Text 3. Business organizations

Organizations come in many shapes and sides, from the one-street trader selling fresh fruit or novelty goods to the vast multi-national companies spread throughout many parts of the world.

The shape of organization depends of course on what it does, and so it is necessary to become familiar with the three basic sectors of business activity.

The primary sector

The primary sector, or first sector, obtains the raw materials which man turns into the millions of products and articles used in daily life.

Examples of such industrial undertaking include mining, fishing, quarrying, oil extraction, forestry, agriculture, etc.

The secondary sector

Once the raw materials have been mined or harvested, they are taken to factories, where they are made into the items the public demands. Thus the secondary sector makes goods.

Some manufacturing industries are called “heavy” and others “light”. Heavy industries build the large products or machines needed by our society. Shipbuilders, for example, construct the huge tankers needed to transport oil around the world, and heavy engineering companies build the generators used is power-stations or the bulky furnaces at the heart of a steelworks.

At the other end of the scales are the light industries which work with fine components, such as the quartz watch industry, r the electronic calculator industry.

In some manufacturing processes, articles are made under one roof, from raw material to finished product. Other manufacturers make “semi-finished” goods such as sheets of steel, ready to be made into cutlery or car bodies. Yet other processes concentrate on the complicated assembly of pre-constructed parts. The motor-car industry, for example, usually buys in finished products – batteries, wheels, tyres, headlamps, etc – which are assembled into motorcars.

The tertiary sector

The third, or tertiary sector provides services to the general public.

Finished products need to be transported to shops and stores – distribution. Then the process of retailing – displaying goods in shop-windows and on counters – takes place. Some shops specialize in selling certain goods – office equipment, electrical appliances or shoes – while others, departmental stores and hypermarkets, stock an extremely wide range of goods. Indeed, the shopping trend now seems to be away from the small shop to the spacious store, with adjacent car-park and a wide choice of brands and products.

In addition to the distribution and retailing operations, the tertiary sector also includes the range of specialist services which offer help, advice or information to the consumer. Such organizations include banks, insurance, companies, employment agencies, solicitors, estate agents, doctors, plumbers, etc. In the public service field, such services include education, consumer protection, welfare services, public libraries, etc.

Inter-dependence

The complex structure of our modern society has resulted in each of the three sectors becoming dependent on the other two. Without the manufacturing and service industries, there would be no outlet for the collected raw materials. The retailer cannot sell what the manufacturer has not made. Neither retailer nor manufacturer can manage without someone to transport produces goods throughout the country. All three sectors rely on banks to secure, transfer and lend money.

Indeed, inter-dependence is the foundation of modern industrial economies – just think for one moment of all the cooperation needed to bring you your morning pint of milk or newspaper, or to produce the smart new shirt or party-dress.

 

Task 1. Read the text. Translate it into Russian, and render it.