Companies

Presenting your company

Multinationals are the most frequent of all companies:

All multinational companies have subsidiaries (smaller companies owned or controlled by another firm or company)

These subsidiaries give multinational companies a global reach (they help them in expanding their business worldwide)

One important thing for the progress of a company is corporate culture:

The basic beliefs of employees about the business they work for

It refers to company’s values, beliefs, business principles, traditions, ways of operating and internal work environment

Norms and customs of an organization, also some important attitudes which represent business principles for employees

The corporate culture depends largely on:

The country of origin (of a certain subsidiary)

Local mentality, which can greatly influence the course of a business

Owner of a company or business (who can find a way of promoting his personal ideas and attitudes and turning them into business principles)

However, prosperity (progress) of small countries lies in SMEs:

SME (small and medium sized enterprise) is usually a business with under 500 employees

Its turnover (sales) is lower than 50 million euro

This kind of business creates the most jobs and has the highest rates of success in business

Small business with just a few employees is also important:

Many governments hope that the small business of today will become the multinationals of tomorrow

Still, many owners of small companies choose to work that way because they find it better and they don’t want to expand

Small business is less responsability and it is easier to control

The smallest business is conducted by sole traders (freelancers):

It is a one-man or one-woman businessIn the professional world, these sole

traders have left large corporations and they have taken their expertise (professional knowledge) with them

Some sole traders choose to expand thier business and they set up a small company (employ a small number of people)

Larger companies with shareholders aim to:

Have more than survival; they want return on investment (ROI) which is a profit generated from a specific activity

Maximise the profitability (possibility of earning money in business) for investors. Normally, shares in the company rise and fall depending on how the investors see the future progress of a company.

The profit can be maximised in terms of:

Bigger dividends (payment to shareholders from the company, the money you receive based on the number of shares you own)

Rising share price (the value of shares; monitoring share price is important in business – knowing when to buy and sell a share is a winner in business)

In this sense publicly quoted companies must be mentioned:

Their shares are quoted in public, they are listed on a stock exchange (an organised marketplace where members gather to trade securities)

These companies offer public insight into their business mainly to secure the highest bids (offers to buy shares)

Other large companies are private:

They choose not to have their shares openly bought and sold (they keep their business to themselves)

They might have one big problem: how to raise the capital when they want to grow and develop?

Private business is often family owned so the transactions are done away form the open market

All the companies have one thing in common: PROFITABILITY

It is the key to successful business and a measure of business success

Profitability is the highest return possible for resources used or capital employed

The amount of money that remains from business operations

There are four important things that employees in a company pay attention to:

Work environmentPayPromotion possibilitiesJob security (probability that you will

keep your job)

Work environment

It is more friendly in a small family business (but some family companies are multinationals!)

Self-employed people working on their own sometimes complain about feeling isolated

You may feel more in control running your own company, but if you have employees to look after, this can be a big responsibility

Pay

Small family comapnies may or may not pay good wages and salaries

The pay in multinationals depends on the rate of unemployment in a specific area (some multinationals are known for paying very low wages to people in places such as fast-food outlets)

The pay of self-employed people varies enormously

Promotion possibilities:

There are fewer opportunities for promotion in family companies, especially if family members are in key positions

Multinationals will probably offer more here – the fast-food worker may become a branch manager (however, the examples of plain workers becoming top managers are rare)

Job security

Family companies hesitate longer before laying people off out of a feeling of responsibility towards their employees

Multinationals have had different attitudes towards laying people off, but today, in general, the companies are quicker to lay people off than before

Triumph: the reasons for its success

It has a very strong brand nameIts first motorcycle model goes back to the

early 1900sThey invested a lot of money in developing

new models which attracted people’s attention

They have always been competitive in the motorcycling business

They have modernised the bike ( it has a very up-to-date look)

It took them some time to increase the sales which are mainly exports

To have success in exports they created subsidiaries in America, Germany and France

In other markets they have very good distributors

Their dealers are very professional at marketing so they can present new models with a very strong PR campaign

They are in search of dealers to promote motorcycling (they must be enthusiastic about the business)

Over 80% of what they manufacture goes to export markets

Presenting your company

Some useful language and tips

General suggestions:

Find out as much as possible about your audience

Introduce yourself (name, position, company)

Outline the structure of your talkRefer to your notes as often as possibleUse clear visual aidsSummarise your main points

Useful language for: outlining the presentation

First, I’ll give you some basic information.

