3. Be ready to discuss the topic.
Card 4 Text 1
Stress Management
It may seem that there’s nothing you can do about stress. The bills won’t stop coming, there will never be more hours in the day and your career and family responsibilities will always be demanding. But you have more control than you might think. In fact, the simple realization that you’re in control of your life is the foundation of stress management. Managing stress is all about taking charge: of your thoughts, emotions, schedule, and the way you deal with problems.
Stress management starts with identifying the sources of stress in your life. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Your true sources of stress aren’t always obvious, and it’s all too easy to overlook your own stress-inducing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Sure, you may know that you’re constantly worried about work deadlines. But maybe it’s your procrastination, rather than the actual job demands, that leads to deadline stress.
Stress management strategy 1. Avoid unnecessary stress:
Learn how to say “no”.
Avoid people who stress you out.
Take control of your environment.
Avoid hot-button topics. Pare down your to-do list.
Stress management strategy 2: Alter the situation
If you can’t avoid a stressful situation, try to alter it. Figure out what you can do to change things so the problem doesn’t present itself in the future. Often, this involves changing the way you communicate and operate in your daily life.
Express your feelings instead of bottling them up. Be willing to compromise.
Be more assertive. Manage your time better.
Card 4 Text 2
A Foreign Way to Avoid Dying at Home
Tony Jones has made his money by fixing things, including changing his business model to cope with a “dying” UK manufacturing industry.
He created Advanced Total Services (ATS) in the 1990s, a business that repaired the electronics on industrial machinery. He sold ATS for £4m in
1998, but soon started a new company, Lektronix, operating in the same market as ATS, but which aimed to expand faster by modifying the business model.
ATS had eight offices across the UK so local people were near factories. However, Lektronix only had three, focusing on the larger manufacturers. Consequently, Lektronix generated the same sales volume as ATS with a third of the number of customers and significantly lower operating costs.
Lektronix faced two big challenges. Firstly, it had created its own competition, ATS, and secondly it was dealing with a smaller market as British manufacturers either closed or moved abroad. Overseas expansion was attractive, because in many markets there was no competition. The main problem was Mr Jones’s lack of experience in international expansion.
His first target market was the Czech Republic. He decided to test the market by visiting potential customers. He spent three days visiting 20 companies, and his first local recruit was one of his cab drivers who had a background in sales. The rest of the Czech team was found through a local employment agency run by a Briton who spoke Czech.
The most difficult part was taking the first step, according to Mr Jones. “Once you commit to doing it, you will meet people who know people who can help.”
3.Be ready to discuss the topic.
Card 5 Text 1
Management Planning
Management planning is the process of assessing an organization's goals and creating a realistic, detailed plan of action for meeting those goals. Much like writing a business plan, a management plan takes into consideration short- and long-term corporate strategies. The basic steps in the management planning process involve creating a road map that outlines each task the company must accomplish to meet its overall objectives.
The first step of the management planning process is to identify specific company goals. This portion of the planning process should include a detailed overview of each goal, including the reason for its selection and the anticipated outcomes of goal-related projects. Where possible, objectives should be described in quantitative or qualitative terms. An example of a goal is to raise profits by 25 percent over a 12-month period.
Each goal should have financial and human resources projections associated with its completion. For example, a management plan may identify how many sales people it will require and how much it will cost to meet the goal of increasing sales by 25 percent.
Each goal should have tasks or projects associated with its achievement. For example, if a goal is to raise profits by 25 percent, a manager will need to outline the tasks required to meet that objective. Examples of tasks might include increasing the sales staff or developing advanced sales training techniques.
Prioritizing goals and tasks is about ordering objectives in terms of their importance. The tasks deemed most important will theoretically be approached and completed first. The prioritizing process may also reflect steps necessary in completing a task or achieving a goal. For example, if a goal is to increase sales by 25 percent and an associated task is to increase sales staff, the company will need to complete the steps toward achieving that objective in chronological order.
