new_insights_into_business_studen

unit fourteen

The article

I Read the advertisement opposite for BP Solarex, part of the leading international petrochemical company, BP Amoco. What brand image is BP Solarex trying to project?

2 Read the advertisement again and identify which form of the article is used with each of the nouns below. The definite article (the), the indefinite article (a/an), or no article? Can you explain why?

•• For more information on the article, turn to page 170.

Profile

By Lisa Napoli

A Man And His

Information Machine

Ubiquity*, says Michael Bloomberg, was never his intention. Nonetheless, his name seems to be everywhere these days. A new deal with AT&T,

5announced on Monday, will plaster the Bloomberg name on Internet cell phones. An autobiography,

Bloomberg by Bloomberg, is out in

stores this week. He owns a news 10 wire service and a satellite television network. He also syndicates* radio

programming, publishes a consumer financial magazine and maintains a Web site that he says gets 45,000

15 visitors a day.

None of these, however, represents the core business of this 55-year-old from Medford, Massachusetts; they are all parts of a multimedia empire

20 founded in 1981 when Bloomberg left Salomon Brothers with $10 m and an idea centred on the most basic and valuable of late 20th century commodities: information.

25 Bloomberg set to work, with the money and a small group of computer programmers, to come up with an analytical system that would be simple for brokers to use. With

30 some initial financial backing from Merrill Lynch, he built his network to deliver stock and bond information, a database of corporations' histories and analysis. And he named it

35Bloomberg.

Today, Bloomberg terminals, for which subscribers pay $1,200 a month, sit on the desks of 75,000 financial

analysts around the world. He has 40 turned his original concept into a reported $1 bn-a-year multimedia

news and information empire. Bloomberg's name has become a one-man brand, prominent

45 throughout the investment and news-

because they can use calculators

New York Times

*ubiquity: seeming to be everywhere *to syndicate: to sell to other media

*autocratic: giving orders without asking others' opinions *o lobby: a large entrance hall in a public building

*a slide rule: a kind of ruler with moving parts, for calculating

3 Read the text again and decide if the following statements are true (T) or false (F).

1 Originally the Bloomberg service was designed to provide news reports.

2The main customers of Bloomberg are professionals in the field of finance.

3You can buy shares in Bloomberg on the Stock Exchange.

4Bloomberg employees seem to like working for the company.

5Only Michael Bloomberg has a private office.

6Michael Bloomberg believes that the Internet will provide serious competition for his company.

7Michael Bloomberg believes that using the Internet would help him to reduce company costs.

8Bloomberg provides tools to analyse information that is

freely available.

9Bloomberg has more customers than its competitors.

10Michael Bloomberg believes that success in business is principally a question of luck.

4 What do you think are the advantages / disadvantages of working in an office like the one described in the article?

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V o c a b u l a ry

W O R L D S P A C E

C O R P O R A T I O N

Yes we go the

unit fifteen

Vocabulary development: phrasal verbs 3

T l

In the following examples from the text on page 145, are the phrasal verbs in bold transitive or intransitive?

Bloombergsettowork, with themoneyandasmallgroupofcomputer programmers, tocomeupwithananalyticalsystem thatwouldbesimplefor brokerstouse.(line27)

'Why can we charge $1,200 a month and these otheridiots can't get away with anything?'(line 106)

Three-part phrasal verbs are transitive and consist of a verb, an adverb particle and a preposition.

1 Replace the words in italics with three-part phrasal verbs. Use a word from each box in the correct form.

a I'm very excited about retiring next year, looking foaoard to

bShe is not an easy person to have a friendly relationship with.

cThe director has received a lot of criticism lately.

dOur sales of this product have failed to meet our expectations.

eWe have decided to accept the report's recommendations.

fNow that everyone has been introduced, perhaps we can start discussing business.

gThey still haven't given us the contracts to sign. When do you think they will finally do it?

hIf we don't submit an offer, we may fail to take advantage of a good opportunity,

i The company will adopt the new accounting procedures at the end of the year.

jIf the situation does not improve, the company will have to consider reducing personnel.

What other examples of three-part phrasal verbs do you know?

could have + past participle

Practice

Nouns

Practice

The Business Media

LanguageFocus

Look at the statement about Michael Bloomberg and choose the correct rule, AorB.

He could have invested his ten million dollar payment from Salomon and he could have lived quite comfortably from the income. Instead he chose to risk it all creating his company.

We use could have + past participle to talk about something which

Awas possible in the past and which was done.

Bwas possible in the past and which was not done.

•• For more information on could have + past participle, turn to page 171.

I For each of Michael Bloomberg's actions write an alternative, using could have.

Example: After graduating from Johns Hopkins University, he did an MBA at Harvard Business School.

HecouldhavestartedworkaftergraduatingfromJohnsHopkins University.

1He accepted a job at Salomon despite being offered a better paid position with another company.

2He set up Bloomberg offices in the most expensive parts of London and New York.

3He chose open plan offices for all of his staff.

4 He arranged for free food and drinks to be made available to all employees.

5He refused to open a Bloomberg office in South Africa during apartheid.

6He wrote his autobiography himself.

7He donated the profits from his book to charity.

8He decided to keep Bloomberg as a private company.

2 Write three things you have done in your life, when you had a choice. Write an alternative for each, using could have.

Example; I went to the USA. I could have gone to England.

Match the nouns in bold, from the text on page 146, with the descriptions below.

1the young employees were carrying advance copies (line 62)

2the premises are crowded (line 75)

3equipment which powers his information network (line 83)

aa countable noun which can be singular or plural.

ban uncountable noun which can only be used in the singular form.

ca plural noun which cannot be used in the singular form.

•• For more information on nouns, turn to page 171.

2 Check your answers in a dictionary.