English for Economists

Interviewer: And are you satisfied with your sales in Europe? Willhite: They could be better - our sales in Britain are good.

Interviewer: Weunderstandthat yoursales intherestofEuropearenotsogood. Willhite: Yes, we have a problem there. But we intend to change that.

Task: Conduct an interview with David Clare, the president of Johnson&Johnson about the company’s sales in Europe.

B.

Summarize the information of the Unit to be ready to speak on Company Organization. Use the following prompts as a plan.

–common types of business firm;

–advantages and disadvantages of each type of business firm;

–the role of the Board of Directors and Senior Executives;

–the most common departments in big companies; their responsibilities and subordination inside the company.

VOCABULARY

asset (s) n – актив(ы) bankruptcy n – банкротство board n – совет

~ of directors – совет директоров chairman n – председатель charter n – устав

be in charge of – руководить, быть ответственным company n – компания

limited ~ (Ltd) – закрытая акционерная компания с ограниченной ответственностью (ЗАО)

public limited (plc)~ – открытая компания с ограничеккой ответственностью (ООО)

director n – директор

financial ~ – финансовый директор managing ~ – управляющий директор marketing ~ – директор по маркетингу production ~ – руководитель производства entity n – субъект

flotation n – учреждение, образование, основание (предприятия) liabilities n – пассивы, обязательства

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liability n – ответственность, обязательство manager n – руководитель

purchasing ~ – начальник отдела снабжения personnel ~ – начальник отдела кадров advertising ~ – руководитель рекламного отдела

home sales ~ – управляющий сбытом на внутреннем рынке public relations ~ – руководитель по связям с общественностью overseas sales ~ – управляющий экспортными операциями merger n – слияние; объединение фирм в одну новую фирму partner n – партнер

partnership n – партнерство

proprietor n – предприниматель, собственник proprietorship n – собственность

sole ~ – частное предпринимательство stock exchange n – фондовая биржа structure n – структура

line ~ – линейная структура

functional ~ – функциональная структура

staff position ~ – организационная схема подчиненности matrix ~ – матричная структура

underwrite v – гарантировать размещение (займа)

GLOSSARY

·Board of directors is a group of people who run company for the shareholders.

·Flotation is the process of becoming a public limited company (the shares of the company are floated on the stock market).

·Limited company is a company whose owners are legally responsible for only a part of any money that it may owe if it goes bankrupt.

·A merger is the joining together of two separate companies or organizations so that they become one.

·Partnership is a relationship in which two or more people, business or industries work together as partners.

·Public limited company is a company whose shares are offered on the stock exchange for the public to buy.

·A sole proprietor is a person who owns his own business and does not have a partner or any shareholders.

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·A takeover is the act of gaining control of a company by buying more of its shares than anyone else.

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6.2. MANAGEMENT

DISCOVERING CONNECTIONS

1.Can you imagine a company performing successfully without management?

2.What is management? Is it an art or a science? An instinct or a set of skills and techniques that can be taught?

3.Do you agree that a manager is a continual problem-solver, decision-maker, and innovator? Do you share the opinion that “Poorly considered solution will be costly in dollars, happiness, or both?”

4.What qualities, from your point of view, is a person supposed to be born with or to acquire to become an effective manager? What do you think of the statement “Excellence costs, … but in the long run mediocrity costs far more?”

READING

Text 1

While reading the text focus on the following issues:

−a variety of resources used by most businesses;

−functions of management;

−levels of management.

Nature of Management

Management is a set of activities designed to achieve an organization’s objectives by using its resources effectively and efficiently in a changing environment. Effectively means having intended results; efficiently means accomplishing the objectives with a minimum of resources.

Managers work in an organization. An organization is a managed system designed and operated to achieve a specific set of objectives. A system is a set of interdependent parts that processes inputs (such as raw materials) into outputs (products). Business inputs are usually called resources. Most businesses use a variety of human, financial, physical, and informational resources. Managers function to transform these resources into the outputs of the business, i.e. goods and services.

Organizational members are divided into two categories: operatives and managers. Operatives are people who work directly on a job or task and have no responsibility for overseeing the work of the others. Managers are individuals who initiate and oversee new projects, make decisions about the use of the organization’s resources, and are concerned with planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the organization’s activities so as to reach its objectives. A manager’s

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job is to achieve high performance relative to the organization’s objectives. Almost everything a manager does involves decision. In decision-making

there is always some uncertainty and risk. Successful managers are given the opportunity to manage more resources and asked to make decisions that have even more impact on the organization.

The above-cited objectives are characteristic of both profit-making and nonprofit organizations. As to the former their ultimate goal is profit-making.

Changing environment. Another thing that makes management difficult is that the work situation constantly changes. The factors that define a specific work situation fall into two categories: external remote environment and external task environment. The former includes such factors as economic, technological, political/legal, social/cultural, and ecological. The latter comprises the following: customers, creditors, suppliers, competitors, employees, shareholders.

