Tom Archer is Sales Manager of Malesan Ltd. This is a well-known wine company. Tom’s job is demanding but interesting. He has to get in touch with various customers all over Europe. Tom Archer needs to know the market very well, as well as his competitors’ products. Competition
is a real challenge because customers may prefer some other brands or they might not be satisfied with prices. A sales manager has to maintain feedback with his regular clients and establish new connections. He has to travel a lot and take part in sales conferences and negotiations. Sometimes when he doesn’t have to talk to a customer face-to-face, Tom sends and receives a lot of e-mails. Archer must always be well-informed about the range of products, the latest vintage wines and popular brands.
As Senior Manager Tom has to perform a lot of other functions within the company. There are three sales managers in his department and Tom’s responsibilities are to supervise and motivate his staff. His employees should receive acceptable salaries, must understand their tasks, need good working conditions and job security. One very important thing in Tom’s work is to make his people a team. He has succeeded in this. He motivates his people not only by financial targets
but the belief that their company sells high quality natural wines. At the same time Tom should not forget to develop a business plan, to monitor the progress of the company sales and to keep up with the changing management trends.
Last year was rather hard for Malesan. The volume of production dropped and the company had to increase prices. At the same time Chilean competitors became very active. Some corporate clients who were to purchase Malesan wines decided to place trial orders with their rival. Tom Archer had to offer the customers some attractive terms and additional discounts. He and his staff couldn’t lose their customer base. So they found new distributors and targeted the segment of family-type small restaurants. That helped the company to avoid great costs.
This year Tom Archer and his sales force are to break into one of the East European markets. With consistent quality at reasonable prices Malesan wines will be able to gain a good market niche and to bring sufficient profit.
Answer the following questions using the text.
1. Where does Tom Archer work?
2. What are his responsibilities?
3. Who does he have to get in touch with?
4. Does Tom always have to talk to customers face-to-face?
5. What problems did his company have last year?
6. Who are their main competitors?
7. How did Malesan try to keep their customers?
8. What sort of a new market segment did they find?
9. What was the result of the new strategy of the company?
10. Name the main features of Malesan wines that make them competitive.
Tourism
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Tourism
It is possible to distinguish between two general types of tours. One is the holiday package that has a resort hotel as its destination. The major attractions usually include sun, sea, and activities such as golf or tennis that are offered by the resort itself.
The second is the guided tour that features sightseeing or some other special attraction. These tours are accompanied by a guide who is in charge of travel arrangement and activities. The activities offered by the tour is its principal attraction. The tour may combine travel with education - a tour of great French cathedrals, of archeological sites in Central or South America, or of the great country houses of England. Most of these tours include several different destinations and a good deal of local travel within one region.
Thus, they require careful arrangement and accommodation of accommodations, local transportation baggage handling and all the other details that accompany any kind of travel.
The person who leads such tours is the tour guide. He is multilingual, he relates well to other people, and he deals with the variety of problems that arise not only in making travel arrangements, but also in carrying them out. He deals with the problem of lost baggage and unsatisfactory hotel accommodations, with rainy days and fatigue, with sudden illness, and with the impersonal problems that arise among the members of the group. He is, in other words, almost as much of a psychologist as a travel export.
The public derives many advantages from the packaged tours, the most obvious being the price. When airplane seats and hotel rooms are reserved in blocks by the tour operators, considerable saving are passed on to the customers. Many people would never travel at all without the price inducements offered by packaged tours.
A second advantage is the opportunity for the tourist to make all his travel arrangements in one place at one time. The independent traveller — one who does not travel as a member of a group often has to go to considerable trouble to put the different pieces of his trip together. Airline seats may not be available when he wants them, or he may not be able to secure the hotel accommodation that he wants. Even when a travel agent makes the arrangements, these difficulties still exist, but with packaged tour they are eliminated for the consumer. The tour, in other words, offers convenience as one of its inducements.
A third advantage can be summed up in one term - accessibility. Tours make it possible for people to visit many remote or rugged areas that would otherwise be too difficult for them to try to see on their own. Tours, for example. now regularly go to archeological site in the jungles of Central America. A few years ago only dedicated scientists would have undertaken the hardships of such a trip, but government local airlines, and tour operators have made these and countless other places throughout the world accessible to the general public.
Answer the questions:
- What are two general types of tours?
- What is a guide in charge of?
- What is the first advantage of packaged tours?
- What difficulties expect an independent traveler?
- Could people visit many remote or rugged areas a few years ago?
- Why should a tour guide be multilingual?
Psychology
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Intelligence
In everyday terms we all know what the word “intelligence” means. We use the term to describe certain qualities of behaviour. One of them is the ability to solve problems. When solving a problem we often need information about it and we may also be under pressure of time to use our knowledge effectively. Sometimes an element of originality is required in everyday problem solving. People who can cope with the problems seem to have superior speed of thought, originality and mental alertness. Such descriptions are most often used by people when asked to say what intelligence means to them. But psychologists do not all agree with them. For instance, is it possible to be intelligent in one situation but not in another? Sometimes a person is bright and competent at work and uninteresting for friends or relatives. Are there different kinds of intelligence? Detectives, mathematicians and scientists all tend to deal with problems in which they must converge their thinking upon a single correct solution. Economists, politicians and businessmen, on the other hand, need to be divergent and flexible in their approach to the problems that confront them and they are often faced with having to devise and choose between a number of close solutions to the same problem. Which of these two types of thinker is more intelligent? Is intelligence something that may be taught to people? Psychologists have not been able to get close to answering these questions. Most of the work on this topic has been done for practical use than for establishing a theoretical base. So intelligence is the thing that is measured by an IQ test.
Answer the questions:
- What does the term “intelligence” mean?
- What is the first thing we need when solving a problem?
- What is considered to be typical of people who have the ability to cope with the problems?
- Are there different kinds of intelligence singled out in psychology?
- Are psychologists certain about the true nature of intelligence?
- What is an IQ test measured by?
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