Читай и обсуждай. Бизнес-курс английского языка. Учебное пособие

UNIT 3. COMPANY PROFILE

Lead-in

Task 1.Answer the following questions.

1.Where is the company based?

2.Where are the company’s headquarters?

3.How many people work for the company?

Task 2. Paraphrase the following statements. Do you agree with them? Why? Why not?

The profile is a succinct, honest and accurate statement of who you are, what you provide, how you are structured and governed, your principle policies and procedures, your trading history, and financial viability.

The aim of your business profile is to influence the purchaser’s decision by demonstrating your credibility and convincing potential customers that you can offer: certainty of supply, quality, value for money, minimal risk.

Reading 1

Task1.Choosethebestanswerforeachofthefollowingstatements.

1.Readers need

A.to write résumé of their company

B.analize their company

C.to give the company name

2.Mission statement

A.is not necessary for businesses

B.gives details of your website

C.needs to be specific

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3.It is necessary to check with secretarial or human resource staff

A.to write a business profile

B.to find out up-to-date details in several areas

C.to highlight your strengths

4.Prospective clients

A.aren’t interested in your performance

B.are interested in your performance from five years ago

C.aren’t interested in your performance from five years ago

5.It is necessary to use

A.terms that people in your industry understand

B.specific jargon

C.general statements

Task 2. Translate the article into Russian.

How to Write a Business Profile1

Abusiness profile is like a résumé for your company. It lists basic company details and gives you a chance to highlight your strengths. Just like a résumé, you should write each business profile with a purpose in mind. Use it as an opportunity to briefly state why potential clients should work with you, but give thorough and precise details.

Getting Down Company Information

Putyourbasicinformationfirst.Readersneedtoknowwhothey’re looking at before you get into the specifics. It will also demonstrate how organized and efficient you are. Make sure to give the company name,theyearestablished,whatyourcompanydoes,whotheprinciple is, all your contact info, and your website. If there are additional basic details relevant to your business, give them here.

Talkaboutyourcompany’sideas.Ifyouhaveamissionstatement, put it here. Otherwise, write out your company vision, guiding ethos, and a little about your history. Telling who you are and what drives

1 http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Business-Profile

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you gives your company a human element. It also gives you a chance to do some subtle advertising early on.

This is a place you can afford to be a little vague. Mission statements are legally necessary for some businesses, and may need to be specific. For everyone else, try to state what you do without limiting yourself.You don’t want to scare away potential business that thinks you wouldn’t consider expanding into adjacent industries. But it is easy to overdo vague language.

A bad example: “XYZ Semantics is a company driven by the pursuitofitsdreams.Wewanttobringyouwithusonthisjourney.Our dedication to solutions and innovation make us the leading marketing consultantswestoftheMississippi”.Agoodexample“XYZSemantics is seasoned and talented team of marketing consultants. Since 1975 we have helped our clients grow their business and profits. Though our methods are complex, our goal is simple: we want to help you sell your product to more customers”.

Find out more specific details. Check with your secretarial or human resource staff to find out up-to-date details in several areas. You may not need to use all these, but having them on hand will make it easier when you sit down to craft the profile. Set up a way to streamline this process in the future, as you will want to update this information in your profile regularly.

•Number of employees

•Turnover. Low turnover can indicate stability, but either way it’s

a good statistic to have on-hand.

•List of all business activities. What are all the areas you work in?

•Unique equipment or specialties. If you are the only company that produces, say, a rare machine part, you need to mention that.

•Certifications

•Imports/exports

•Your methodology and/or what software you use.

•Volume of output you can handle. Prospective clients need to

know if you are prepared to meet their needs.

•Delivery stats. How many units do you ship in a given period?

•Major accounts or clients. This is a way to show prospective clients whether or not you are used to doing business with companies like theirs. It’s also another chance for subtle advertising.

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Sift through all this information. Since you want to keep the profile short, you can’t include every possible detail. Also, not all of them might be strengths. Pick out what might be relevant to include in your profile in various contexts. Keep the other information on hand for future reference, but put the important stuff in one place for easy access.

Dressing up a Business Profile

Study other business profiles. Look first at competitors and other companies in the same type of business. Note the style and tone of the ones that stand out. If you have a business you really look up to, such as a leading national corporation, look at their profile. What do they do that stands out to you? Incorporate this style into your own.

