America’s Future Management. Here is an example of how to write a perfect precis or summary:

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Here is an example of how to write a perfect precis or summary:

Lessons from the Bust

Good information requires good judgement.Information systems can put the numbers in front of you in real time. But you need experienced managers with skepticism and judgement to figure out what it all means.

Stay Flexible.Using the Internet to forge closer links with suppliers and

customers, outsourcing nonessencial work, and contract manufacturing are ways to lower inventories and fixed overhead costs. Those management ideas are more important than ever in a downturn.

Know your customer’s customer.The further you are from the finalcustomer, the harder it is to see a swing in the economic cycle. The trick is to monitor consumption by the end users and produce to their needs.

Look beyond a backlog in orders.Basing a forecast just on order backlogs is a fool’s game. In boom times, your customers may double - or triple- order to avoid shortages. You need to track your customers’ revenues.

Planning goes only so far.Predicting the future with precision is nearly impossible. Forecasts based on consumer confidence and economic output are important, but avoid tying yourself to one economic world view. Instead, consider a range of possibilities and prepare for all of them.

6. Don’t just sell them; serve them.Building a service business can bring long- term contracts that poduce more predictable streams of revenue and income. Product service can be a life-saving fallback when times get tough.

Notes

panic-ordering –панический объем заказов (больше, чем обычно) в ожидании серьезных изменений в конъюнктуре в связи с разными событиями

pasta– макаронные изделия

to wind up with – окончиться чем-то

the Big Three carmakers : Chrysler, Ford and General Motors

the demand moves south – the demand decreases

power-storage system – энергонакопительная система

to be off the bull’s eye – to miss the target ( bull’s eye – “яблочко” мишени)

to read the tea leaves – to predict, forecast ( “гадать на кофейной гуще”)

Unit 9

Important Things

A Future Manager Should Know

Really Important Things You Need to Know

Anne Faircloth

Much of what you must know to succeed in business these days is not easily learned in a book or classroom. Acquiring key business skills, such as perceiving and controlling emotions in oneself and others, is a subtler process. But much else of what you need is just meat-and-potatoes knowledge, things you can learn in a semester or less taking the right course. Here are eight learnable skills you need to advance in your career today.

Finance.Eat your spinach. Finance is at the core of so many successfulcompaniesthat no CEO aspirant can afford to avoid schooling in it, even if it means mastering some math you haven’t encountered since high school. This will help you understand, among other things, how your company raises and allocates capital. It will also make clear why that new product your team has designed might not be launched, despite its sensational showing in test markets: The numbers indicate that most likely the returns on the item will never clear the hurdle rate that will cover the cost of capital it requires and deliver a profit as well.

Accounting. Now the broccoli. A dismaying number of managers don’t know how to read a balance sheet or a profit-and-loss statement, says Sheila McLean, president of the Association of Executive Search Consultants. So, sign up for a course in these fundamentals, as well as some more sophisticated ideas. Roberto Goizueta, former CEO of Coca-Cola, was trained as a chemical engineer, but it isn’t his understanding of how Coke’s precious formula is replicated billions of times that made him a hero to shareholders. It is his ability to work with such concepts as economic value added (EVA) and market value added (MVA) to measure value growth and wealth creation.

Computers.A course that will teach you the basics of word processing and spread sheets is essential. You can also take instructions in how to navigate the Internet. There’s an astounding amount of information out there in cyberspace that will give you an edge on competitors. A warning, however: Don’t become infatuated. Danger arises, says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Emory University’s Center for Leadership and Career Studies, when executives become so preoccupied with getting instant information on tiny aspects of their business that “they bcome entirely too short-term oriented.” Bernie Marcus, CEO of Home Depot, has a great sense of balance. Marcus is technologically savvy, yet he resists the temptation to track store sales figures minute by minute.

Marketing. This is where you will learn how to target a market, capitalize on brand equity, position a product, and use market research techniques. Even if your job is in finance or R & D or something else you think is remote from marketing, this knowledge will help keep you focused on what should never be far from your mind, no matter where you are in the company: the customer.