To make a good manager, some basic skills are essential. Alongside with de- cision-making, these involve technical, conceptual, analytical, people (interpersonal, communication), and computer skills.

Level of management. Managers may be classified according to their level or position within the organization. We commonly categorize managers as being in lower, middle, or upper levels of management. Upper managers spend most of their time planning and leading because they make decisions about the overall performance and direction of the organization. Therefore, they are usually involved in the development of goals and strategies to achieve those goals. Conceptual and interpersonal skills are especially important. Chief executive officer (CEO), chief financial officer (CFO), chairman, president, and executive vice president are common titles at this level. Middle managers are those managers who receive broad statements of strategy and policy from upper-level managers and develop specific objectives and plans. They spend a large portion of their time in planning and organizing activities. Conceptual and technical skills underlie these activities. Examples of the titles of middle managers are product manager, department head, plant manager, and quality control manager. Lower or first-line managers are those concerned with the direct production of items or delivery of services. These actions require leading and controlling. Because firstline managers train and monitor the performance of their subordinates, technical

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skills are especially important. Common titles are supervisor, sales manager, loan officer, and store manager. Middleand upper-level managers coordinate the activities of specialized, lower-level managers.

Vocabulary Focus

Ex. 1.

A. Study the meaning of the following words:

1.aim (n) – purpose, object;

2.end (n) – purpose, aim (to this end);

3.goal (n) – object of efforts or ambition;

4.objective (n) – object aimed at, purpose;

5.purpose (n) – that which one means to do;

6.target (n) – total which it is desired to reach.

B. Choose the right word in italics:

1.All our objectives/purposes were won.

2.The end/aim justifies the means.

3.For what goal/purpose do you want to go to Canada?

4.He has only one aim/target in life – to make a fortune.

Ex. 2. Express in one word:

–person who controls a business;

–ability to do sth expertly and well;

–set of interdependent parts that processes inputs into outputs;

–settlement of a question;

– managed system designed and operated to achieve a specific setofobjectives;

–people who work directly on a job or task and have no responsibility for overseeing the work of the others;

–individuals who initiate and oversee new projects, make decisions about the use of the organization’s resources, and are concerned with planning, organizing, leading and controlling the organization’s activities so as to reach the organization’s objectives.

Ex. 3. Match the words in column A with their synonyms in column B.

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Comprehension

Ex. 1. Complete the sentences using information from the text:

Another thing that makes management … is that the work situation … … . To make a … manager, some basic … are essential.

Managers may be classified according to their … … within the organization. Middle managers are those managers who receive broad statements of … … … from upper-level managers and develop … … … … .

Ex. 2. Answer the questions to the text:

1.What are a company’s objectives?

2.What types of resources is manager in control of?

3.What are the six managerial skills?

4.Which do you think is the most important of these? Give your reasoning.

5.Describe the four managerial functions.

6.Give the three levels of management authority.

7.Describe factors that shape business environment.

Text 2

Scan the text and find Sam Walton’s managerial decisions that ensured the success of Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart, an American retailer was founded 40 years ago by Sam Walton. He opened his first Wal-Mart store, in Rogers, Arkansas on 2 July 1962. He was 44 at that time.

Initially, Sam Walton set up traditional retail outlets with relatively high prices. But then on he sought to drive out unnecessary costs wherever he could, all with the aim of bringing prices down.

Since Walton was operating on small profit margins he appreciated the need for growth. If you are not going to make much on each item you had better sell a lot of them. Walton would fly around America literally looking at the land below. When he saw a piece of property that was fairly near to a few small towns he would land the plane, buy the property and order a new Wal-Mart to be built.

Compared to most city centre supermarkets Wal-Mart stores are enormous and offer an extremely wide range of goods: everything from food to mobile

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phones, CDs, prams, paint, cameras, tools, bikes and so on. Wal-Mart stores have now become something of a national institution in America.

Sam Walton not only brought about the dominance of low-price stores in America, he also appreciated the importance of information technology very early. In the late 1960s he visited IBM to find the best person he could, hired him and got him to computerise Wal-Mart’s operations. Nowadays Wal-Mart’s computer database is second only to the Pentagon’s in capacity.

In the 30 years before his death in 1992 Walton built an empire that turned him into the wealthiest man in America and led the way in retailing worldwide. There are now over 1,700 Wal-Mart stores in the USA. Wal-Mart also has over 1,000 stores outside America. Its profits last year were an astonishing $6bn and the company’s market value was over $260bn. Wal-Mart became the biggest company in the world in terms of sales.

CASE STUDY

A. Introduction to the problem

Where do you prefer shopping: in a large supermarket or a small convenience store? Give your arguments

Task: (in groups of three).

You are working for a huge supermarket “Sosedy “(Neighbours) . You are the Executive Manager, the Marketing Manager and the Personnel Manager of the supermarket. Discuss the future progress of the supermarket. What is to be done to improve the supermarket sales?

