B. Translate the italicized paragraph.

c. Find synonyms from the paragraphs 1-3 to the following words:

lately	insight
rivalry	benchmark
hypothetically	to prevail
demand	elements
significant	goods

D. Match words to make collocations by consulting the text.

life	a) line
market	b) costs
customer	c) cycle
supply	d) time
material	e) pipeline
finished	f) centre
lead	g) goods
distribution	h) product
perishable	i) flow
labour	j) needs
production	k) place

E. Fill in the table with correct word forms

Verb	Noun	Adjective
1.	adversary
2. motivate
3.	competition
4.	acceptance
5.		customized
6.	requirement
7.		organizational

F. Summarize the text in about 100 words, focusing on the topic, problem and main ideas.

Case study

Read the case and discuss the following questions in groups.

1. What are some additional challenges Ingar Skaug probably faced while taking over control of Wilhelmsen?

2. Skaug says that for the first several months as a CEO, he deferred many decisions to other employees. In what types of situations might this have been inappropriate? Would Skaug’s method have worked if he were taking over a hospital or an investment firm?

3. How would you approach a situation like Skaug’s?

4. For Skaug, the decision to defer decisions worked for the company. What are some potential pitfalls this management style could have fallen into? Does the pace of the industry make a difference in what management style is appropriate (e.g., the fast pace of a high-tech company versus the slower pace of an industrial manufacturing company)?

Empowered Decision Making: The Case of Ingar Skaug ^[42]

“If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got,” says Ingar Skaug—and he should know. Skaug is the president and CEO of Wilhelmsen ASA, a leading global maritime industry company based in Norway with 23,000 employees and 516 offices worldwide.

He faced major challenges when he began his job at Wilhelmsen Lines in 1989. The entire top management team of the company had been killed in an airplane crash when returning from a ship dedication ceremony. As you can imagine, employees were mourning the loss of their friends and leadership team.

While Skaug knew that changes needed to be made within the organization, he also knew that he had to proceed slowly and carefully in implementing any changes. The biggest challenge he saw was the decision-making style within the company.

Skaug recalls this dilemma as follows: “I found myself in a situation in Wilhelmsen Lines where everyone was coming to my office in the morning and they expected me to take all the decisions. I said to people, “Those are not my decisions. I don’t want to take those decisions. You take those decisions.” So for half a year they were screaming about that I was very afraid of making decisions. So I had a little bit of a struggle with the organization, with the people there at the time. They thought I was a very poor manager because I didn’t dare to make decisions. I had to teach them. I had to force the people to make their own decisions”.

His lessons paid off over the years. The company has now invented a cargo ship capable of transporting 10,000 vehicles while running exclusively on renewable energy via the power of the sun, wind, and water. He and others within the company cite the freedom that employees feel to make decisions and mistakes on their way to making discoveries in improved methods as a major factor in their success in revolutionizing the shipping industry one innovation at a time.

Translation

Translate the sentences, focusing on the underlined terms:

Supply

 

1. Time phasing is one the key elements of material requirements planning which expresses future demand, supply, and inventories by time period.

2. Trade transaction is an agreement between two or more parties for the supply of specified quantities of goods or services according to agreed or imposed conditions.

3. Buyer’s market situation is characterized by a supply capacity which exceeds the extent of the demand. The customers can act selectively and, among other things, determine the terms of delivery, price setting, etc.

4. Commitment is a binding agreement by two parties, one to supply, the other to take a quantity of goods within a speci­fied period of time and specified at a required level of detail.

5. Normal supply quantity is a predetermined quantity of products of one product type which is to be shipped at one time to a certain destination.

 

Forecast

 

1. Extrinsic forecast is based on factors not directly connected with the company, e.g. information derived from market research and economic indicators.

2. Forecast is a formal statement established on basis of calculations about future situations or the expected trend of future events.

3. Forecasting method is used in forecasting future events and consists of three basic forms: qualitative techniques (e.g. the Delphi technique); the techniques based on times series analysis and extrapolation (e.g. the MAT method).