Secondly, I’ll talk about our stores in other countries.

Next, I’ll talk about career opportunities.Last of all, I want to look at our future

plans.

Introducing new information:

Here’s some basic information.Let me add a few figures.Let’s have a look at some statistics.What are our strengths?

Ending the persentation:

To conclude, I want to tell you about our future plans.

Finally, a few words about our new project.

Thanks very much for listening to my talk.

Thanks for coming to my presentation.

Presenting a company: Tara Fashions

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for coming to my presentation. My name is Marta Rodriguez and I’m Personnel Director of Tara Fashions.

I’m going to talk to you today about our company.

First, I’ll give you some basic information about Tara Fashions.

Then I’ll talk about our overseas stores. After that I’ll outline the strengths of the company. Next I’ll talk about career opportunities with Tara. And finally, I’ll mention our future plans.

Let me start with some basic facts about Tara. The company started in 1978. we are a familiy owned business and our head office is in Cordoba, Spain.

We sell clothes for men and women, and our customers are mainly fashion-conscious people aged 20 to 35. we have 15 stores in Spain.

Right, those are the basic facts. Let me add a few figures. We have an annual

turnover of about 260 million euro. Our net profits last year were approximately 16 million euro. We have a workforce of just over 2000 employees. So those are the numbers.

Now about our overseas stores. We have 4 large stores in France and another 10 in other European countries.

What are our strengths? We keep up with fashion trends. If we spot a trend, we can bring out a new design in 15 days. And we get it to the stores very quickly.

Ok, now what about career opportunities?

It’s quite simple. If you are ambitious and fashion conscious, we have opportunities in all areas of our business. We will welcome you with open arms.

Finally, a few words about our new project. We are planning to open a new store in New York next year. This will give us a foothold in the US market.

We are very excited about this new development.

Well, thanks very much for listening to my talk. Are there any questions?

Verb-noun combinations

Past simple and past continuous

1 Match the verbs and nouns below:

Exploit Extend Win Make Enter see

An award An opportunity A range A market An opening A breakthrough

2 Match the verbs and nouns below:

Save Fill Meet Solve Protect Enhance Reduce

Waste Status A gap A problem A need Time The environment

Complete the text with the correct expressions from 1 and 2:

Great ideas are generated in different ways. Sometimes an idea may simply be when a company _______ an opportunity to _______ the product range, to offer more choice to existing customers. Or a great idea could allow a company to _______ a market which was closed to it before.

Companies which are prepared to spend a lot on R&D may _______ a breakthrough by having an original idea for a product which others later copy, for example Sony and the Walkman.

On the other hand, some products are developed in response to customer research. They come from customer ideas. These products _________ a real need.

Or the product does something similar to another product, but faster, so it ______ time. Some people will buy new products because the pruduct _______ their status – makes them feel more important.

Other people will buy any “green” product which ________ waste or ________ the environment, even if it is more expensive.

If an idea is really good – perhaps the product ________ a gap in the market – it may even________ an award for innovation.

Past simple:

Form: I worked. He/she/it worked. They worked. I didn’t work. Did I work?

Use: -we use the past simple to talk about states and

actions which finished: (He left for Australia yesterday.) (When I was young, I wanted to be a pilot.)

-the action can be short, long or repeated

(They took a taxi to get there.

The flight lasted 10 hours.

I took the same train every day.)

Past continuous:

Form: I was working. He/she/it was working. You were working.

They were working.

I was not working. Was I working?

Use: we use the past continuous to:

- talk about actions that continued over a period of time in the past

(At that time, we were still trying to solve our recruitment problems.

I was talking to him on the phone when I heard an explosion.)

- refer to situations that were changing over time in the past:

(At that time we were coming out of recession and things were improving.)

- We don’t use the past continuous with verbs that describe opinions and thoughts:

(What did you think of her proposal?

What exactly did she mean?

He didn’t know that I knew what he was doing.)

Complete with past simple and past continuous tense:

Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, was born in England in 1942. In the 1960s, she _______ (train) as a teacher in England and ________ (work) for the United Nations in Geneva. She then ______ (decide) to adopt a “hippie” lifestyle and ______ (begin) to travel extensively.

While she _______ (travel) around the world, she _______ (learn) many different customs and rituals from many different countries and _______ (become) interested in anthropology. In 1971, she married Gordon Roddick. They ran a small hotel and restaurant in Brighton, but after three years they decided they ________ (want) a different way of life for themselves and their two children.