Профессиональный английский язык для экономистов. Учебное пособие

A community of practice is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. To be a community of practice, the group must consist of practitioners in a domain who engage in joint activities and discussions to help each other and share information.

Defining the terms

Writing

1.The performance of the staff can have a significant impact on the success of a company. What can companies do to increase staff efficiency?

2.Some people think that when recruiting, companies should aim to take on people who are innovative and able to work independently while others consider they should employ people who are able to work in a team and follow instructions. Discuss both views and give your opinion.

3.Many managers think that internal recruitment is preferable because of many advantages while others employ outside the company. To what extent do you agree with the supporters of internal and external recruitment.

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Chapter III

Operations management, production and marketing. Quality of products

Unit 1. Operations management. New product development

Learning objectives

1. Define the term “operations”.

2.Explain the importance of operations management for business.

3.Identify the main operations managers’ responsibilities.

4.Enumerate the main stages of the new product development.

5.Discuss the importance of feasibility study report.

Terms to learn

Operations, operations management, output, mass production, asset management, cost management, distribution, outlet, launch, capacity, marketing research, breakthrough, feasibility, feasibility study, standardization, diversity, flexibility, lead time, ambiguity, agenda, anticipation, boost

Pre-texts discussions

1.What does the term “operations” mean?

2.What are the peculiarities of mass production?

3.Why is customer satisfaction so important for any business?

4.How can a new product be developed?

5.Why is market research essential for the development of a new product?

6.Why is testing obligatory before the launch of the product?

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Reading

Text I. Operations management

The goal or purpose of most organisations involves the production of goods and/or services. To do this, they have to procure resources, convert them into outputs and distribute them to their intended users. The term “operations” embraces all the activities required to create and deliver an organisation's goods or services to its customers or clients.

Within large and complex organisations operation is a major functional area, with people specifically designated to take responsibility for managing all or part of the organisation's operations processes. It is an important functional area because it plays a crucial role in determining how well an organisation satisfies its customers. In the case of private-sector companies, the mission of the operations function is usually expressed in terms of profits, growth and competitiveness; in public and voluntary organisations, it is often expressed in terms of providing value for money.

Operations management is concerned with the design, management, and improvement of the systems that create the organisation's goods or services. The majority of most organisations’ financial and human resources is invested in the activities involved in making products or delivering services. Operations management is therefore critical to organisational success.

Operations managers are responsible for managing activities that are part of the production of goods and services. Their direct responsibilities include managing both the operations process, embracing design, planning, control, performance improvement, and operations strategy. Their indirect responsibilities include interacting with those managers in other functional areas within the organisation whose roles have an impact on operations. Such areas include marketing, finance, accounting, personnel and engineering.

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Operations managers' responsibilities include:

Human resource management – the people employed by an organisation either work directly to create a good or service or provide support to those who do. People and the way they are managed are a key resource of all organisations.

Asset management – an organisation's buildings, facilities, equipment and stock are directly involved in or support the operations function.

Cost management – most of the costs of producing goods or services are directly related to the costs of acquiring resources, transforming them or delivering them to customers. For many organisations in the private sector, driving down costs through efficient operations management gives them a critical competitive edge. For organisations in the not-for-profit sector, the ability to manage costs is no less important.

Decision making is a central role of all operations managers. Decision making is the process of making a choice between a number of options and committing to a future course of actions. Firstly, decision making is a process with several stages. Any decision making process should ensure that sufficient options are generated to enable a decision. In making a decision a person usually has to make a choice. The last element of decision making is perhaps the most important. A decision, even though well-made, is pointless without action.

Decisions need to be made in:

designing the operations system;

managing the operations system;

improvement of the operations system.

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The five main kinds of decision in each of these relate to:

the processes by which goods and services are produced;

the quality of goods or services;

the quantity of goods or services (the capacity of operations);

the stock of materials (inventory) needed to produce goods or services;

the management of human resources.

Text II. The New Product Development

To grow fast, businesses need to develop new products. But before a business can launch a new product, it needs to go through several stages before it appears in the market place. The main stages are:

marketing research finds out what customers want, who they are, and where the gaps are in the marketplace;

product development and testing makes prototypes; experiment by allowing a sample of potential customers to trial the product before it is launched;

distribution of product to outlets. The product cannot be sold unless it is in a position for customers to buy it – books will need to be in the bookshops and hammers in the hardware stores;

promotional launch informs customers features of new product – this might be done locally, nationally or internationally – the customers need to know that the product is ready, available and that it might be the sort of thing they want to buy.

At the first two stages many products are rejected because the findings of research show that it will not be successful, or they cannot make a satisfactory prototype. Product testing might show that customers react badly to the product. The new product launch needs all the elements of the mix to be in place to be successful.

