Language practice and Speaking

14. Answer the following questions for general understanding

1. Under what circumstances can a private firm compute the profit results?

2. What is impractical for solving complex problems?

3. What are methods of identifying the problems?

4. What is important in understanding and explaining the problem?

5. What is sensitivity analysis?

6. When is sensitivity analysis useful?

15. Read the sentences and translate into Russian

a) The objectives and outcomes are directly quantifiable.

b) A government decision maker may know the computed net benefits (benefits minus costs) of different program options.

c) The decision maker need not rely on the painstaking method of enumeration to solve such problems.

d) Sensitivity analysis considers how an optimal decision would change if key economic facts or conditions were altered.

e) It is natural to investigate the profit effects if outcomes differ from the report's forecasts.

16. Questions for the final discussion

l) Do you agree that the method of enumeration is ineffective in solving massive problems?

2) Should a decision maker, do you think, rely on the data provided. What sources of information could be referred to as more reliable and less reliable?

3) Could press publications be used as sources of information for making a decision? Give an example of a) international; b) federal; c) local press which is a) completely reliable; b) completely unreliable.

Unit 3 marketing

Vocabulary ( часть 1)

1. Read and remember the words and combinations given bellow

1.managerial – управленческий 2.to assess – оценивать 3.promotional activities – действия по продвижению товара 4.price discounting – ценовые скидки 5.placement – размещение 6.couponing – использование купонов 7.enhancement – увеличение, улучшение 8.survey data – данные осмотра, оценки 9.audit – проверка 10.advent – появление 11.coincidence – совпадение 12.sophisticated – изощренный

13.prevalent – преобладающий, превалирующий 14.competitor – конкурент 15.extent – зд. масштаб 16.source – источник 17.market share – доля рынка 18.temporary price reduction – временное снижение цен 19.effectiveness – эффективность 20.long-term price elasticities – долгосрочная эластичность цен 21.success – успех 22.failure – провал 23.to cancel – отменять 24.comparison – сравнение

Text A

2. Read and translate the text marketing research

Philip Kotler defines marketing as «asocial and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with others». Marketing research is used to assess the market's response to the firm's marketing inputs which include promotional activities. The goal of marketing research is to assist the firm in determining the most effective, i.e. most profitable, mix of marketing inputs given knowledge of the marketplace.

As a formal scientific discipline marketing research began in the early twentieth century with most analyses being based on survey data. In the 1930s, the A. C. Nielsen Company began collecting in-store data using manual audits. Today, with the advent of scanning technology, the amount of timely data available from stores and household panels has grown exponentially. Coincident with this data explosion, the data delivery systems and the techniques used to analyze the data have become increasingly sophisticated. Marketing research is an integral part of organizations in both the consumer durable and nondurable goods sectors, and in recent years the use of marketing principles has become increasing prevalent among nonprofit and government sectors.

Marketing research is interdisciplinary requiring the knowledge of economists, operations researchers, psychologists, and statisticians. For the economist, the economic theory of consumer behavior and the theory of the firm provide basic building blocks. Marketing research can be viewed as an operational or tactical activity and as a strategic activity. Although both activities require knowledge of the workings of the marketplace at both the macroeconomic and microeconomic levels, tactical analyses focus on monitoring a product's performance and testing the effectiveness of marketing programs relative to competitors. Strategic research involves selecting and optimizing marketing opportunities.

In order to understand the marketplace, the researcher must define the market in terms of both the geographic unit and the product class and collect data. Data on consumer purchases permit an analyst to determine what was sold and how particular brands performed relative to each other. In addition to sales and price information, causal data assist the analyst in understanding the reason that sales took place. Examples of causal data are newspaper advertising which indicates the extent of retailer advertising support, display activity, and coupon ads. Another important source of information for understanding the source of sales is television advertising. Measuring the effects of television advertising is relatively difficult owing to the dynamic effects such advertising has on consumer behavior, however.

Once the data are collected, the analyst may choose to evaluate the information by simply looking at the raw series together over time or compute straightforward measures such as market share in order to arrive at a qualitative assessment of market activity. Statistical models might be estimated in order to address issues such as temporary price reduction, effectiveness, the extent of cannibalization due to promotional activity, i.e. the extent to which sales of one specific product decline as a result of promoting another similar product produced by the same manufacturer, the competitive effects of promotions, differences between markets, competitive pricing points, and long-term price elasticities.

Forecasting is an activity likely to be undertaken by a business economist working in a marketing research department. Forecasting the success or failure of new product introductions is also important. New product introductions require a considerable amount of a firms resources, and failure to read the marketplace correctly and early in the development process can lead to costly errors.