Card 5 Text 2
GE Keeps Innovation under Control
General Electric’s Global Research Centre covers 550 acres, employs 1,000 PhDs, and has $500m a year in funding. GE’s scientists have to develop new products for one of the world's largest companies, with interests ranging from jet engines and nuclear power stations to microwave ovens and wind turbines. The research center’s past achievements remind companies they need to keep innovating in order to keep growing. The light bulb, lasers and special glass for optical lenses were all historical breakthroughs when GE researchers developed them. Today, consumers and producers take them for granted.
With globalisation and the emergence of low-cost manufacturing in Asia and elsewhere, companies around the world have discovered that growth only comes from selling better, more advanced products.
Thomas Edison, one of GE’s forefathers, would have been proud: a GE research project for jet fighters resulted in an invention which revolutionised the way doctors recognise illnesses.
During the 1980s, scientists at GE's global research centre were looking at ways to improve aircraft controls used by aircraft pilots. Years later, one scientist, who had also worked in a related medical programme, suggested applying the technology to X-rays. By the mid-1990s, GE was studying “digital X-rays”, which give a more accurate view of organs and bones than was previously possible. In 2000, the company began marketing the first digital X-ray machine. The technology is currently used in less than 10 per cent of the one million radiology procedures done every day, but GE believes that it will eventually replace traditional equipment.
GE believes more of its inventions will find uses outside their intended sectors.
3.Be ready to discuss the topic.
Card 6 Text 1
New Business Development
New business development concerns all the activities involved in realizing new business opportunities, including product or service design, business model design, and marketing.
When splitting business development into two parts, we have: ‘business’ and ‘development’. The first things that come into mind when looking at business are: economics, finance, managerial activities, competition, prices, marketing, etc. All of these keywords are related to risk and entrepreneurship and clearly indicate the primary scope of the term ‘business development’. Development is very abstract and can be linked with some of the following keywords: technological improvement, cost reduction, general welfare, improved relations, movement in a (positive) direction, etc.
In the traditional definition of Business development, Business Development is mostly seen as growing an enterprise, with a number of techniques. The mentioned techniques differ, but in fact all of them are about traditional marketing. The main question in these issues is: how to find, reach and approach customers and how to make/keep them satisfied, possibly with new products. Since this definition is limited and lacks some essential factors in business developing, a complete new definition of Business Development will be introduced.
Of course, the theory on “traditional” marketing is still correct and can be adopted from the old definition. When supplying a solution, it is important to focus on the total offering you give instead of only focusing on the product or service. An offering is a package consisting of different proportions of physical product, service, advice, delivery and the costs, including price that are involved in using it. Hereby the advice, adaptation to the customer and the costs are the most important factors to get the right combination within the offering.
Card 6 Text 2
Investors are Turning up the Heat on Stress
Workplace stress is attracting shareholders’ attention. In a report, Henderson Global Investors, which manages £66.Sbn ($117bn) of assets for individuals and institutions, asks companies to do more to deal with the causes of stress and reveal its costs.
A survey of 22 leading UK companies finds that most companies recognise stress as a potential risk to workers’ health, but more than one quarter have no system to assess this risk. Stress has become the biggest cause of sickness absence in Britain. It accounted for 36 per cent of days lost in 2009/10.
Jane Goodland, author of the report, says Henderson wants to understand how companies in which they invest are tackling this issue. She believes that preventive approaches to stress management can lead to business benefits.
To highlight the potential costs to individual companies, Henderson created two models one for the transport and communications sector and another for the retail sector. It calculates the cost of stress related absence in the transport and communications sector at £I8m to £24m a year for a company with 100,000 employees. A retail company of the same size can expect annual costs of £5m to £6m. Previous research shows that larger workplaces appear to experience more stress-related absence per employee than smaller ones.
The BT group has recognised the seriousness of the problem. BT reports that 40 per cent of its work related ill health is due to stress and mental illness. It has reduced sickness absence and saved costs in three ways: by reducing the sources of stress; identifying early signs; and helping individuals who are suffering or recovering from stress.
3.Be ready to discuss the topic.
