Filed under Business

Related Articles

Filed under Business • September 25th, 2024

Walking Deck Presentations: How to Craft Self-Explanatory Slides

Discover best practices for building walking deck presentations that leave a lasting impact. Create presentations that convey key ideas on their own.

Filed under Design • September 11th, 2024

8 Best Canva Alternatives for Presentations in 2024

Don’t feel restricted about what one application can do for presentation design. Meet a list of the best Canva alternatives in this article.

Filed under PowerPoint Tutorials • September 9th, 2024

How to Convert Illustrator to PowerPoint

Extract powerful graphics and integrate them into your presentation slides. Learn how to convert Illustrator to PowerPoint with this guide.

Leave a Reply

• Strategy Templates

Consulting Templates

• Market Analysis Templates

• Business Case

• Consulting Proposal

• Due Diligence Report

All Templates

How to write slide action titles like mckinsey (with examples).

Table of contents

What is an action title, why are action titles important, how to write an action title, best practices for writing action titles.

When it comes to conveying impactful messages in a business context, PowerPoint slides are often the go-to medium. While the content of your slides is undoubtedly important, one often overlooked element that can elevate your presentation to new heights is the effective use of action titles. 

As former McKinsey and BCG consultants, we have witnessed firsthand the power of action titles in conveying a clear message, elevating a slide from ‘blah’ to ‘great’, and tying a presentation into a persuasive, cohesive story. 

In this blog post, we will explore what action titles are, why they are crucial for successful presentations, and provide you with practical tips on crafting compelling action titles.

An action title is the most important point of the slide, formulated as a short, simple sentence. It should ideally be the main takeaway or ‘so what’ of the slide, and – if done right – allows the audience to only read the title to understand the primary message of the slide.

It's called an ‘action’ title because it actively tells the audience what the key takeaway is. In contrast, conventional slide titles simply summarize the content of a slide. For example, look at the two slides in the figure below. The slide on the left is a conventional title that correctly summarizes what is on the slide but doesn’t add any insight. The slide on the right is an action title, which immediately tells the audience what the main message of the slide is.

Action title vs conventional slide title (example)

Spending so much time on the title of a slide may seem like a nice-to-have last-minute task, but in reality action titles are one of the most important skills that management consultants are taught and lay the groundwork for creating top-tier presentations .

Action titles are important for several reasons:

• Clear communication: An action title allows the audience to immediately understand what the slide is about and why it’s important. This makes it easier for them to digest the full slide, and in turn makes it easier for you to get your main messages across.  
• Cohesive storyline: Action titles help tie the whole presentation together in a cohesive story. They form the backbone and roadmap of your presentation and help both you and your audience follow the core logic and arguments, and ultimately better understand the suggested recommendations or next steps that you may present.  
• Forcing function: Finally, action titles serve the crucial role as a forcing function to trim and improve your slides. If you are having trouble formulating a good action title or placing the slide in a series of slides, it more often than not means the slide is either not clear enough or is not necessary.  A classic example is when you feel there are too many good points for it all to fit into one title. The wrong way to handle this is to shrink the title font size. The right way is to either divide that one slide into several slides with their own key takeaways, or to delete the data and information on the slide that is not contributing to the key takeaway.

See the same three slides below with conventional titles and action titles to get a sense of the power of action titles.

Crafting action titles may seem like an art form, but it is a skill that can be mastered with practice. Here are some steps to guide you in creating compelling action titles:

If you have already created your slide(s):

• Identify the core message Before attempting to write an action title, clearly define the main message of your slide or section. What is the key takeaway you want your audience to remember? The one thing they should know when reading this slide?  
• Formulate the title Think about that core message. How would you say that if you had to do a voice-over? Write that voice-over down as the action title.  
• Refine the title Now refine the title you just wrote. Make sure it is understandable as a stand-alone sentence, and that the words you use are active and convey an insight. See the end of this article for examples and best practices on action titles.  
• Trim the content Finally, look at the content of the slide. Does it support that one main message? If there is any content on the slide that does not directly contribute to the core message, either delete it or cut-and-paste it into a new slide. Reformat the remaining content so the slide is once again complete. See more on the anatomy of a slide here .

If you are starting on a new presentation:

Best practice when crafting action titles is to write them as the first step of creating a presentation. By writing them as the first step you are ensuring your presentation is cohesive and clear from the beginning, and you often avoid a lot of unnecessary work with creating slides you end up not using.

