Text 2. Company resources and activities

Generally, every company can be defined by variety of aspects:

- Name of a company.

- Type of proprietorship.

- Year of foundation.

- Years in business.

- Headquarters.

- Core product/service.

- Growth rate.

- Workforce.

- Turnover.

- Current and future projects.

Some firms include in a company description as well their pre-tax profits, market share, target market, strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, image and business strategy, management style, recent and future developments.

However briefly, a company can present the information about its:

- Location

- MOS (mission, objectives, strategic priorities).

- Business strategy

- Business activity

- Markets

- Product range

- Turnover

- Workforce

Some managers consider an organization to be like a triangle.

 Production  

Money                                                                 Personnel

In fact, the basic components of any organization are:

- people that work for an organization;

- objectives that an organization has to achieve;

- management that enforces the personnel to achieve these objectives.

 

No doubt, an organization is, first of all, a social institute. The key role of its management is the mobilization of all resources for achievement of basic objectives, effective adaptation to the environmental changes, and decision-making.

Any organization has the following resources at its disposal: human; material; energy; financial; informational; technological; time.

All these resources ensure its stable work. The main aspect here is the human one, it provides creativity, produces economic results, and is inexhaustible. The process of management should be focused on mobilization of all resources that could lead to the optimum result with minimum costs.

Before developing its strategy, a company should consider all its strong and weak points, pool all corporate resources, which enlarge or limit its spectrum of possibilities.

The effective strategy ensures the best correlation between the market conditions and company resources.

In fact, any organization is known to create value for their clients through the sphere of its activities. The value can be calculated according to the number of buyers, willing to pay for a company’s product. Actually, a firm starts to organize its entire value chain by managing its activities, and finally, gains the competitive advantage. The firm’s value chain is closely connected with the whole value system.

Supplier Value Chains – Firm Value Chains – Channel Value chains – Buyer Value Chains.

There are many points of interaction between all there links that represent the independent activities.

Answer the questions to  Unit 3

1. What are the external environmental aspects?

2. Can you name the factors of direct and indirect-action environment?

3. What is meant by a business environment?

4. Why can no one existing firm ignore the influence of the environment?

5. In what way can a company take the environment aspects in account?

6. What factors constitute the base for threats and opportunities?

7. What are the aims of a company activity?

8. Why a protection of environment so important for a company?

10.Why the protection of the environment vital for the future generations?

11. What are your company’s activities?

12. What kind of resources does any company use?

13. What points should a company take into account before developing its strategy?

14. What are the resources, which enlarge company possibilities?

15. Which of resources can limit a spectrum of possibilities?

16. What is a value chain?

17. Do you agree that the most important component of every firm is its personnel?

Vocabulary to Unit 3

1. environment n окружающая среда

2. external   adj.   внешний

3. overestimate v переоценивать, давать слишком высокую оценку

Be vital   быть жизненно важным, существенным,

5. offering n  предложение (в том числе на продажу)

Take into account учитывать, принимать во внимание

7. dependent adj. обусловленный, зависящий (от обстоятельств)

8.depend (on, upon) v 1)зависеть, находиться в зависимости от;

 2) положиться (на кого-л.), рассчитывать (на кого-л., что-л.)

9. law n закон, правопорядок

10. nature n природа

Direct –action прямые, решительные действия

12. indirect- action    косвенное, опосредованное воздействие

13. volatility n изменчивость, непостоянство, неустойчивость

14. uncertainty n - неуверенность, колебание, сомнение

15. interrelatedness n  взаимосвязанность

16. complexity n сложность, запутанное дело, трудность

Syn: complication

Public values общественные ценности

18. bear v 1)иметь обладать (свойством): 2) иметь обладать (влиянием, властью)

19. aim n намерение, цель

aim (to) v 1)направлять, нацеливать: 2) стремиться

20. attend (to) v 1) уделять внимание (кому-л., чему-л.): 2) upon, on сопровождать, сопутствовать

