4354

11

7. Многие компании заботятся о своих клиентах и пытаются завоевать их преданность, предлагая товар высокого качества.

8. Его раздражают ситуации, когда человек, не обладающий достаточной информацией, пытается ответить на вопрос клиента.

9. Эта компания предлагает широкий ассортимент товара.

10. Высококвалифицированные сотрудники всегда готовы помочь в выборе продукции.

11. Не могли бы вы мне подсказать часы работы данного фитнес-клуба?

12. Наши специалисты заменят колесо вашего автомобиля в течение 10 минут

смомента оплаты.

13.Наш спортивный клуб оснащён хорошо оборудованными залами, сауной, огромным бассейном и несколькими теннисными кортами. Стоимость составляет 500 долларов в год, но вы можете платить ежемесячно по частям.

14.– Добрый день! Не могли бы вы меня соединить с мистером Смитом? – Извините, но в данный момент его нет в офисе.

15.На 5 часов у Дэвида назначена встреча с руководителем его отдела.

16.Я простоял в очереди 25 минут и решил пожаловаться на плохое обслуживание.

17.– Почему вы так преданны этой компании? – Я довольна их обслуживанием. У них очень дружелюбный и отзывчивый персонал.

18.Мы обсудили с поставщиком правила доставки товара и пришли к соглашению.

19.– Какие цели вы преследуете, проводя этот опрос? – Мы хотим узнать мнение наших потребителей и устранить все недостатки.

Writing

VIII. Write a letter of complaint. Look at the model and then write your own letter.

You bought the clock at a branch of W.H. Samson in Oxford Street, London, last week. It said „blue“ on the box, but it was pink. The alarm doesn’t seem to work. You paid cash, and you didn’t keep the receipt.

14

level. There is a clear line or chain of command running down the pyramid. All the people in the organization know what decisions they are able to make, who their superior (or the boss) is (to whom they report), and who their immediate subordinates are (to whom they can give instructions).

Some people in an organization have colleagues who help them: for example, there might be an Assistant to the Marketing Manager. This is known as a staff position: its holder has no line authority, and is not integrated into the chain of command, unlike, for example, the Assistant Marketing Manager, who is number two in the marketing department.

Yet the activities of most companies are too complicated to be organized in a single hierarchy. Shortly before the First World War, the French industrialist Henry Fayol organized his coal-mining business according to the functions that it had to carry out. He is generally credited with inventing functional organization. Today, most large manufacturing organizations have a functional structure, including (among others) production, finance, marketing, sales and personnel or human resources departments.

This means, for example, that the production and marketing departments can’t take financial decisions without consulting the finance department.

Functional organization is efficient, but there are two standard criticisms. Firstly, people are usually more concerned with the success of their department than that of the company, so there are permanent battles between, for example, finance and marketing, or marketing and production, which have incompatible goals. Secondly, separating functions is unlikely to encourage innovation.

Yet for a large organization manufacturing a range of products, having a single production department is generally inefficient. Consequently, most large companies are decentralized, following the model of Alfred Sloan, who divided General Motors into separate operating divisions in 1920. Each division had its own engineering, production and sales departments, made a different category of car (but with some overlap, to encourage internal competition), and was expected to make a profit.

Businesses that can’t be divided into autonomous divisions with their own markets can simulate decentralization, setting up divisions that deal with each other using internally determined transfer prices. Many banks, for example, have established commercial, corporate, private banking, international and investment divisions.

An inherent problem of hierarchies is that people at lower levels are unable to make important decisions, but have to pass on responsibility to their boss. One solution to this is matrix management, in which people report to more than one superior. For example, a product manager with an idea might be able to deal directly

15

with managers responsible for a certain market segment and for a geographical region, as well as the managers responsible for the traditional functions of finance, sales and production. This is one way of keeping authority at lower levels, but it is not necessarily a very efficient one. Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman, in their wellknown book In Search of Excellence, insist on the necessity of pushing authority and autonomy down the line, but they argue that one element – probably the product – must have priority; four-dimensional matrices are far too complex.

A further possibility is to have wholly autonomous, temporary groups or teams that are responsible for an entire project, and are split up as soon as it is successfully completed. Teams are often not very good for decision-making, and they run the risk of relational problems, unless they are small and have a lot of self-discipline. In fact they still require a definite leader, on whom their success probably depends.

