An essay states a hypothesis and then uses first and second party sources to validate it. I'm not conflating anything, it's just a good abstract example of the type of knowledge synthesis work, which is why we make kids do them.
A business strategy proposal is nothing more than a specific type of essay where the research sources are internal research results, market trend analysis, etc.
A technical design doc is an essay about the best way to implement a feature.
An "executive summary" is just an abstract, and the MBR puts the latest research citations and raw results in bullet points.