3. Practice the dialogue with a partner.

• Preston Inc.(corporate) want to increase their sales in Europe.

• How are they going to do it?

• They are going to open в lot of new offices. They plan to have an office in every major European city by the year 2000.

• To tell the truth, I have strong doubts whether they will succeed in doing this.

• What makes you think so? (заставляет вас)

• The point is that in view of their shaky financial position they won’t be able to increase production and consequently their sales.

• You seem to be right. In this respect the opening of many new offices in Europe look to me both risky and artificial.

4. With a partner, talk about the objectives of these companies.

Company	Objective		Plan
Lindon Box Brothers Graver Inc.	Increase their profits Increase their turnover Increase their market share	Reduce their costs Cut their staff by 5% Introduce two new product next year Hire more sales Reduce their prices Increase advertising

5. Making Plans. Look at the list of objectives (a-f.) Match them with the plan.

Objectives	Flans
a. Recruit a new Chief Accountant	1. Increase salaries by only 2% this year.
b. Increase the number of staff who speak English	2. Collect money for a gift.
c. Export to more countries	3. Introduce language training courses employees.
d. Reduce costs	4. Arrange visits to local tourist attractions.
e. Thank the sales manager(he is retiring)	5. Set up five overseas offices.
f. Welcome the visitors from the US	6. Advertise in the newspaper.

Financial Control

• There's no doubt we've got to tighten up on financial control. Peter, you are in charge of credit control. What do you suggest?

• Well, I've been looking at our payment terms – in other words how long we have to wait for payment – we must reduce the average delay in payment. It's nearly 45 days now from the date we send out the in-voice. We've got to get it down to near 30 days. It's not easy. The sales people always argue it is bеttеr to wait for payment rather than lose a customer, but I think we can tighten up on reminders, statement and so on.

• What about our payments to suppliers?

• Well, that's more difficult. We are a small firm dealing with big suppliers. They don't have to help-us. Still, maybe one or two of our older suppliers could give us better payment terms.

• Right. Let's look at some more general cost-cutting measures we can take. I'm interested in support services training and personnel development.

• Look. I think we simply mustn't cut these services. They are our long-term investment in people.

• Maybe, but we've got to reduce costs somehow. We can't cut in the production area.

• But our training budget is already very limited. Most of the training programmes are long-term.

• I'm not saying we have to stop any existing programmes but perhaps we should look carefully at future training courses.

• Well, I can let you have details of what we plan. I think you'll see that they are all worthwhile investments.

• I'm sure. Anyway, let me have the programme and we'll discuss it later. We'll have to stop now. I've got another meeting.

• I must be off too. Good-bye.