4. Mix forecast refers to the proportion of products that will be sold within a given product family, or the proportion of options offered within a product line.

5. Trend correction is the amount by which a forecast is corrected in order to allow for changes in the trend.

Writing

1. Reply to a job advertisement:

Business Manager Development, implementation, management of business information systems Previous experience at senior-level positions Strategic decision-making on domestic level Self-motivation

1. Write an essay giving reasons for your point of view and including relevant examples from your knowledge and experience. Write at least 250 words. Efficient management is crucial for survival and success in today’s turbulent world.

Culture

Humour Rules ^[43]

Read the text and discuss the following questions:

1. What rules of humor are there in Britain?
2. Why are the English considered to be the nation having a good sense of humor?
3. What can you say about ‘a time and a place’ for humor in Russia?
4. What role does humour play in business contacts?

 

In other cultures, there is ‘a time and a place’ for humor, it is a special, separate kind of talk. In English conversation, there is always an undercurrent of humor. We can barely manage to say ‘hello’ or comment on the weather without somehow contriving to make a bit of a joke out of it, and most English conversations will involve at least some degree of banter, teasing, irony, understatement, humorous self-deprecation, mockery or just silliness. Humor is our ‘default mode’, if you like: we do not have to switch it on deliberately, and we cannot switch it off. For the English, the rules of humor are the cultural equivalent of natural laws – we obey them automatically, rather in the way that we obey the law of gravity.

At the most basic level, an underlying rule in all English conversation is the proscription of ‘earnestness’. Although we may not have a monopoly on humor, or even on irony, the English are probably more acutely sensitive than any other nation to the distinction between ‘serious’ and ‘solemn’, between ‘sincerity’ and ‘earnestness’.

This distinction is crucial to any kind of understanding of Englishness. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: if you are not able to grasp these subtle but vital differences, you will never understand the English – and even if you speak the language fluently, you will never feel or appear entirely at home in conversation with the English. Your English may be impeccable, but your behavioral ‘grammar’ will be full of glaring errors.

Once you have become sufficiently sensitized to these distinctions, the Importance of Not Being Earnest rule is really quite simple. Seriousness is acceptable, solemnity is prohibited. Sincerity is allowed, earnestness is strictly forbidden. Pomposity and self-importance are outlawed. Serious matters can be spoken of seriously, but one must never take oneself too seriously. The ability to laugh at ourselves, although it may be rooted in a form of arrogance, is one of the more endearing characteristics of the English. (At least, I hope I am right about this: if I have overestimated our ability to laugh at ourselves, this book will be rather unpopular.)

To take a deliberately extreme example, the kind of hand-on-heart, gushing earnestness and pompous, Bible-thumping solemnity favoured by almost all American politicians would never win a single vote in this country – we watch these speeches on our news programmes with a kind of smugly detached amusement, wondering how the cheering crowds can possibly be so credulous as to fall for this sort of nonsense. When we are not feeling smugly amused, we are cringing with vicarious embarrassment: how can these politicians bring themselves to utter such shamefully earnest platitudes, in such ludicrously solemn tones? We expect politicians to speak largely in platitudes, of course – ours are no different in this respect – it is the earnestness that makes us wince. The same goes for the gushy, tearful acceptance speeches of American actors at the Oscars and other awards ceremonies, to which English television viewers across the country all respond with the same finger-down-throat ‘I’m going to be sick’ gesture. You will rarely see English Oscar-winners indulging in these heart-on-sleeve displays – their speeches tend to be either short and dignified or self-deprecatingly humorous, and even so they nearly always manage to look uncomfortable and embarrassed. Any English thespian who dares to break these unwritten rules is ridiculed and dismissed as a ‘luvvie’.

And Americans, although among the easiest to scoff at, are by no means the only targets of our cynical censure. The sentimental patriotism of leaders and the portentous earnestness of writers, artists, actors, musicians, pundits and other public figures of all nations are treated with equal derision and disdain by the English, who can spot the slightest hint of self-importance at twenty paces, even on a grainy television picture and in a language we don’t understand.