Increasing the value of the business

The more profitable a business is, the more valuable it is. A business's profitability is measured on the following bases:

· How much income it generates for the amount of assets its business operations employ - its business return.

· How much income it generates for the amount of revenue it realizes - its business margin.

Securing the income and value of the business

· Desirability or demand for its goods and services

· Ability of its customers to pay for its goods and services

· Uniqueness and competitiveness of its business model

· Control exerted over the quality and efficiency of production activities

· Public regard for the business as a member of the community

A business that can harvest a significant amount of value from its assets but cannot demonstrate an ability to sustain this effort cannot be considered a viable business.

 

Grammar: the Past Perfect- Continuous

 

HAD BEEN +V ing

 

Use the Past Perfect Continuous to say that something had been happening for a period of time before something else happened.

We had been playing football for an hour when it started to rain heavily.

At last the bus came. I had been waiting for it for 20 minutes.

 

Exercises

Read the situations and make sentences from the words in brackets.

1. I was very tired when I arrived home. (I/work/hard all day)

2. The two boys came into the house. They had a football and they were very tired. (they/play/football)

3. There was nobody in the room but there was a smell of cigarettes. (somebody/smoke/in the room)

4. Ann woke up in the middle of the night. She was frightened and didn’t know where she was. (she/dream)

5. When I got home, Mike was sitting in front of the TV. He had just turned it off. (he/watch TV)

 

Read the situations and complete the sentences.

1 We played tennis yesterday. It started to rain half an hour.

We………………………………………..when…………………………………

2 I had arranged to meet Tom in the restaurant. I arrived and waited for him. After 20 minutes I realized that I was in the wrong restaurant.

I……………………………….for 20 minutes when I………………………….

3 Sarah got a job in a factory. Five years later the factory closed down. At the time the factory………………………

Sarah……………..there for five years. I went to a concert last week.

4 The orchestra began playing. After about ten minutes a man began shouting. The orchestra………………………………….when……………………………

I began walking along the road. (this time make your own sentence)

I……………………………when………………………...

 

 

Unit 14

The structure of a company

Organization structure in business is very important. People in a company, its employees hold different positions.

The relationship between those employees with different positions makes organization structure.

At present most firms are divided into threemajor parts:

- capital (shareholders)

- management

- labour.

Let us take a typical company. There is a director who is a 'senior manager. He sits on the Board under the authority of the President. The Board decides what company policy and expenditure must be.

The chief executive officer (CED) is the link between the Board and senior management.

As for middle managers, they run departments of a firm. They account to senior management for their area of work done.

There is a difference between executive directors and non-executive ones. The directors who run their firm on day-to-day basis are called executive directors. Those who sit on the Board and do not run the firm directly are called non­executive directors. In modern American English they use also the term inside directors for executive and outside directors for non-executive ones.

 

The Table of the Management Structure

Senior management

Senior Executive Senior Executive Senior Executive

Officer. Personnel Officer: Research Officer: Production

Middle management

Product Product Product Personnel Materials Indus.

Control Engineer Mgr. Dept. Dept. Dept.

Maintance Cost Control

Superintendents

Supervisors

Workers

 

Mind, that shareholders and the Board of Directors provide the overall objectives of a company (a firm).

Comprehension