国际商务英语unit(2)

New International Business EnglishUnit 5 Working together 5.1 Getting to know the workplace AYou will hear a new employee being told where the different offices are in the firm he has just joined.Mrs. Bronson: … Margaret, I’d like to introduce you to Michael Hill from our Australian branch.Margaret: Hello, Michael, pleased to meet you.Michael: How do you do?Margaret: how’s your first day going?Michael: Oh, very well, thank you. It’s … it’s all very interesting.Mrs. Bronson: I was just telling Michael what the set-up here is – who’s where and what’s what, so to speak. I was wondering if I could hand him over to you now?Margaret: Oh, yes, sure, fine. Um… would you like to come this way…Michael: See you later, Mrs. Bronson.Mrs. Bronson: Yes, sure.Michael: What was … what was that room next door to Reception? I heard a strange noise coming from it.Margaret: Oh, right, yes, that’s where the photocopier is. Michael: Oh, I see. That’s what it was.Margaret: Yes, we’ve had a new one installed. It’s very fast but it makes even more noise than the old one, unfortunately. Right, let’s go this way now.Michael: Ok.Margaret: Um… opposite Mrs. Bronson’s office just here is the General Manager’s office… Michael: General Manager, fine.Margaret: I expect he’ll speak to you later.Michael: OK.Margaret: And, um if… if we go right down the corridor, on the right-hand side are the lifts.Michael: Fine.Margaret: And on the left are the stairs.Michael: OK.Margaret: So they’re handy opposite each other.Michael: Right, fine.Margaret: And, er, in there by the stairs also is the coffee machine.Michael: Oh, right, very useful.Margaret: Yes, the most important thing of all. You’ll meet most of the members of staff there, I should think.Michael: Fine.Margaret: And, er, if you keep going down the corridor, on the right-hand side, just down here, you can see the conference room.Michael: Great.Margaret: And, as we go round the corner on the right, here is the sales department.Michael: Sales, OK.Margaret: And as we come round the corner on the left is the purchasing department.Michael: OK.Margaret: And, if you can see, just down the end of the corridor is our marketing department.Michael: Oh, that’s where they are, right, fine.Margaret: That’s right, next to you actually, in the accounts department.Michael: Right.Margaret: Which is just on the right here.Michael: Huhu.Margaret: And on the left opposite, is the canteen.Michael: Oh, very important.Michael, Oh, great.Margaret: Between three and four.Michael: OK, right.Margaret: And if we come in here on the right, then. That’s your desk over by the window.Michael: Oh, that’s marvelous.Margaret: Yes. With a lovely view of the park.MICHAEL: Oh, isn’t that beautiful?Margaret: It’s better than the view from my office.Michael: Right. Oh, well that’s marv… Just one thing, I wondered if you could perhaps tell me where the … where the gents toilet is while we’re about it?Margaret: Oh, right, yes, of course. Erm. It’s at the end of the corridor just opposite reception.Michael: Right. Thank you. I’ll… I’ll see you in a minute.Margaret: Right, Ok…5.3Company organization A (2)You will hear an interview about the way Biopaints is organized.Presenter: Today we are talking to Philip Knight about the structure of Biopaints International. Philip’s the General Manager of the Perth factory. Philip, do you think you could tell us something about the way Biopaints is actually organized?Philip Knight: Yes, certainly. Er… we employ about two thousand people in all in two different locations. Most people work here at our headquarters plant. And this is where we have the administrative departments, of course.Presenter: Well, perhaps you could say something about the departmental structure?Philiip Knight: Yes, certainly. Well, now first of all, as you know we’ve got two factories, one here in Perth, Australia, and the other in Singapore. Lee Boon Eng is the other General Manager, over there in Singapore.Presenter: And you are completely independent of each other, is that right?Philip Knight: Oh, yes. Our two plants are fairly independent. I mean, I am responsible to George Harris, the Production Manager, and we have to co-operate closely with Rosemary Broom, the Marketing Manager.Presenter: Mm, yeah.Philip Knight: But otherwise, as far as day to day running is concerned, we’re pretty much left alone to get on with the job. Oh, and I forgot to mention finance. The Finance Director is Weimin Tan. She’s a very important woman. And her task is to make sure the money side of things is OK. The accountant and such people, they report to her directly.Presenter: Is that all?Philip Knight: Oh, no, no. There’s personnel too.Presenter: Oh, yes.Philip Knight: That’s quite separate. Deirdre Spencer is Personnel Manager. And the Training Manager reports to her, of course.Presenter: What about Research and Development? Isn’t that a separate department?Philip