21. attitude (to, towards – к чему-либо) n позиция, отношение

22. lead v 1) вести, возглавлять, руководить, управлять, командовать:

Приводить влиять, убеждать

23. variety n многообразие, разнообразие, многосторонность (интересов)

24. headquarter n штаб-квартира, головной офис

Core product  основной продукт

Growth rate  темп роста  

Workforce рабочая сила

28. turnover n оборот

29.current adj. 1)текущий, современный: 2)популярный, распространеный

Pre-tax profit прибыль, полученная до уплаты налогов

Market share  рыночная доля

Target market  целевой рынок

34. threat n угроза

At one’s disposal  в чьем-либо распоряжении

36. inexhaustible adj. неистощимый, неисчерпаемый

37. correlation n взаимосвязь, соотношение, корреляция

Syn.: interdependence

38. pool v  объединять в общий фонд

Value chain цепочка приращений, добавления стоимости

                           

 

Unit 4 Planning

Some basic terms

1. Goals.  Goals are specific accomplishments that must be accomplished in total, or in some combinations, in order to achieve some larger, overall results preferred from the system, for example, the mission of an organization.

2. Strategies or activities. These are the methods or processes required in total, or in some combination, to achieve the goals.

3. Objectives. Objectives are specific accomplishments that must be acco0mplished in total, or in some combinations, to achieve the goals in the plan. Objectives are usually “milestones” along the way when implementing the strategies.

4. Tasks. Particularly in small organizations, people are assigned various tasks required to implement the plan. If the scope of the plan is very small, tasks and activities are often essentially the same.

5. Resources (and Budgets). Resources include the people, materials, technologies, money, etc., required to implement the strategies or processes. The costs of these resources are often depicted in the form of a budget.

Text 1. Vital role of planning in company management

No doubt, planning plays a vital role in company management. Any company has objectives and it plans to achieve then. One of the key tasks of the top management of a company is to make major decisions affecting the future of the organization. Before planning its future, every company should define its strengths, what it can do best of all. For example, top management must decide which markets to enter and which to pull out off; how expansion is to be financed; whether new products will be developed within the organization or acquired by buying other companies.

Before doing any kind of strategic planning, the management must decide what is the mission and purpose of their organization, what it should be in the future. Deciding the mission and purpose is the foundation of any planning process.

Having decided on its mission and purpose, an organization will have to work out certain more specific objectives. As soon as it has established its more specific, medium-term objectives, the company can draw up corporate plan. Its purpose is to indicate the strategies the management will use to achieve its objectives.

Usually, a company plans, conducts research and controls to minimize its risk, found out its customers’ needs and take important decisions; all this is the essential part of running the successful business. 

Planning takes into consideration:

- objectives;

- ways to achieve them;

- resources needed;

- timing and control.

Planning must be based on reliable data of marketing research. There are strategic, operational and tactical types of planning, they impact on each other, but there effects differ: operational and tactical plans can be changed without changing strategy, but if the strategic plan is altered, the tactical and operational plans are to be changed as well. In most cases plans should be modified according to the relevant market situation.

It is worth noting that sometimes planning is based on the following:

- good understanding of your firm’s future;

- precise marketing planning

- passion;

- all ideas must be reasonable and clear cut.

In fact, passion can make damage to strategic planning. Someone else can invent the same thing while you test your invention again and again. Additionally, many executives who try to think reasonably and directly are short of silly ideas. These ideas might look stupid just at the first glance, but they prove to be clever in the course of time, having been used in marketing policy.

In reality, in the process of planning we are often wrong not about the conclusions, but about the intentions. Realistic results can be received from a mixture of facts and figures, calculations and discussions to ensure the effectiveness. Whatever parts of marketing planning we use, we can see that every part plays its own important role.

In fact, planning is a continuous process; it needs a lot of information. The purpose of planning is to show where a firm is at a given moment and where it is going if it faces no big changes. Moreover, it must show where a company should go in the light of market changes, and when it should get there.