Use accurate, up-to-date details. Before you sit down to write the profile, make sure you have the most recent numbers you can find. Prospective clients aren’t interested in your performance from five years ago. They want to know how you will deliver now. Get your staff to update you on these details regularly so you have to do less leg work when it comes time to write a new profile.

Keep it short. Most times, you want people to read your profile as potential customers. Make sure they read all the way through by keeping it short and engaging. Show you respect their time and you don’t want to waste it. Short business profiles also indicate that you don’t need a lot of flowery language and decorations to show you are the best. Let the numbers speak for themselves.

For example, don’t list every client you’ve had in the last 15 years. Keep the list short by including only the top 10 or so with high profiles. But make sure the language indicates they are not your only accounts!

Avoid overly specific jargon as well as general statements. You will inevitably use terms that people in your industry understand, but a fourth grader might not. However, don’t let the profile become an advertisement for your vocabulary. At the same time, avoid meaningless, vague statements. Experts in your industry will know fluff when they see it.

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Here are examples of poor wording: “Simulated annealing and RPCs have the necessary infrastructure to interface with our overseas servers”. “Our company optimizes synergy, productivity, and innovation while diminishing losses”. Here is an example of a targeted statement “We store data safely in our servers at home and in our international offices”.

Use clean formatting. Some companies and individuals let their creativity get away from them by going for excessively showy visual appeal. This doesn’t change the information presented, though. Pick a format that has lines and standard fonts to visually organize your profile. This is another way to ensure that the profile is easy to read.

Mentionwhyyourcompanyisbest.Thisisakindofadvertisement for your business, so don’t be afraid to talk about your strengths. Although, they should never worry about the accuracy of your business profile. Mention specific numbers or awards to quantify your performance.

Make it creative but don’t exaggerate. Find a nice middle ground between good writing that makes you stand out and showy prose. Write something that sounds nice in two paragraphs, and then edit it down to one.

For example, don’t write: “We are marketing consultants based in Las Vegas, NV. We help businesses in the region sell their products and services. If you sign with us, we will be contractually obligated to advise you ways to increase your business”. But also don’t write “Semantics, LLC started in 1975, became the uncontested leader in marketing consultation in the United States by 1980. Our unrelenting and fervent attention to detail makes us the only good option for businesses hoping to increase sales. If you work with us, your profits will increase threefold in the first year”. Opt instead for: “XYZ Semantics was named in Style & Marketing Magazine’s ‘Top 5 Marketing Consultants of the Southwest’ list every year since 2005. Our team was selected from a variety of backgrounds to promote a creative environment. Choosing our services will not be the last good decision you make”.

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Task 3. Explain the meaning of the words and phrases in bold.

Task 4.Answer the questions.

1.What is a business profile of the company?

2.Why is it important to start with basic information?

3.Why is mission statement necessary for some businesses?

4.What specific details should be given?

5.Why is it important to use accurate, up-to-date details?

6.What terms should be used? Why?

Language Focus

Task 1. Complete the passage using the following words and phrases:

to improve, merged, to get results, doubled, world’s leading, skilled global workforce, development, acquisition, technologies, take great pride

Chevron1 is one of the 1… integrated energy companies. Our success is driven by our people and their commitment 2… the right way – by operating responsibly, executing with excellence, applying innovativetechnologies and capturingnew opportunitiesfor profitable growth. We are involved in virtually every facet of the energy industry. We explore for, produce and transport crude oil and natural gas; refine, market and distribute transportation fuels and lubricants; manufacture and sell petrochemical products; generate power and produce geothermal energy; invest in profitable renewable energy and energy efficiency solutions; and develop the energy resources of the future, including researching advanced biofuels.

Company Roots. We trace our beginnings to an 1876 oil discovery atPicoCanyon,northofLosAngeles,whichledtotheformationofthe

1 http://www.chevron.com/about/leadership/

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Pacific Coast Oil Co. That company later became Standard Oil Co. of California and, subsequently, Chevron. We took on the name Chevron when we acquired Gulf Oil Corporation in 1984, which nearly 3… our worldwide proved crude oil and natural gas reserves. At the time, our merger with Gulf was the largest in U.S. history.