Background information:

Stew Leonard has been very successful in the competitive US supermarket business. In addition to high profits, he has won high praise, including the Presidential Award for Entrepreneurial Achievement and an Honoraty Doctorate of Business from the University of Bridgeport. He approaches the often dull business of buying and selling groceries with creativity and fun.

B. Scanning for Information

Work in groups of three. Look at the Stew Leonard’s Fact Sheet. Each person should scan one of the tree articles and take notes in the appropriate section of the outline. Then, share the information so that everyone in your group has the same data and can fill in the Stew Leonard’s Fact Sheet completely.

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Text A

Beginning the Business

In Connecticut, a northeastern state near New York, Stew Leonard’s father was the owner of a small dairy. He used to take Stew along when he delivered milk to families in the morning. From childhood, Stew Leonard remembers wanting to be somebody, wanting to be noticed and appreciated. Perhaps, it has something to do with being the sixth out of seven children. After studying dairy manufacturing at the University of Connecticut, Stew Leonard assumed he would go into a partnership with his father. But his father died suddenly, and Stew found himself taking over the family business with his brother.

Fifteen years later, unexpected circumstances caused another change: The state put a high way right through the land where the dairy was located. Stew surveyed customers to see what they wanted, and he visited other small dairies to find out how they were doing. He found out that the farmer who was bottling and selling his milk on the premises1, rather than selling it to a middleman2 was doing well, while many of the old-fashioned dairies were going under. Stew Leonard decided to redesign his dairy business to suit the changing times and his personality.

More than door-to-door service, Stew Leonard found out that customers wanted good milk prices. So, he ended deliveries and instead created a factoryoutlet3 dairy-store. He bought raw milk from farmers in huge quantities, processed it in glass-enclosed plant in the middle of the store and sold it in standard half-gallon (1.8 liter) cartons with his name and a picture of a cow on them. His slogan was, “You’d have to own a cow to get a fresh milk.”

As the business grew, he created more and more of a Disneyland Dairy Store where customers might come and bring their children to be entertained. As Leonard remarks, “Where children go, their mothers will follow.” Not long after, he began adding to his original list of eight products and enlarging the building until it became( as proclaimed on the building) “the world’s largest dairy store.”

Notes:

1.in the building;

2.a distributor who handles goods between the producer and the consumer;

3.discount store selling large quantities of products.

Text B

Business Principle: Supermarket Shopping Should Be Fun

To Stew Leonard, the distinction between a supermarket and an amusement park is slight, and not necessarily useful.

“Everyone feels supermarket shopping is drudgery,1” Mr. Leonard said in an interview in his office overlooking the selling floor. “I try to make it fun”.

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Mr. Leonard clearly has the most fun greeting customers, and most are delighted to see him. As he made his way through the produce2 section during the interview, Dr. Shelley Dreisman of Westport, Connecticut, happily shook his hand, but her daughter, Emily, age six, shyly turned away. “She only wants to shake hands with the cow,” Dr. Dreisman explained.

That cow, it turns out, is often Mr. Leonard, too. When the burdens of running a $100 million business seem too great, he puts on a cow suit he keeps in his office closet and goes out and hugs customers…

Outside the store, in the parking lot, there is a petting zoo, a collection of live barnyard animals including geese, calves, baby goats, and sheep.

Even the petting zoo serves several purposes. Mr. Leonard talks of it as an afterthought. When he sought to buy the property twenty years ago, the elderly woman, who owned it insisted on keeping her farm animals on it.

Now, farmers lend him baby animals, which he periodically exchanges for younger models. The farmers like the arrangement because the animals come back well fed. Mr. Leonard pays for part of their diet, but the animals also get food from shoppers, who buy it in the store.

Notes:

1.unpleasant work;

2.fruits and vegetables.

Text C

Business Principle: Listen to the Customer

Stew Leonard elicits opinions from his supermarket customers through monthly customer interviews, called focus groups, and a suggestion box. Every day over 100 suggestions are received, typed up, and distributed to the appropriate departments. He tries out many of these suggestions, even if they seem unlikely.

According to Mr. Leonard, two recent pieces of success came from customer ideas put into the suggestion box.

One was to sell strawberries loose, like tomatoes, in the big flat trays from the farm, not in plastic one-pint (0.551 liter) baskets.

The produce manager said that if the strawberries were set out loose, people would eat them and the leftovers would never sell. He turned out to be right, but customers who can choose strawberries individually will drop them into plastic bags without watching the total, Mr. Leonard discovered, and some will buy twelve dollars worth. Sales tripled.

Then there were the turkey dinners. Mr. Leonard was selling them with vegetable and stuffing1, fresh but refrigerated, at $5.59 each, and roasting just three turkeys a day in the store’s kitchens to keep up with demand. A customer sug-

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