High-tech companies may be in particular jeopardy of drifting away from consumers. They are so avant-guard in their skills that they invent solutions to imaginary problems while forgetting what their customers really need in the workaday world. Netscape – maker of software for the Internet and astounding stock market performer – seems the sort of company that might fall victim to lofty thinking. But it looks as though Netscape might be too clever for the trap: John Tompson, who specializes in technology companies at outplacement firm Heidrick & Struggles, notes that Netscape’s board hired Jim Barksdale , formerly COO of FedEx, as CEO. Barksdale “brought the “it has to be there on time”philosophy from a delivery company to an information company,” says Tompson.

Communications. Learn how to talk the walk – and write it as well. You may know your stuff, but technical prowess won’t get you to the top unless you can express yourself in written and spoken words to a variety of audiences: customers, colleagues, analysts, journalists and many more. And when you can do that well, you might be in great demand. Rambling and endless after-dinner speeches are ample evidence that relatively few executives are able to instruct and entertain – or even understand what the audience is interested in. Larry Bossidy of AlliedSignal knows how to tailor his remarks to the crowd and how to wing it if the prepared speech doesn’t captivate the audience.

Outsourcing. This might seem a subject too narrow for a generalist. But it’s a good bet that in this era of tightening budgets and limited commitments, your company again and again faces the question of whether to hire a permanent staff for a new project, bring in temps, or have a subcontractor far away handle it. Sooner or later the question will wind up in your department. This course will help you evaluate the costs and contributions of insiders and outsiders and come up with the best mix. It will also help you avoid inflammatory combinations of permanent and temporary employees. Hewlett-Packard, for example, does not want temps without medical coverage sitting next to permanent employees, who do have medical plans. So H-P tries to hire temps from agencies that provide health and other benefits.

Team Building. This is the course in which you learn how to keep people working together, even when they don’t want to. For example, you are the leader of a cross-functional team that has to identify outmoded computers and give them to a local high school. It is hard for you to motivate team member Wilson because you have no authority to promote or fire him. The trick is to convince his line boss that nothing is more vital to the company at the moment than community relations. A course in team building might also instruct you in how to motivate people when there is less opportunity to reward them with bigger titles and salaries. General Electric has coped with that reality in part by broadening eligibility for stock options. GE used to offer options to 500 or so top managers. Since 1989 it has offered them to 21,000 employees.

Diversity. Take a course that will keep you and your company from violating equal-opportunity law. But the instruction ought to view affirmative action as something more than a downside risk. If you learn to work well in and lead a group that includes, say, ethnic minorities and handicapped workers, you may convince your superiors that you are one of the select few who can function brilliantly in a global marketplace that is ever more inclusive and complicated.

Fortune

Notes

meat-and-potato knowledge –основные, самые важные знания

eat your spinach – как известно, шпинат не очень вкусное блюдо, но очень полезное – в этом заключается смысл фразы

now the broccoli – тот же прием, чтобы подчеркнуть важность предмета, хотя он может не представлять большого интереса для изучающего его

to school in smth – обучать чему-либо

hurdle rate – пороговая ставка доходности: минимальная доходность, при которой проект принимается к реализации; она должна быть выше стоимости затрат на финансирование проекта; to clear the hurdle rate – достичь пороговой ставки доходности

to sign up for a course – записаться на курс лекций по (предмету)

how Coke’s precious formula is replicated billions of times – здесь: из каких химических элементов создается Кока-Кола (каков секретный рецепт напитка “Кока-Кола”, который воплощается миллиарды раз )

spread-sheet – электронная таблица

cyberspace– киберпространство

to target a market – произвести целевой отбор рынка

to capitalize on brand equity– извлечь выгоду из преимущeств бренда

lofty thinking – здесь: высокомерное отношение к потребителю

COO (Chief Operating Officer) – главный операционный директор, отвечающий за повседневные операции, текущую деятельность корпорации

to talk the walk – научиться доходчиво общаться с представителями любой социальной среды (walk of life)

rambling speech – бессвязная речь

to wing the speech – оживить речь

inflammatory combination –здесь: напряженные взаимоотношения

cross-functional team – многофункциональная команда, бригада

a line boss – непосредственный начальник