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I – Hmm, don’t you think some people might get upset, you know, lose their motivation if they don’t achieve the goals you set?
B W – Not at all. You don’t get anywhere in this life if you are too easy on people. You’ve got to make an effort to get anywhere. Like your health club customers. If they want to get fit, they’ve got to have discipline. Do all the exercises, eat properly, give up alcohol and smoking. Change their lifestyle – that’s what it’s all about.
I – Mmm, interesting! A final question. Maybe a difficult one. Could you tell me how you’ve changed in the last … oh … five years, let’s say.
B W – Sure. I think I’m more realistic now than I used to be. I know it’ll be difficult for me to get a good job – being in the army most of my life. So, I’m trying to learn new skills, update my knowledge. Like in marketing and finance. So, I’ll have more to offer an employer. I’m not going to sit around waiting for the big job to come to me – it’s not my style.
I – Interviewer, S G – Stephanie Grant
I - Right, Can you tell me why you want to leave your present job, TV announcer?
Well paid. Everyone knows you. Admires you. You’ve got everything you want, don’t you?
S G – Huh, I guess it does look like that. I do love the job. But I’m thirty now. I know the management is looking for younger talent. It wants sparky, glamorous twenty-year-olds in the job. To increase the ratings. I’m on the way out, I know that. So … I’m going before I’m pushed.
I – Oh, sure not. Someone with your reputation.
S G - People come and go in my profession. Think of all the stars of ten years ago. Where are they now?
I – Mmm, I take your point. Um, looking at your CV, your earlier career. You gave up competitive swimming when you were …er …twenty four. Rather early to do that, wasn’t it? I mean, don’t swimmers go on competing …?
S G – Look, I’m sure you read the papers. You must know, when I won the big races, some of the swimmers accused me of taking drugs. You know, to improve my performance. It was horrible. All a bunch of lies. I got really upset, I thought, oh, I don’t need this nonsense. I just gave it all up. I’d had enough.
Unit 4 Planning and strategy
1. I – Interviewer, M S – Marjorie Scardino
I – How do you develop a strategy for a large company?
M S – There are lots of ways to go about it. I think the way we’ve done it is to first think about what assets we have – what’s unique about those assets, what markets we know about and what market are growing, and which of those markets can make the best use of our assets. We then put that into the bowl, heat it up, stir it around, and come out with a strategy.
I – And in broad terms, what is your strategy in Pearson?
M S – Well I, we have approached our strategy … Let me answer it this way, by
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looking at it as three simple steps. When I joined Pearson a couple of years ago, we needed to improve our operations. We needed to just run the companies we had, and the businesses we had better. So our first step in our strategy was simply to operate better. To create better profits, and better cash generation, and better long-term value for the shareholders. We then … the second step which was not happening in a serial way but happening at the same time, the second step was to look at the assets we had and see which ones we should keep and which ones we should dispose off. Those we disposed off, we did because they would be worth more to other companies than to us because they didn’t fit with the rest of our company, or were things we didn’t actively control – we had a passive interest in – so those disposals were an important part. And then the third step was to stitch together all our businesses, so that they were able to use each other’s assets, to make a greater whole.
2. I – Interviewer, M S – Marjorie Scardino
I – What trends do you see emerging in the strategy of large companies?
M S – I’m not a great student of everybody else’s strategy, but I would suspect they are trends towards globalism, towards having more international operations, rather than simply having a national business. They are probably trends towards mire focus on people, and more focus on the people who work in a company as the company. And probably more a change in the management style of companies towards more teamwork and more collegiality and less sort of authoritarian ways of running the company, and therefore the ideas that come from that kind of organization.
I – What strategies have influenced or impressed you?
