14. My speciality. Customs inspector

Lead-in:

1. Goods Management – товарознавство

2. Customs Activity – митна справа

3. cargo – вантаж

4. to prevent smuggling – запобігти контрабанди

5. various duties – різноманітні збори

6. drug law enforcement – виконання закону про наркотики

I am a student of the faculty of Marketing, Trade an Customs Activity at Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade named after M.Tugan-Baranovsky. There are 3 departments here: the department of Marketing, Goods Management and Customs Activity.

My speciality is Customs inspector. Until recently Ukraine had no institution to train Customs specialists. But now some higher educational establishments, and Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade among them, train such specialists.

The work of Customs inspectors is very important and many-sided. They deal with passengers, cargoes, transport. The passengers going through customs have to declare certain items they are bringing into the country. Customs inspectors are trained to recognize the passengers who are carrying things into a country illegally to prevent smuggling.

As with merchandise processing, modern computer technology and communications are being used extensively to facilitate the processing of the ever – increasing numbers of travellers entering different countries.

Besides, working with passengers, checking imports and exports there are many other types of work done by Customs inspector. They control payments of various duties, see that appropriate licences are held, inspect the books and accounts and see that the right amount of tax is paid.

According to Customs regulations, one of the duties of a Customs inspector is to prevent drug smuggling. Drug smuggling is a very serious problem nowadays. Drug traffickers use any and every means of transport to smuggle drugs from source area to their market destination.

There are many effective ways of detecting cases of drug smuggling but the best tool for drug law enforcement is a well-trained and experienced Customs experts. The majority of the drugs seized resulted from the work of such officers.

In order to be specialists our students study foreign languages, mathematics, chemistry, psychology. Cooperation between Customs services in different countries is an important element in this work, that is why foreign languages are very important for Customs inspectors. Besides, great attention is paid to special subjects.

I like my future speciality and I think that we, young specialists, must do all we can to meet the requirements of Ukraine in full.

 Questions for comprehension check-up and discussion:

1. What is the name of your faculty?

2. What are the names of your faculty’s departments?

3. What is the name of your speciality?

4. What is the work of Customs inspectors connected with?

5. What is the most important duty of Customs inspectors?

6. What subjects do you study?

15. Marketing and promotion

Lead-in:

1. storage – зберігання, склад

2. customer purchasing power – купівельна спроможність покупця

3. marketing research – маркетингове дослідження

4. promotion – просування товару

5. to persuade – переконувати

6. marketing mix – структура маркетингу

Marketing is an activity that includes different kinds of business dealings with the movement of goods and services from producer to consumer. It is a very complex process. It includes such activities as product planning, storage, buying, pricing, promotion, selling, traffic, distribution of ideas and research. The aim of marketing is to find out what the other person wants, then manufacture it for him.

So marketing is the management function which organizes and directs all business activities involved in assessing and converting customer purchasing power into effective demand for a specific product or service so as to achieve the profit, target or other objectives set by a company. Those who produce must know what goods and services, where, for what prices, why, for what purpose their customers would like to buy.

Marketing research in this respect helps producers very much. A marketer must determine what customer needs are. It’s done by way of market segmentation. Every market can be divided into segments or, in other words, into separate groups of consumers. First, there are demographic factors like age, income, educational background, occupation, size of family, type of home and neighbourhood, etc. Then there are psychographic factors – the customer’s opinions and interests, hobbies, vacation spots, favourite spots, etc.

The ABC of marketing is the so-called Marketing Mix. It consists of 4 elements: product, price, place and promotion.

Place means the location of certain goods and services and their distribution.

Promotion includes all kinds of communications in marketing, say, advertising, sales, direct mail, free additions and fairs. The primary objectives of promotion are to inform consumers (potential customers) of the existence of certain goods, and services, to demonstrate their advantages and to persuade the consumer to buy them.

The third element of Marketing Mix is Product. It is often connected with research and development of a new product or service, testing it, searching the potential markets and introduction to the market.

Product is the most controllable of the 4 elements of Marketing Mix.

The most changeable element of all the 4 is Price. As prices rise, we can buy fewer things or only things of lesser quality; on the contrary, as prices fall, customers can buy more things or things of better quality.

 Questions for comprehension check-up and discussion:

1. What is marketing?

2. What is the aim of marketing?

3. What segments can every market be divided into?

4. What is the ABC of marketing?

5. What does Marketing Mix consist of?

6. What is promotion?

7. What is the most changeable element of Marketing Mix?