UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION INTO BUSINESS ENGLISH
What is Business :
Refers to individuals or organizations that offer goods and services in order to make a profit
Types of businesses
- For-Profit Businesses : businesses seek to make a profit - that is, they aim to achieve revenues that exceed the costs of operating the business.
Ex : Mitsubishi Group, General Motors Corporation, and Royal Dutch/Shell Group. - Nonprofits businesses : businesses only seek to earn enough to cover their operating costs. They are primarily nongovernmental service providers.
Ex : social service agencies, foundations, advocacy groups, and many hospitals.
Business Operations:
Business Operations includes:
1. Production : The processes and methods used to transform tangible inputs (raw materials,) and intangible inputs (ideas) into goods or services.
2. Marketing : Is the process of identifying the goods and services that consumers need and want and providing those goods and services at the right price, place, and time.
Businesses develop marketing strategies by conducting research to determine what products and services potential customers think they would like to be able to purchase
3. Finance: It involves the management of money. Other common financial activities include granting, monitoring, and collecting on credit or loans and ensuring that customers pay bills on time
4. Human resource management (HRM): The practice of recruiting, hiring, deploying and managing an organization's employees, the goal is to make effective use of employees, reducing risk and maximizing return on investment.
Exercises + Answers
Exercise 1. Explain the following words and make up sentences with either of them:
1. to mind one's own business;
2. bad business;
3. dirty business;
4. personal business;
5. business hours;
6. monkey (funny) business;
7. annual business;
8. to be in business;
9. to be out of business;
10. booming business;
11. to build up business;
12. business competition;
13. business corporation.
Exercise 2. Choose three words which you consider the most important ones in any
business from the list below. Explain your answer:
- money
- business
- promotion
- customer
- challenge
- result
- respect
- profit
- team spirit
- prestige.
Exercise 4. Discuss the following questions:
1. Give definition to the word ‘business’.
2. What is the difference between for-profit and non-profit organizations? Support
your answer with relevant examples.
3. What is production?
4. Specify the notion of ‘just-in-time inventory’.
5. What is marketing?
6. Define such business operation as finance.
7. What does the HRM involve?
Exercise 8: Match sentences 1-6 in the first box with one of the sentences A-F in the second. Use the words in italics to help you:
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Exercise 9: Now read this essay and complete the gaps with one of the words or expressions from
‘Some people live to work, and others work to live. In most cases, this depends on the job they have and the conditions under which they are employed. In your opinion, what are the elements that make a job worthwhile?’ In answering this question, I would like to look first at the elements that combine to make a job undesirable. By avoiding such factors, potential 1)__________ are more likely to find a job that is more worthwhile, and by doing so, hope to achieve happiness in their work. First of all, it doesn’t matter if you are an 2)____________ worker cleaning the floor, a 3)_______________ 4)______________ worker on a production line in one of the 5)____________, or a 6)____________ worker in a bank, shop or one of the other 7)_____________ : if you lack 8)_____________, with the knowledge that you might lose your job at any time, you will never feel happy. Everybody would like a 9)____________ in which he or she is guaranteed work. Nowadays, however, companies have a high turnover of staff, 10)____________ new staff and 11)____________ others on a weekly basis. Such companies are not popular with their workers. The same can be said of a job in which you are put under a lot of 12)___________ and worry, a job which is so 13)____________ that it takes over your life, a job where you work 14)____________ and so never get to see your family or friends, or a physical job in which you do the same thing every day and end up with the industrial disease that is always in the papers nowadays – 15)_______________ . With all these negative factors, it would be difficult to believe that there are any elements that make a job worthwhile. Money is, of course, the prime motivator, and everybody wants a good 16)____________ .But of course that is not all. The chance of 17)____________, of being given a better position in a company, is a motivating factor. Likewise, 18)___________ such as a free lunch or a company car, an 19)____________scheme to make you work hard such as a regular 20)___________ above the rate of inflation, 21)___________ in case you fall ill and a company 22)_____________ scheme so that you have some money when you retire all combine to make a job worthwhile. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to find all of these. There is, however, an alternative. Forget the office and the factory floor and become 23)___________ and work for yourself. Your future may not be secure, but at least you will be happy.