M S – There’s one … Strategies that impress me are strategies that are extremely clear, and define a very unique goal. I think that one of the strategies that impresses me is Coca-Cola’s. And I’m sure its strategy has several levels. But it is encompassed in what they call their ‘goal’ or their ‘mission’, which is something like: Put a cold bottle of Coca-Cola within arm’s reach of every thirsty person in the world. So that means: here’s what their main product is – and they are going to focus on that; they are going to focus on international markets, not just parochial ( узкий, ограниченный) markets; and the are going to focus on distribution, wide distribution and promotion. And so that sort of encompasses everything. That’s a good strategy, very clear, I’m sure nobody who works in Coca-Cola doesn’t understand what they are after.
3. I – Interviewer, B H – Barry Hyman
I – What are the strengths and weaknesses … well let’s take the strengths, the strengths of the company, the sort of SWOT analysis, you know, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, but particularly the strengths, would you say of
Marks and Spencer’s …?
B H – I think the strengths are its ability to buy its merchandise very accurately and very quickly, and that is what this is all about. If we stop selling goods we might as well all of us go home!
We have a dedicated and committed supplier base, build up over decades, some
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of the suppliers with us since the founding of the company. If you add on to that, and when I said ‘that’ I mean their willingness to give us the right merchandise, because it ‘s in their interests as well as ours obviously, the technical developments which have taken place in the last few years. Our capacity with electronic point of sale and astute suppliers, to change color, change fabric, change style much more quickly than ten years ago is an integral part of the success of the business at the moment.
That’s the major strength. I think another strength is the innate flexibility of the people who work in the business. Erm, you have to turn it to a strength, sometimes it can be a weakness – that we change people around too often, but essentially the strength is that you can have somebody who has learned the management skills of the business buying fish this year and buying jumpers next year, and applying the same sort of management skills of buying to whichever industry he in.
If there is a weakness it is, or was perhaps an inclination to change people around too often. I think it’s a weakness we’ve overcome and we are now recognizing that, er, strength of knowledge counts for something, so while you want to develop people, a) give them an opportunity of a number of career chances and b) make sure that you’ve got flexible people, the first prerequisite is to make sure that people spend a sensible amount of time in an area to their benefit and to that of the business.
I – Opportunities?
B H – Opportunities are boundless. When I joined the business in 1959 the best I could hope for as a Londoner was to go to south to Falmouth and north to Aberdeen
… but if I work for the company now I can go to America, I can go to France, I can go to the Far East. The world is now literally at my feet, and young people coming in now have the most fantastic opportunities to travel and develop their skills, and are encouraged to do so.
I – So the internationalization is the big opportunity? B H – Yes. Great development, yes.
I – What are the major threats, would you say, to the business? Are they any?
B H – It sounds arrogant, doesn’t it, to say that we have no competition, and I don’t mean it in that way. Of course there is competition. Every other retailer is a competitor, I don’t see any of them at the moment as major threats, and the reason I say it is this. In the 80s when the high street was developing rapidly and a variety of other bright traders were coming along, and a variety of retailers who I won’t name at the moment, we were told that Marks and Spencer’s day was over. We were looking tired and jaded, and they were going to modernize their stores and put in systems and merchandise which would see us off! With hindsight, many of them are not there any more. If their companies are, they are trading at a loss. We are still trading at a profit. It’s a race in which we are very happy to be the tortoise rather than the hare. So no immediate threats, but we are not complacent. We are aware of other retailers and other techniques and we keep an eye on them all the time.
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4. Innovative strategy
1. I – Interviewer, J K – Jeremy Keely
I – OK Jeremy, let me start by asking you, why do people resist change?
J K – Resistance to change is one of the most natural reactions and is based on uncertainty and it’s based on fear – fear of losing your job, fear of , perhaps, not being able to cope with a new situation. It’s based on lack of trust in the decision-makers and it’s based on a complete feeling of lack of control over the situation. All of those are very natural reactions, and the way to manage resistance is not to completely ignore it but actually to manage it as if it were natural.
2. I – Interviewer, J K – Jeremy Keely
I – Can you think of an example where change was handled well?
