7. Make up your own sentences using the words and word combinations given below.

Cyberspace, to get hands on all kinds of free goods, unwanted items, to sell to a bidder, online auction, to subscribe to, to e-mail out lists, to be far from worthless, overriding rule on smth, to buy more powerful software, to rate the honesty and reliability of smb/smth.

8. In groups discuss the following.

Ways to extend the product life cycle of products include increasing consumption among present users and attracting new buyers. Often this can be accomplished through packaging innovation. Take products like beef stew and macaroni and beef. These products have been available for years in cans, but sales were slow. Dial Company changed the whole market around by introducing the Lunch Bucket, a shelf-stable, single-serve, microwavable product line of entrees and soups. Shelf-stable means the products can be stored on the shelf for long periods of time without losing taste or freshness.

These new products can be prepared in under two minutes in a microwave oven. Two thirds of U.S. households and about one half of offices contain microwave ovens. U.S. consumers bought 64 percent more microwave-ready food in 1987 than in 1986.

Among users of Lunch Bucket, 35 percent of their volume came from increased sales and attracting new buyers. The entrees are placed on supermarket shelves near the canned meat and the soups are placed near the canned soups to show the new product features relative to the old products.

Decision questions

1. What are the social and technological changes that led to the development of this new line of products? What other products or services may become more popular as a result of these social and technological changes?

2. Would you have chosen Lunch Bucket as the brand name for this new line of foods? What are the advantages and disadvantages of that name? What name do you feel might be better?

3. What other foods could be made into shelf-stable microwavable products to extend the product life cycle of those goods?

4. Can you think of other ways to increase the product life cycle of products such as soup and canned beef?

FINANCIAL TIMES OCTOBER 30/31 2004

Canada adds sparkle to de beers' strategy

Diamond group has realised there are benefits to be had from partnerships with capable junior companies, says Bernard Simon

After a 40-year search, a few missteps and some bad luck, De Beers is about to start building its first diamond mine in North America.

More than that, the group that dominates the global diamond market is channelling almost half of this year's US$92m exploration budget to Canada. It has signed a flurry of joint ventures and is seeking partners for several more.

“We’re very much on a ramp-up,” says Richard Molyneux, chief executive of De Beers Canada. Mr Molyneux expects that the company will employ about 1,000 people in Canada within the next three years – five times the present workforce.

This burst of activity is partly a response to the buoyant diamond market, plus a sense that big new discoveries are likely to be elusive in southern Africa, where De Beers’ mining operations are centred.

But De Beers has also made a crucial shift in its exploration strategy, mirroring its recent emphasis on partnerships in diamond marketing and distribution.

The South African company “eventually realised they can't be everywhere”, says Jan Vandersande, president of Mountain Province Diamonds of California, which signed a joint venture with De Beers in 1997 to evaluate deposits in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

For years, De Beers kept a low profile in Canada, operating under a different name and shunning the prospectors and junior exploration companies that grease the mining industry’s wheels.

According to Tony Andrews, director of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, any big foreign investor in Canadian mining “must figure out how to work with the juniors”.

But a consultant who worked with De Beers in the late 1980s recalls “they were just so full of themselves that after the first 20 minutes you’d had enough. They didn’t endear themselves to the guys, in the field.”

De Beers has been shut out of two rich mines in the Northwest Territories that have come on stream during the past six years. At full production, the mines, one controlled by ВНР Billiton and the other by Rio Tinto, will contribute about 12 per cent of world diamond output.

“This competition is new for [De Beers],” says Raymond Savoie, chief executive of Ditem Explorations of Montreal, which signed a joint venture in August to evaluate De Beers’ land hold­ings on Southampton Island in the eastern Arctic.

Increasingly, says Mr Molyneux, “we’ve realised there are major benefits to be had from partnerships with capable junior compa­nies”. De Beers has formed joint ventures covering nine of its roughly 30 exploration projects in Canada. It has rights to 163,000 sq km of land, about five times the size of Belgium. More than four-fifths of the holdings are in the Arctic territory of Nunavut.

In the seven years since Mountain Province Diamonds started working with De Beers, the South Africans “have learnt from us how to work with a junior”, says Mr Vandersande. “They’ve been a great partner.”

Construction of the Snap Lake underground mine, 220km north-east of Yellow-knife, is due to start this winter. Snap Lake is expected to produce about 1.5m carats a year, starting in 2007, compared with about 7m carats from each of Canada’s two existing diamond mines.

Snap Lake’s cost was esti­mated at C$495m (US$406m) three years ago, but the final price tag is likely to be significantly higher as a result of rising steel, labour and energy costs, as well as design changes.

De Beers is also close to moving ahead with the Victor mine in the muskeg of northern Ontario. It hopes to finalise an environmental assessment and an “impact benefit” agreement with local aboriginal groups early next year, with production due to start in 2007.

Victor will cost an estimated C$860m and produce about 600,000 carats a year. Mr Molyneux says the mine’s relatively small output and low grade will be offset by the “exceptional quality” of its stones.

Mr Molyneux, a South African, says the main draw­back of mining in Canada is the lengthy and uncertain regulatory process. Before receiving the go-ahead for Snap Lake, De Beers had to answer 1,500 questions from regulators and various public interest groups, including one asking whether higher aluminium levels in the lake might cause Alzheimer's disease in caribou.

On the other hand, fiscal stability, a skilled workforce and Canadians’ “can-do” attitude make it “a great country to operate mines”.