Vocabulary

personal service	индивидуальное обслуживание; бытовое обслуживание
one-to-one marketing	индивидуальный маркетинг
direct sales force	персонал, осуществляющий продажи непосредственно потребителю
high-value customer	ценный клиент
individually tailored products	продукция, произведенная с учетом индивидуальных по­требностей покупателя
mass customisation	массовое производство товаров по индивидуальным запросам покупателя
business-to-business (b2b)	межфирменные операции в Интернете; оптовый рынок в Интернете
outsource v Syn. to contract out	передавать какие-либо свои функции внешним исполните­лям, использовать подряд
outsourcing n Syn. contracting out; offshoring,	передача каких-либо своих функций внешним исполните­лям на договорной основе; использование субподряда
found v	основывать, учреждать
founder n	учредитель (компании)
pipeline n	1) трубопровод, магистраль; [to lay a pipeline — укладывать трубы]; 2) коммуникационная линия; 3) канал, источник информации (особ, конфиденциальной); 4) система снабжения; 5) процесс подготовки (разработки)
to be in the pipeline	быть в работе, в разработке; в процессе подготовки

Useful Words and Phrases

to elicit information	извлекать, получать информа­цию
to tie up to tie up one's money in smth	вкладывать (деньги); вложить во что-либо свои деньги

Exercise 1. Give the Russian for the following.

to have affordable prices; to have one's money tied up in the mining industry; the white-goods-producing end of the business; inventories; individually tailored products; to receive the all-yours treatment, to found a consultancy; to be ill founded; to elicit quite useful information; to elicit the truth; a direct sales force; to customize a car; mass customization; to turn around a company; accounts receivable; to attach a dollar value to smth; to affect customers' costs and convenience; to outsource production; to have one's job outsourced

Exercise 2. Give the English for the following words and word combinations.

приемлемые (для потребителя) цены; удерживать цены на низком уровне; испытывать нехватку каких-либо комплектующих; сырье; полуфабрикаты; готовая продукция; распространение опыта, полученного в сфере услуг, на обрабатывающую промышленность; применять индивидуализированные методы маркетинга; индивидуализированный продукт; использовать субподряд; создавать товарные запасы; проводить коррекцию запасов; высокорискованные, «бросовые» облигации; применять финансовый рычаг; квалифицированные рабочие; проводить монтаж (демонтаж); определять (измерять) результаты деятельности компании; гибкость; руководить деятельностью компании в Северной Америке; повышать качество и эффективность

Exercise 3. Translate the following extracts paying attention to:

a) emphatic structures

1. What Ford and Microsoft propose is merely a customisation of the stock pipeline.

2. What has kept the educated job market from falling off the cliff so far is continued hiring by some key industries.

3. If the Conoco/Phillips fusion does trigger yet another round of consolidation however, it is unlikely to be as earth-shattering as the previous one, for one simple reason: the oil industry's premier league is too far ahead.

4. If chief executives had taken the depressed market valuations of the 1970s and 1980s seriously, there would have been virtually no investment. Fortunately they did not do so. Unfortunately, they did take the overvaluations of the late 1990s quite seriously and promptly proceeded to waste resources on a vast scale. In both environments, however, wise managers would have paid little attention to the market gyrations, just as wise shareholders would have shielded their managers from its temptations.

5. What worries Nestle's chief executive far more are accusations that the Swiss group is swapping a consistent, long-term strategy of controlled expansion for an unbridled acquisition spree to pep up its growth rate — and that it is doing so just when dullness is back in fashion in the business world.

6. Only when one of the shareholders began asking questions was the company forced into initiating an investigation. What was unveiled and made public yesterday might have been expected to have already disturbed some investors.

b) to be + Infinitive

7. Yet a huge strength of American firms is their ability to reap scale economies and roll out brands across the world's largest single market. If Europe is to benefit fully from the Euro, it needs to follow suit. And that is more likely to happen if Europe's companies find it easier to merge across borders.

8. The Carlsberg Foundation controls the brewing business and is obliged to maintain the ownership of the Carlsberg holding company above 50 per cent. It might need a clever structure to sell. If the Carlsberg Foundation is to protect its investment, it is time to make sure it has done the necessary groundwork.