Card 7 Text 1
Conflict
Conflicts occur when people (or other parties) perceive that, as a consequence of a disagreement, there is a threat to their needs, interests or concerns. Although conflict is a normal part of organization life, providing numerous opportunities for growth through improved understanding and insight, there is a tendency to view conflict as a negative experience caused by abnormally difficult circumstances. Disputants tend to perceive limited options and finite resources available in seeking solutions, rather than multiple possibilities that may exist 'outside the box' in which we are problem-solving.
A few points are worth reiterating before proceeding:
A conflict is more than a mere disagreement - it is a situation in which people perceive a threat (physical, emotional, power, status, etc.) to their well-being.
Participants in conflicts tend to respond on the basis of their perceptions of the situation, rather than an objective review of it.
As in any problem, conflicts contain substantive, procedural, and psychological dimensions to be negotiated. In order to best understand the threat perceived by those engaged in a conflict, we need to consider all of these dimensions.
Conflicts are normal experiences within the work environment. They are also, to a large degree, predictable and expectable situations that naturally arise as we go about managing complex and stressful projects in which we are significantly invested.
Creative problem-solving strategies are essential to positive approaches to conflict management. We need to transform the situation from one in which it is 'my way or the highway' into one in which we entertain new possibilities that have been otherwise elusive.
Card 7 Text 2
How Golf Appeals to Blue-chip Sponsors
The current popularity of golf is matched by the number of companies who want to sponsor the game. Banks and motor manufacturers are two big business sectors that have invested billions of dollars in sponsorship.
Honda, Ford, Chrysler, Buick, Nissan and Mercedes all sponsor PGA tournaments. BMW and Volvo feature on the European Tour. Elsewhere, HSBC, Barclays and RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) have all built on their initial involvement and sponsor either Asian or European tour events.
Even smaller companies are getting involved. OKI Printing Solutions, sponsors of Portsmouth Football Club, decided to enhance its profile in the golf market by
announcing a sponsorship of the OKI Castellon Open de Espana Senior on this season's European Seniors Tour.
Buick created one of the biggest splashes in sponsorship history in 1999 when it signed Tiger Woods for a reported $20m to $25m for five years. And that was mainly to have its company name on his golf bag. The company says it was definitely worth the money and is sponsoring his current contract. Businesses sponsor golf competitions for publicity and to attract certain client groups to their products. Golf is still a game played by relatively wealthy people. And that is the main commercial attraction for most companies.
RBS says: “Research has shown golf to be the closest to our key target audience of executive-level business people in our geographic priorities of the US and the Europe/UK, and more recently the Asia Pacific countries. Golf was
chosen as the only "global" sport that, cost effectively, targets this audience on both sides of the Atlantic.”
3.Be ready to discuss the topic.
Card 8 Text 1
The Joint-stock Company
The joint-stock company — looks surprisingly durable. But pressure on it is increasing. The future seems to hold almost every possible fate for the corporation except one: being bland and boring. It was argued that America was run by a handful of big companies planned the economy in the name of stability.
They were hierarchical and bureaucratic organizations that introduced “new and improved” varieties with predictable regularity; they provided their workers with life-time employment; and they enjoyed fairly good relations with the giant trade unions.
America's giant companies have been failed or transformed by global competition. Dramatic changes are taking place. But where exactly will they take us? Where is the modern company heading? There are three standard answers to this question.
1. The past couple of decades have seen an unprecedented spurt of mergers. The survivors, it is maintained, are the real lords of the universe today: far more powerful than mere nation states.
2. Big companies are a thing of the past. For incense, Monorail Corporation, which sells computer. Monorail owns no factories, warehouses or any other tangible asset. It operates from a single floor that it leases in an office building in Atlanta. Its computers are designed by freelance workers. To place orders, customers call a free-phone number connected to Federal Express's logistics service. FedEx then ships the computer to the customer and sends the invoice Monorail's agent..
3. The third forecast is an offshoot of the second: that the discrete company is no longer the basic building block of the modern economy. This school argues that it is being replaced by the “network”. Networks are seen not just as an answer to external competition, but also as a way of giving more freedom to today's prized “knowledge workers”
|
