Evolution of management

Exercise 1. Which expression from ex. 1 and ex. 2 describes each of these situations? One of the expressions is used twice.

1. A police service reduces the number of forms to fill in when a crime is reported, first from fifteen to twelve, then to ten, then to seven, then to three.

2. A travel company closes all its high street shops, lays off middle managers and half of its sales assistants and retrains the others to sell on the phone. It also starts an Internet service.

3. A telephone company looks at other telephone companies to see which one issues bills with fewest mistakes to customers. It then copies this company’s methods to reduce the mistakes in its own bills.

4. Most parcel delivery companies deliver 70 per cent of parcels by 10 am the next day, but one company has an advanced computer system that enables it to achieve an 80 per cent delivery rate.

5. An Internet banking service starts by allowing customers to see how much money they have in their accounts, and the latest transactions in the order they took place. Six months later customers can view the transactions in different orders. Three months later, they can make payments using the Internet service, which they couldn’t do before.

Exercise 2. Study the following words concerning quality control and customer service. Use these words to complete the text below. Mind the form of the verbs.

Verbs: identify, modify, fail, re-launch, recall, test.

Nouns: durability, reliability.

A Defective Product

The product was launched two years ago. Shortly after that, complaints were received about its … and …. Because of market feedback, it was … so that any faults could be investigated. At the same time, it was withdrawn from sale. After extensive tests, a fault was … by engineers. As a result, they were able to correct the fault and the product was …. It as then … under controlled conditions. Finally, the redesigned product was … in the market. Unfortunately, it … due to lack of consumer confidence caused by bad publicity.

Exercise 3. Study some more words and word groups concerning quality control and customer service. Match them with their Russian equivalents.

Organizations

Exercise 1. Match the words and word groups from ex. 6 to the correct headings.

Exercise 2. Before reading the text write your definition of quality.