Деловой иностранный язык - страница 23

11) a range or variety of sth

Task 13. Vocabulary 3

Paraphrase the following sentences, if necessary use English–English dictionary:

1. Under the definite circumstances whole layers of management, junior, middle and senior, were removed from the organisational structure.

2. The question which must be asked about this widespread downsizing is whether companies will be able to sustain this if and when full economic recovery were to occur with the attendant increased demand for labour.

3. Partly it was to take advantages of the latest technological developments, first used widely by Japanese industry, and partly to effect operational cost savings.

4. Business, whose structure became shorter and squatter, got much wider spans of control.

Task 14. Reading 4

Getting started

▪ Before reading the text, discuss in small groups why even big and successful companies have losses. What are the potential dangers they can meet?

▪ Give examples of companies that met difficulties in manufacturing their goods but overcame them and recovered. Dwell on the strategies that helped them to survive.

▪ Read the text, neglect the gaps and check if your ideas are right. Consult Vocabulary p. 145–146.

▪ Read the text again where seven sentences have been removed. Choose from sentences A–F the one which fits each gap 1–5.

How to go about it

1. Check that the whole sentence fits in with the meaning of the text before and under the space.

2. Pay attention to the connections between the language in the text and the language in the missing sentences.

3. Find the connections between pronouns and other words.

4. When you think you have found the sentence, read the whole paragraph again to check that it fits.

5. Complete the rest of the spaces with appropriate sentences.

Founded in 1911, US corporation IBM (International Business Machines), or Big Blue as it is nicknamed, began its existence producing clocking-on machines and punch-card tabulators, used in the 1890 US census. It had been the most successful mainframe computer manufacturer in the world, with a monopoly position in corporate sales (80 per cent of the market).

However, IBM neglected the growing Personal Computer (PC) market in the 1980s, producing only a high-cost limited range with poor performance characteristics. It also neglected the production of chips (buying in from Intel) and software (buying in from Microsoft). The rapid development of IBM-PC clones produced in the Far East to fill the gap caused by the limitations of IBM's product range hit IBM seriously.

Founded in 1911, US corporation IBM (International Business Machines), or Big Blue as it is nicknamed, began its existence producing clocking-on machines and punch-card tabulators, used in the 1890 US census. It had been the most successful mainframe computer manufacturer in the world, with a monopoly position in corporate sales – 80 per cent of this was aggravated by the rapid growth in PC performance, meaning that corporate customers increasingly used networked PCs rather than buying large mainframes.

By the beginning of the 1990s large losses were being sustained (in 1993 alone it lost $8.1 billion, the biggest annual loss in US corporate history) and IBM was forced to embark on a major corporate restructuring and delayering programme, including all its sites in the EU, in order to save itself. To illustrate the depth of its fall in 1987 IBM had a market value of $107 bn. By 1992 it was $26.5 bn.