Knight: Well, in terms of the laboratories, there are two: one at each production plant. But it’s a separate department and it has a separate head. And that’s Dr. Tarcisius Chin.Presenter: Are there any other features worth mentioning?Philip Knight: There’s the planning department – Chow Fung is in charge of that. And a purchasing department – they buy in the materials for production.Presenter: Yes, and what about the board of directors and the chairman?Philip Knight: Yes, well they’re at the top, aren’t they, of course? I mean, a couple of the executives are directors themselves. The Managing Director, of course, that’s Robert Leaf and then there’s… 5.5 Working with others BYou will hear part of the radio programme about Semco.Charles: …Jane, I wonder if you could tell us what Ricardo Semler is trying to do?Jane: Well, sure. Semler wants to introduce real democracy in the workplace. That’s the essence of his philosophy. It’s the end of the party for Henry Ford’s assembly line, he would argue. He gives it at the most a hundred years. That means it still has 15 or 20 years t go. It’s collapsing slowly. And the giant corporations we knew this century are coming to an end.Charles: Robert, would you like to comment on this?Robert: Yes, I think it needs to be stressed that autocracy is the main problem afflicting all these companies. In countries like America, Britain and Brazil people are all very proud of their democratic values in public life, and rightly so. But as Semler himself says, he has yet to see a democratic workplace. We are being held back by a system that doesn’t allow democracy into business or into the workplace….Jane: If I could just add a related point there concerning bureaucratic structures. Getting rid of seven layers of management bureaucracy is the real key to Semco’s success. This went hand in hand with the introduction of genuine democracy. Managers- including Semler who is one of six ‘counsellors’ who rotate in the job of chief executive – are rated regularly by their employees. Every manager gets points from between one to a hundred from his staff, anonymously. This happens every six months, when a new budget is set. If managers regularly fail to come up to expectations, they give way of are pushed out. One long-serving manager, who used to score 86 out of 100, has dropped down to only 51. What will happen to him is uncertain.Charles: Surely, this means that the workforce watches the management closely all the time, instead of getting on with their work?Robert: Yes, but evaluating the boss was just the first step. The big break came when people were allowed to elect their own boss. In Semlers view managers imported from outside the company are bad new. Staff who are truly involved in the financial success of the factory are realistic about choosing future bosses.Charles: Jane, can this system really work?Jane: Absolutely! And I’ll tell you why. You see, the fact that employees are free to come and go as they like, or work from home, or become a consultant, means that they don’t take advantage of the situation. They recognize the responsibility that comes with controlling their own futures. And as several reports show, it appears to be a happy place to work, with very low staff turnover and a long waiting list of people applying for jobs there.Robert: As Jane’s already said, what has happened is that Semco has got rid of the old pyramid structure of bureaucrats, together with their power symbols. So secretaries and parking spaces have gone. The organization now consists of three concentric circles, and inner one of six vice-presidents (including Semler), surrounded by a second circle of up to 10 leaders of the business units, and the outer one which includes everyone else- they’re called ‘associates’. Just walking around the factory there’s no way of distinguishing the high earners from the low earners because workers wear what they like and hardly anybody has a desk.Charles: Of course, the major question people have been asking is whether the Semco experiment is transferable? For instance to other types of company and other countries?Jane: Yes, that is the big question. In some parts of Europe employees already do participate actively, but in these cases. For example, the Mondragon co-operatives in Northern Spain which are closely tied up with the Basque culture, or the benevolent former owners in employee-owned companies in several other countries.Charles: Still Semco must be taken seriously. A company that can survive more than a decade of Brazil’s inflation can’t just be ignored, can it Robert?Robert: No, no, it certainly can’t. but there is one area, I believe, where this model won’t work. Transferring the model to a large corporation like IBM or General Motors doesn’t have much hope of success, as long as giving up control means bringing information out in the open. And it is precisely information, or the