• Pick an overarching framework for your storyline     Your entire deck should narrate an engaging story. Many consulting decks follow the SCQA framework: Situation > Complication > Question > Answer Other successful frameworks might be Past → Present → Future or Problem → Solution → Evidence. See more on storylines and the vertical and horizontal flow of presentations here .   
• Draft slide titles      Divide each A4 page into four sections, each representing a slide. Craft a concise action title of less than 15 words for each slide which becomes the slide's title. This can also be done as a text document or similar. The goal is to be able to read the titles and from that alone understand the gist of the deck.  
• Outline supporting data for each slide      Would a graph or a table be helpful? Or perhaps a few bullet points in large font? Sketch out your first best guess of what type of data (numbers, text, images etc.) that you think is needed to support the slide title and that is plausible to get. This is likely to change during your project, but it provides you with a solid starting point to understand which data and analyses you should prioritize.  
• Create a draft presentation Create the blank slides in PowerPoint with just the titles and potentially a sticker or text box describing the supporting data and content of the slide. Tweak the slide titles as you put them into PowerPoint following the best practices outlined below.  
• Read through your entire storyline Once you’ve outlined your entire presentation, zoom out again and read only the slide titles. Does the story make sense and create a compelling case? Are there are slides that feel ‘off’ compared to the story? Slides that feel redundant? Anywhere there are holes in the story or logical jumps? Add empty slides with just titles to fill the holes, and move any slides that don’t feel strictly necessary to the back of the presentation or a separate document. The goal is a cohesive, clear presentation in as few slides as possible.

See more tips and tricks for accelerating your presentation creation here .

Although it can seem like a last thing, nice-to-have thing to have action titles this is actually one of the core parts of creating top-quality presentations and one of the easiest ‘hacks’ to taking your presentation up a notch.

• Be specific and concrete: Vague or generic action titles can dilute your message and fail to clearly get the main messages across. Instead, aim for specificity and concreteness, ideally including the most important quantitative takeaways. Your titles should provide a clear direction and measurable outcome, leaving no room for ambiguity. Generic : Supply chain processes can be optimized Specific : Optimize supply chain processes to reduce costs by 20%  
• Keep it concise: Action titles should be concise and to the point. Ideally, they should fit within one or max two lines, up to 15 words. Strive for brevity without sacrificing clarity and impact. NEVER have a title that is longer than two lines.  Too wordy : The analysis conducted shows that profits can potentially be increased by up to 15% by end of 2027 Concise : Analysis shows potential for up to 15% increase in profits by 2027  
• Focus on takeaways not just summaries: Your audience is interested in conclusions, not processes or descriptions. Make sure your title reflects the takeaway.  Summary : We interviewed experts and key internal stakeholders to identify potential cost-reduction levers Conclusion : 8 potential high-impact cost reduction levers identified Caveat: There may be slides where you explicitly want to summarize a process. This is fine, just make sure the slide focuses only on the process, and the results are included in a separate slide.  
• Be insightful: …and in line with the point above, make sure your takeaway is actually insightful. Don’t write an action title that is so obviously true it provides no new information. Not insightful : Focus on sales will help increase revenues Insightful : Direct outreach is main driver of revenue growth – added focus here can increase revenues 10-15%  
• Use an active voice: Opt for words that invoke a sense of action and avoid passive statements or verbs. This makes your titles more engaging for your audience. Passive : The structure and timeline of the project is determined by the Steering Group Active : Steering Group determines project structure and timeline  
• Prioritize simplicity: The primary purpose of an action title is to communicate effectively. Focus on crafting titles that convey your message with precision and always err on the side of simple. Complex : Through implementation of efficiency levers, 7.4 M USD in costs per year can potentially be saved Simple : Implementation of efficiency levers can potentially save 7.4 M USD  
• And finally, consistency is key: Maintain consistency in your action titles throughout your presentation, both in terms of narrative style and font size. This creates a sense of cohesion and reinforces your main story.

Creating compelling action titles is a powerful technique that can significantly enhance the impact of your PowerPoint presentations. By capturing attention, fostering clear communication, and inspiring action, action titles have the potential to transform your presentation from ordinary to extraordinary. 

Download our most popular templates

High-end PowerPoint templates and toolkits created by ex-McKinsey, BCG, and Bain consultants

Consulting toolkit and template

A comprehensive library of slide layouts, templates, and typical consulting tools and frameworks.

• Business Strategy

This template, created by ex-McKinsey and BCG consultants, includes everything you need to create a complete strategy.

Create a full business case incl. strategy, roadmap, financials and more.

Related articles

Picking apart a McKinsey consulting proposal

In this blog post, we’ll break down a McKinsey consulting proposal, look at what works and why, and discuss how to write a winning consulting proposal.

Oct 12, 2024

20 PowerPoint shortcuts every consultant must know

We surveyed a group of top-tier consultants and identified their top PowerPoint shortcuts. This post explains how to use them efficiently.

Sep 23, 2024

How to Write Key Takeaway Slides (with Examples and Free Template)

This guide, written by an ex-McKinsey consultant, teaches you how to create best-practice key takeaway slides based on a proven framework.

Sep 2, 2024

• Consulting Toolkit
• Market Analysis
• Market Entry Analysis
• Consulting Maps Bundle
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Digital Transformation
• Product Strategy
• Go-To-Market Strategy
• Operational Excellence I
• Operational Excellence II
• Operational Excellence III
• Full Access Bundle
• Consulting PowerPoint Templates

• How it works
• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy

© 2024 Slideworks. All rights reserved

Denmark : Farvergade 10 4. 1463 Copenhagen K

US : 101 Avenue of the Americas, 9th Floor 10013, New York