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Additional reading

Text III

(by H. Takeuchi and I. Nonaka from Harvard Business Review, January 1986)

In today’s fast-paced, fiercely competitive world of commercial new product development, speed and flexibility are essential. Companies are increasingly realizing that the old approach to developing new products simply won’t get the job done.

This holistic approach has six characteristics: built-in instability, selforganizing project teams, overlapping development phases, “multilearning,” subtle control, and organizational transfer of learning. The six pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, forming a fast flexible process for new product development.

1. Built-in instability

Top management kicks off the development process by signaling a broad goal or a general strategic direction. It rarely hands out a clear-cut new product concept or a specific work plan. But it offers a project team a wide measure of freedom and also establishes extremely challenging goals. Top management creates an element of tension in the project team by giving it great freedom to carry out a project of strategic importance to the company and by setting very challenging requirements.

2. Self-organizing project teams

A project team takes on a self-organizing character as it is driven to a state of “zero information” ‒ where prior knowledge does not apply. Ambiguity and fluctuation abound in this state. Left to stew, the process begins to create its own dynamic order. The project team begins to operate like a start-up company ‒ it takes initiatives and risks, and develops an independent agenda. At some point, the team begins to create its own concept.

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3. Overlapping development phases

The self-organizing character of the team produces a unique dynamic or rhythm. Although the team members start the project with different time horizons ‒ with R&D people having the longest time horizon and production people the shortest ‒ they all must work toward synchronizing their pace to meet deadlines. Also, while the project team starts from “zero information,” each member soon begins to share knowledge about the marketplace and the technical community. As a result, the team begins to work as a unit. At some point, the individual and the whole become inseparable. The overlapping approach has both advantages and disadvantages. Greater speed and increased flexibility are the “hard” merits. But the approach also has a set of “soft” merits relating to human resource management. The overlap approach enhances shared responsibility and cooperation, stimulates involvement and commitment, sharpens a problem-solving focus, encourages initiative taking, develops diversified skills, and heightens sensitivity toward market conditions.

The more obvious disadvantages result from having to manage an intensive process. Problems include communicating with the entire project team, maintaining close contact with suppliers, preparing several contingency plans, and handling surprises. This approach also creates more tension and conflict in the group.

4. Multilearning

Because members of the project team stay in close touch with outside sources of information, they can respond quickly to changing market conditions. Team members engage in a continual process of trial and error to narrow down the number of alternatives that they must consider. They also acquire broad knowledge and diverse skills, which help them create a versatile team capable of solving an array of problems fast.

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5. Subtle control

Although project teams are largely on their own, they are not uncontrolled. Management establishes enough checkpoints to prevent instability, ambiguity, and tension from turning into chaos. At the same time, management avoids the kind of rigid control that impairs creativity and spontaneity. Instead, the emphasis is on “self-control,” “control through peer pressure,” and “control by love”.

6. Transfer of learning

The drive to accumulate knowledge across levels and functions is only one aspect of learning. Transfer of learning to subsequent new product development projects or to other divisions in the organization takes place regularly

So, changes in the environment ‒ intensified competition, a splintered mass market, shortened product life cycles, and advanced technology and automation ‒ are forcing managements to reconsider the traditional ways of creating products.

True or false?_______________________________________________________

1.Operations management is important to all businesses.

2.Operations and production are different terms.

3.The new product development is impossible without a thorough market research.

4.Feasibility study is prepared after the business plan of the operation.

5.Standardization means a diversity of features in the production.

6.Standardization is a feature of mass production.

7.Determining the exact mix of services that customers will want is the direct responsibility of operations management.

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8.Production and consumption are simultaneous.

9.The responsibilities of the operations manager include planning, organizing, staffing, leading , and controlling.

10.Operations management is applicable to services exclusively.

Vocabulary test___________________________________ _______________

8. People are necessary in production …… increasing automation.

a) thanks to; b) because of; c) in order to; d) in spite of.

9. The result of this new … is a shorter lead time and lower costs.

a) exit; b) approach; c) highway; d) junction.

10. Changes in technology and consumer demand creates more changing markets where a product can become … almost as it reaches the market.

a) excellent; b) exceptional; c) absolute; d) obsolete.

Translating

Use the following words and expressions in the translation:

feasibility study ‒ анализ экономической целесообразности;

indicator ‒ показатель;

within ‒ в пределах;

budgeting ‒ выделение средств;

template ‒ шаблон;

to mitigate ‒ ослаблять;

contingency ‒ чрезвычайные обстоятельства.

Анализ экономической целесообразности – это оценка предложенного проекта с целью, чтобы определить следующие показатели:

выполним ли проект технически;

целесообразен ли проект в пределах доступных затрат;

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