Another part of our history is The Texas Fuel Company, formed in Beaumont, Texas, in 1901. It later became known as The Texas Company and, eventually, Texaco. In 2001, our two companies 4… .

The 5… of Unocal Corporation in 2005 strengthened Chevron’s position as an energy industry leader, increasing our crude oil and natural gas assets around the world.

Global Scope. Our diverse and highly 6… consists of approximately 64,700 employees, including more than 3,200 service station employees.

In 2014, Chevron’s average net production was 2.571 million oil-equivalent barrels per day. About 74 percent of that production occurred outside the United States. Chevron had a global refining capacity of 1,9 million barrels of oil per day at the end of 2014. Our marketing network supports retail outlets on five continents.

Technology and Emerging Energy. We focus on 7… that improve our ability to find, develop and produce crude oil and natural gas from conventional and unconventional resources.

We also invest in the 8… of emerging energy technologies, such as finding better ways to make nonfood-based biofuels, piloting advanced solar technology for our operations and expanding our renewable energy resources.

Environment and Safety.As a company and as individuals, we 9… in contributing to the communities where we live and work.

We also care about the environment and are proud of the many ways in which our employees work to safeguard it.

Our persistent efforts 10…on our safe work environment continue to pay off. In 2014, we achieved strong safety results, including record lows in the days-away-from-work rate, the total recordable incident rate, loss of containment incidents and spill volumes.

Our Work. We recognize that the world needs all the energy we can develop, in every potential form. That’s why our employees work to responsibly develop the affordable, reliable energy the world needs.

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Task 2. Translate into Russian.

1. There are numerous reasons as to why businesses need a wellwritten company profile.

2. It presents an opportunity for the prospective buyer to know about the company and enable direct interaction with the sales and marketing teams of the business.

3. By using the right template, one can write an effective profile that will persuade the customers to know more, which ultimately leads to business growth.

4. If the company profile is being created for the business website, then it must be carefully structured so that users will find all the important information like company address, contact details, management team etc. on sections like the ‘about us’page.

5. The company profile acts like an informative dossier that highlights what the business stands for and what serves as a roadmap for growth.

6.It needs to be created from a reader’s perspective and must be tailor-made for the target audience.

7.Creating the company profile follows logically after you have a good business plan in place, or have already started.

8.If you’re in the business planning phase, you should check out this course to better understand how to create an effective business plan.

9. Choosing the right company profile template is essential to determine the main elements of the business.

10.The sections featured depend on the kind of business and what are the expectations from the profile.

11. One can find hundreds of business profile templates, from which the best one can be chosen to meet the requirements of the organization.

12.If you are a new business, find a way to demonstrate viability, for example, if you hold 90% equity in the business and have a low overdraft.

13.Corporate governance explains your attitude and approach to your business, and influences your organization’s workplace ‘culture’.

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14.The aim is to assure potential purchasers that you have policies and procedures in place to meet your legislative requirements and thus provide a quality, low risk job.

15.Show how you actively manage safety in your workplace, for example, staff training, signage, safety barriers, incident reporting procedures, plant maintenance and inspection schedules.

Task 3. Translate into English.

1.Как разработать эффективный профиль компании?

2.Профиль компании — краткие данные, которые вы используете, чтобы создать авторитет на рынке, который вы обслу­ живаете.

3. Профиль компании помогает потенциальным клиентам понять бизнес, подход компании, уникальные преимущества и опыт.

4.Профиль компании демонстрирует способность компании эффективно удовлетворять потребности клиентов.

5.Профиль компании может быть полезен для любого предприятия.

6. Есть много способов использовать профиль компании, например, поместить его на сайте, чтобы показать надежность вашей компании.

7.Необходимо указать год, когда предприятие было основано, где оно находится, описать товары или услуги вашей компании, клиентов и отрасли, которые вы обслуживаете.

8.Очень важно упомянуть достижения, это поможет быстро вызвать доверие к компании.

9.Это может быть информация о полученных наградах или количестве клиентов.

10.Необходимо также перечислить товары или услуги, которые предлагает компания.

11. Составляя профиль компании, постарайтесь выделить уникальные преимущества и основные успехи.

12. Подумайте, какие три конкурентных преимущества, на ваш взгляд, имеет ваша компания на рынке.

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