lack of it, which represents power in such organizations. Or as their critics would say, those are the reasons they will go to the wall!Charles: At any rate a few smaller companies have tried to directly copy Semler’s shop floor are any guide, there is a considerable appetite out there for making Western capitalism more civilized. Would you agree, Jane?Jane: That certainly appears to be the case and yet I suppose the probability of this happening quickly is very small. As the British journalist Victor Keegan puts it: ‘The trouble is that the corporate world is run by people not exactly willing to lose their parking lots, let alone to subject themselves to monthly scrutiny by people whom, currently, they can hire and fire. Corporate mangers don’t yet look in a hurry to commit mass professional suicide!’ Unit 6 International trade 6.1 Exchanging information First version of the conversationRusconi: Rusconi.Garcia: Hello, this is Al Garcia.Rusconi: At last! When can we expect the next consignment in our warehouse?Garcia: Late Thursday or early Friday, depends on the traffic and the weather. When will you accept deliveries?Rusconi: Up to 4 pm and from 7.30 am. Whose trucks are delivering the goods?Garcia: Two of ours, and the others are on hire from Alpha Transport.Rusconi: How do you spell Alpha?Garcia: A-L-P-H-A.Rusconi: How many trucks will be coming?Garcia: Five.Rusconi: Will they arrive all on the same day?Garcia: Two will set off half a day early, so they should arrive Thursday. The other three will arrive towards midday Friday. How long will it take to unload each truck?Rusconi: About an hour. We can’t unload more than two at a time, you know.Garcia: I want to know what happens if one truck arrives late. Can you unload it on Saturday?Rusconi: I don’t know. Our warehouse manager would know. Garcia: What’s his name?Rusconi: Mr. Ferrari.Garcia: What’s his number?Rusconi: 3459800 extension 71.Garcia: Goodbye.Rusconi: Goodbye.Second version of the conversation Rusconi: Jupiter Products. Tony Rusconi speaking.Garcia: Hello, this is Al Garcia.Rusconi: Hello, Mr. Garcia. How are you?Garcia: Fine, thanks. I’m phoning about our delivery next week.Rusconi: Ah, yes, good. I was just about to call you. Er… could you tell me when we can expect the consignment to arrive in our warehouse?Garcia: Yes, as far as I know, the trucks should arrive late Thursday or early Friday, it depends on traffic and weather. Er… what time will you accept deliveries?Rusconi: The latest time we can start unloading is 4 pm, but… but we can start as early as 7.30 am. Er… could you tell me whose trucks are delivering the goods?Garcia: Yes, certainly. Two of them will be ours, and the others are on hire from Alpha Transport. Rusconi: Let me just make a note of that. Er… can you tell me how you spell Alpha?Garcia: Yes, of course. It’s A-L-P-H-A.Rusconi: Fine. A … and I’d also like to know how many trucks will be coming.Garcia: Ah… there will be five altogether.Rusconi: Can you tell me if they will arrive on the same day?Garcia: I’m not entirely sure, but … er… as two will be setting off half a day early, they should arrive Thursday. Er… the other three will arrive towards midday Friday. Could you let me know how long it will take to unload each truck?Rusconi: Yes, er… each truck will take about an hour. Er… I think you should know that we can’t unload more that two trucks at time.Garcia: I see, well, thanks for letting me know that. Er… I wonder if you can tell me what’ll happen if one of the trucks arrives later and can’t be unloaded on Friday? Do you know if it can be unloaded on Saturday?Rusconi: I’m afraid I don’t know, it might have to wait till Monday. Er… you’d have to ask our warehouse manager about that.Garcia: Could you just remind me what his name is again?Rusconi: Yes, of course he’s … er… Mr. Ferrari.Garcia: Ah, and … er… can … can you tell me his number?Rusconi: Yes, it’s 3459800 extension 71. Garcia: Good. Thank you very much. It’s… it’s nice to talk to you. Goodbye.Rusconi: Bye now, Mr. Garcia.6.1 D You will hear various people asking for information and all of them speak unclearly or quickly.1. Good morning. Erm… I’ve got to … er… I’ve got to fly to Rockford on Monday and I’ve … um… I’ve left my ticket in my room. I think the check-in time is 4.50, b…b…but I’m not entirely sure. Could you check this for me, please?2. Good morning. I’ve tried calling Mr. Geoffrey’s room but there’s no answer, so I suppose he’s out. I’ve written a note for him, and I wonder if you could give this to him. It’s for Mrs... Mr. Geoffrey, that’s Geoffrey, G-O…G-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y. OK?3. Can you reserve theatre tickets for me for the performance on July, and charge them to my credit card? No, wait I gave you the wrong date! Ha! I need two tickets for July 3rd. OK?4. I’ve booked a room for the whole of this week in the name of Sanders. The thing is