(English for Business Studies)

Vocabulary notes:

hierarchy – a system for organizing people according to their status in a society, organization, or other group

successive – coming or happening one after another in a series superior – someone who is senior to you in an organization or job

subordinate – someone who has less power or authority than someone else

to report to – to be responsible to someone and to take instructions from him or

her

line authority – the power to give instructions to people at the level below in the chain of command

complicated – difficult to do, deal with, or understand, especially because of involving a lot of different processes or aspects

to credit someone with something – to say or believe that someone is responsible for a particular achievement

efficient – something that is efficient works well and produces good results by using the available time, money, supplies etc in the most effective way

permanent – happening or existing for a long time or for all time in the future incompatible goals – goals that are not able to work or exist together because of

basic differences

to encourage – to provide conditions that help something to happen consequently – as a result

16

decentralization – dividing an organization into decision-making units that are not centrally controlled

division – one of the parts into which a large organization is divided autonomous – independent and able to make their own decisions

to simulate – to have features or qualities that are similar to a particular substance to set up – to start something such as a business, organization, or institution

to establish – to make something start to exist or start to happen; to start an organization or a company

inherent – basic or essential

Discussion

1.What kind of organization do you want to work for? In which department?

2.Do you think it will later be possible to change departments?

3.What do you think your position will be?

4.Do you expect to have one immediate boss, to work for more than one superior or to be part of the team?

5.What will you be responsible for?

Vocabulary

I. Give English equivalents.

Власть, полномочие; следующий один за другим; подчинённый; руководитель, начальник; непосредственный, ближайший; иерархия; докладывать, сообщать что-либо кому-либо; выполнять; принимать решение; постоянный; несовместимый; поощрять, одобрять; приписывать что-либо комулибо; подразделение; следовательно, в результате; учреждать; моделировать, воспроизводить; свойственный; быть ответственным за что-либо; филиал; головная компания; финансовая информация; обеспечение; страдать от чеголибо; мгновенный; расширять компанию; запускать, начинать; исключительно; руководить, управлять компанией; подозревать; конкурентоспособный; парфюмерия; роскошный; сложный.

17

II. Give Russian equivalents.

Superior, subordinate, competitive, to be responsible for smth., to set up, incompatible goals, to launch, holding company, to report to smb., provision, to establish, division, decentralization, complicated, line authority, to run a company, to make decision, hierarchy.

III. Look at this list of words. Match pairs of words, as in the example, to make the expressions defined below.

1)department in charge of finding new ideas research + development = Research and Development

2)a person in charge of a company

___________________________________________

3)a firm which owns subsidiaries

___________________________________________

4)a department in charge of finding and increasing the number of customers

___________________________________________

5)department in charge of recruitment, training and personnel

___________________________________________

6)the administrative and central building of a company

___________________________________________

7)the total sales of a company for a year

___________________________________________

8)the department of a company which is in charge of external communication

___________________________________________

18

IV. Each department has its own goals. Classify the following strategies according to which departments (finance, marketing or production) would probably favour them.

1)a factory working at full capacity

2)a large advertising budget

3)a standard product without optional features

4)a strong cash balance

5)a strong market share for new products

6)generous credit facilities for customers

7)large inventories to make sure that products are available

8)low research and development spending

9)machines that give the possibility of making various different products

10)self-financing

V. Match up the words on the left with the definition on the right.

20

PERRIER VITTEL

Perrier Vittel is a … (a company controlled by a holding company) of the Nestlé Group. It has millions of … (a person who buys goods or services from a shop or business) all over the world. It’s the water … (section of an organization, with responsibility for a particular area of activity) of the group and has many famous … (a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name) such as San Pellegrino, Contrex, Panna and Aquarel. There are sixty-seven … (a factory or a plant) producing billions of liters of bottled water. The main … (a center engaged in research) is in Lausanne and there is a network of seventeen other centers on four continents employing 2,500 staff. This research helps produce safe and affordable water for everybody.

A recent new … (an article or substance that is manufactured or refined for sale) is

Nestlé Pure Life. The company bottles this water locally in developing countries such as Pakistan and Brazil.

Nestlé’s interest in water began in 1969 with the … (the buying or obtaining of assets or objects) of 30% of Vittel. After the … (an act of assuming control of something, especially the buying out of one company by another) of Perrier in 1992 the new company Perrier-Vittel became a major part of Nestlé Group. Today water sales represent 8,8% of the group’s … (the amount of money taken by a business in a particular period). The group is the international … (the company selling the largest quantity of a particular product) for the bottled water with a 15% … (the portion of a market controlled by a particular company or product). A new CEO, Frist van Dijk took over in 2000 and he aims to keep Perrier-Vittel at the front of the bottled water market in both sales and technology.

(Business Basics)

VIII. Translate from Russian into English.

1.Международные организации имеют сложную структуру, поскольку они ведут деловую деятельность сразу в нескольких странах.

2.Эта компания предоставляет средствам массовой информации финансовую информацию и новости.

3.Мы выполняем свои обещания.

4.Руководство компании Granada Film поместило в газету объявление о найме на работу начальника финансового отдела.