9. Imposing Japanese-style quality and efficiency is a must if Renault is to have a shot at reentering the US, a goal the French company has set for some time after 2010.

Exercise 4. Translate the following text into Russian paying attention to the structures with "it".

1. As it turns out, it's how Michael Dell manages the company that has elevated it far above its sell-direct business model. What's Dell's secret? At its heart is his belief that the status quo is never good enough, even if it means painful changes for the man with his name on the door. When success is achieved, it's greeted with five seconds of praise followed by five hours of postmortem on what could have been done better.

2. Hilfiger's no fashion leader. When it comes to mergers and acquisitions, clothes are all the rage. That has some smart investors worried that prices are getting too high. "It's a buying spree that doesn't seem to have a lot of pricing discipline," say Liz Clairborne Inc.

3. It's only this year that Yahoo, prompted by the sudden and huge success of Google, has set about trying to build a solid engineering culture of its own around a handful search engine companies it acquired.

Exercise 5. Translate the following text into English in writing.

Трансформация «Эй-Би-Би»

Швейцарский концерн «Эй-Би-Би» (ABB) — один из миро­вых лидеров по производству энергетического оборудования — объявил о начале реструктуризации. В прошлом году доходы компании снизились, и руководство компании почти в открытую стало обсуждать возможность выкупа 6 млн акций.

Из-за плохих финансовых показателей компанию покинули 612 .менеджеров. Среди них был и президент компании, который ушел в отставку, не пробыв на своем посту и трех лет. Пришедший ему на смену новый глава компании объявил о принципиально новой стратегии «Эй-Би-Би», которая должна помочь группе «найти свое место мире». Раньше отдельные подразделения компании работали с одним и тем же заказчиком на разных условиях. Отныне же все части «Эй-Би-Би» будут работать «по единым правилам».

Эксперт

Exercise 6. Translate the text into Russian orally.

Has Outsourcing Gone Too Far?

Farming out in-house operations has become a religion. Faith now be tempered by reason

If all manufacturers sang from the same hymnal — and many do — they would outsource almost everything: management gospel holds that manufacturing is too labor- and capital-intensive to support the high margins and fast growth that investors demand. By shedding assets, companies can be born again as product designers, solution providers, industry innovators, or supply chain integrators — and, it is said, quickly boost their return on invested capital. Standard & Poor's reports that in the year 2000, the market-to-book ratio of the S& P 500 was six times greater than it had been in 1981 — a reflection of the declining importance of tangible assets.

Such pressures and perceptions make outsourcing an almost irresistible impulse for manufacturers. Gobal access to vendors, felling interaction costs, and improved information technologies and communications links are giving manufacturers unprecedented choice in structuring their businesses. Through outsourcing, companies can now dump operational headaches and bottlenecks downstream, often capture immediate cost savings, and avoid labor conflicts and management deficiencies. We are aware of no managers who have been taken to task for farming out in-house operations.

But in the race to hand over capital-intensive manufacturing assets to outside suppliers, companies may be ceding the very skills and processes that have distinguished them in the market place. Consider the case of Gibson Greetings, the oldest US greeting card maker. In the 1990s, it started running out of cash. To realize savings, Gibson chose to outsource its manufacturing, but it soon ran into supplier-management problems that cost the company its place at large retailers. In the meantime, its competitors had been investing in more efficient printing and production technologies. Ultimately, one of those competitors acquired Gibson. An analyst observed, 'The final nail in the coffin was that Gibson got out of the manufacturing business and started outsourcing."

Obviously, the decision to outsource doesn't produce such a drastic outcome; done right, outsourcing manufacturing or services can deliver game-changing levels of value. But by assuming that outsourcing is the answer rather than critically assessing its pros and cons, companies may be failing to do what really matters: improving a company's performance and maximazing value. Outsourcing can be instrumental in realizing these goals — but not always.

The rush to outsource has delivered much less value than it might have. It has been forgotten that outsourcing isn't an end in itself but rather a strategic tool for enhancing overall performance. The ability of outsourcing to play this role depends partly on the form chosen — the re-lease or sale of assets, a spin-off or intitial public offering of the business, or the formation of an alliance or joint venture. If outsourcing isn't used strategically, it probably shouldn't be used at all.

McKinsey Quaterly

Exercise 7. Translate the text orally.