on the 29th, that’s the Friday, I’d like to change from a single and have a double instead if that’s possible.5. I’m expecting a call from our agent in Greece this morning. If he calls could you ask him to call me on 23983? I’ll be there till about 3. After that he can get me on 28393 from about half past three.6. Could you possibly tell me if there is a special party rate for delegates at conferences? I know I read this somewhere, but I’m not sure where.7. I wanted to speak to Mr. Wilson, he said he’d be back in his room by this afternoon. Now, it’s 405, I think. Is that right?8. I need to get to the airport by 7.30 this evening. I’ve probably got plenty of time but as I’ll be out in the eastern suburbs I can’t take the airport but. So how long does it take by cab, would you say? 6.2 Making enquiries AYou will hear your boss Fred North talking on phone.Mr. North: … Oh, yeah, we had a really good time up the mountain. Yeah, nice of you to take us up, nice of you. Er… I know what I wanted to ask you: have you ahd any dealings with Arcolite? … Uhuh, oh, that can’t be true. Arecolite Batteries? … Yeah, but they’ve been doing real well… Well,if you got this from him, I guess … er … I guess there must be some truth in it… yeah, we … we kind of depend on them, they’ve been supplying us for … for quite a long time now… No, they’re our … er… sole suppliers. Hmm. Well, thanks for the tip. I’ll… I’ll… get my new assistants to investigate… Sure. Nice talking to you. Goodbye, Fritz.6.3 Answering enquiries CYou will hear one of your colleagues on the phone to Japan.Speaker: AntiSpy Products, good afternoon… Hello, yes. Oho, Mr. Saito, hi, hi, how are you? … Good, good… OK, the LR 44, yes, we’ve had quite a rush on those and…er… there’s been a delay on supplies, I’m afraid… We only have nine in stock… Mm… Oh sure, eight’s … eight’s no problem at all. I can get them to you by the end of the week… Er…will you be able to pick them up at Narita, as usual? … Fine, fine. OK, that’s eight items of product LR forty n… four… Thanks very much… you’re very welcome. Bye now, Mr. Saito.Unit 7 Money Matters7.1 Dealing with figures CListen to this report, and fill in the missing information in your book.LVMH, the French luxury goods group which owns a string of prestige brand names ranging from Louis Vuitton luggage to Hennessy cognac, saw net profits rise by (7%)to FFr 1.29bn ($239 million)from FFr (1.21 billion) in the first half of the year in spite of the downturn in the luxury products industry.The group saw overall group sales in the fist six months of this year rise by (4.5%) to FFr (9.68 billion ) from 9.26bn in the same period last year. Operating income showed a marginal increase to FFr (2.35 billion) from 2.34bn. Wines and spirits, which have borne the brunt of the economic slowdown, suffered a fall in sales to FFr 4.4bn from FFr (4.76 billion), while operating profits slipped to FFr 1.26bn from 1.5bn.Luggage and leather products were also affected by Japan's instability, but managed to increase operating profits to FFr (890 million) from 827m on sales up to FFr 2.33bn from 2.15bn. Perfums and cosmetics benefited from the launch of Dune, a new Christian Dior fragrance, and Amarige, under the Givenchy umbrella.Sales rose to FFr 2.54bn from (2.50 billion) and operating prpfits to FFr 330m from (321 million).LVMH earlier this week relaunched Miss Dior, one of its classic scents.7.4 Letters of credits BListen to this talk, and fill in the missing information in your book.Speaker:...So now, on the...on the subject of letters of credit, now you'd be surprised at the kind of mistakes people make when using letter of credit documentation. Er...these errors can often lead to rejection o...on the first presentation. The research department of our bank found that 25% of the documents were rejected. Yup, and the main reasons were things like the fact that the letter of credit had expired, or the documents were presented after the period stated by the letter of credit or, of course, the shipment was late.Now, if you think about it, it's quite amazing really. But I can't stress enough the need for consistency between the different documents. I mean, for instance, our bank study found out that spelling inconsistencies or mistakes are part of the problem. That is, the description or spelling of goods on invoices was different from that in the letter of credit. Or the weights were different on the export documents. And then the amounts of money value shown on the invoice and the bill of exchange differed too. Even the marks and numbers were found to be different. Then, now, another thing we found was that the amount of money mentioned on the letter of credit was smaller than the value of the order. Or the shipment was short.Then you might even find that some documents were missing which were called for in the documentary letter of credit. And we even had cases where signa。