G K – One of my favourite examples. I was working for a client a number of years ago, and a new Chief Executive came on board and the client had to significantly reduce its costs. It had been trying to compete with its major competitor on a basis of volume and was trying to be cheaper. And its major competitor was four or five times its size and there was just no way that could happen. And the new Chief Executive came in and within three weeks had published exactly what he was trying to achieve. And every single person in the organization knew this chap’s vision. They knew they were going to segment the market – they were going to go for corporate, high spend, high profile customers, and they were going to ignore the mass volume residential market which was a lot bigger, and with much larger margins. And the company was going to go for much more value-added.
And the Chief Executive made absolutely clear, right from the beginning, exactly what he was going to do. He talked about the number of heads he was going to have to take out of the organization. So he talked about the pain – he was absolutely honest about it. But he also talked about the gains and explained his vision in a lot of detail to everybody but in a number of face-to-face communications and in a weekly letter that he wrote to everybody in the organization. Every week a letter came out from this chief executive saying exactly what progress had been made, exactly what he was still aiming to do – what the next steps were. And this happened week after week after week.
He was a very effective manager. And the second thing he did was move very quickly on the painful stuff. So he very quickly took out the people who didn’t
fit. So sometimes the decisions were hard, but he made them and he made them quickly.
Case study Acquiring Metrot
I – Interviewer, H W – Hugh Whitman
I – Imagine you’ll be making some changes, Mr Whitman, now that you’re in charge at Metrot.
H W – Yes, there will certainly be some changes, there always are when you acquire
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another company. Metrot is a fine company, that’s why we bought it. It has a skilled work force and excellent products. We think we can help Metrot to become more dynamic and efficient. We want it to compete successfully in European markets where there are big opportunities for us.
I – You say, more efficient. Does that mean reorganization? Job losses? I believe that the staff at Metrot are worried about this.
H W – It’s early to say. But there could be some staff cutbacks in the sort term. We shall see. Our plan is to expand the company and create as many job opportunities as possible.
I – What about the factories? Some people say you’re thinking of relocating some of the factories and selling off some of the land you’ve acquired.
H W – I don’t want to comment on that. Our aim is to build Metrot and make it a strong company at the leading edge of technology, with an image for quality, reliability and good service.
I – I see. Thank you Mr Whitman. I wish you the best of luck in your new position.
Unit 5 Decision-making
1. C – Chairmen, M – Michel, P – Paula, T – Tom, S – Susan
C – OK, the main item on the agenda is whether we should sell our store in Paris. I’d like to hear your opinions about this. But first of all, can you give us the background, Michel?
M – Yes. As you all know, we opened the store in Boulevard Jordan five years ago. We hoped it would be a base for expansion into other areas of France. But it hasn’t been a success. It hasn’t attracted enough customers and it’s made losses every year. As I see it, it’s going to be very difficult to get a return on our investment.
P – I agree. There is no possibility it’ll make a profit. It’s in the wrong location, there’s too much competition, and our products don’t seem to appeal to French people.
We should never have entered the market – it was a mistake. We should sell out as soon as possible.
T – I don’t agree with that at all. Things have gone wrong there, it’s obvious. The management has let us down badly – they haven’t adapted enough to market conditions. But it’s far too early to close the business down. I suggest we bring in some marketing consultants – a French firm, if possible, and get them to review the business. We need more information about where we are going wrong.
S – I totally agree with you. It’s so early to close down the store, but I’m worried about the store’s location. We’re an up-market business, but most of the stores in the area have moved down-market, selling in the lower price ranges. That’s a problem. I think we have to make changes – very soon. I mean, our losses are increasing every year, we just can’t go on like this. We may have to revise our strategy. Maybe we made a mistake in choosing France for expansion.
C – Well, thanks for your opinion. I think on balance we feel we should keep the store going for a while. So, the next thing to do is to appoint a suitable firm of marketing consultants to find out what our problems are, and make recommendations. Personally, I’m convinced the store will be a success if we get