Companies
Presenting your company
Multinationals are the most frequent of
all companies:
All multinational companies have
subsidiaries (smaller companies owned
or controlled by another firm or company)
These subsidiaries give multinational
companies a global reach (they help
them in expanding their business
worldwide)
One important thing for the progress of a
company is corporate culture:
 The basic beliefs of employees about the
business they work for
 It refers to company’s values, beliefs,
business principles, traditions, ways of
operating and internal work environment
 Norms and customs of an organization, also
some important attitudes which represent
business principles for employees
The corporate culture depends largely
on:
The country of origin (of a certain
subsidiary)
Local mentality, which can greatly
influence the course of a business
Owner of a company or business (who
can find a way of promoting his personal
ideas and attitudes and turning them into
business principles)
However, prosperity (progress) of small
countries lies in SMEs:
SME (small and medium sized
enterprise) is usually a business with
under 500 employees
Its turnover (sales) is lower than 50 million
euro
This kind of business creates the most
jobs and has the highest rates of success
in business
Small business with just a few employees
is also important:
Many governments hope that the small
business of today will become the
multinationals of tomorrow
Still, many owners of small companies
choose to work that way because they find
it better and they don’t want to expand
Small business is less responsability and
it is easier to control
The smallest business is conducted by
sole traders (freelancers):
It is a one-man or one-woman business
In the professional world, these sole
traders have left large corporations and
they have taken their expertise
(professional knowledge) with them
Some sole traders choose to expand thier
business and they set up a small company
(employ a small number of people)
Larger companies with shareholders aim
to:
Have more than survival; they want return
on investment (ROI) which is a profit
generated from a specific activity
Maximise the profitability (possibility of
earning money in business) for investors.
Normally, shares in the company rise
and fall depending on how the investors
see the future progress of a company.
The profit can be maximised in terms of:
Bigger dividends (payment to
shareholders from the company, the
money you receive based on the number
of shares you own)
Rising share price (the value of shares;
monitoring share price is important in
business – knowing when to buy and sell a
share is a winner in business)
In this sense publicly quoted
companies must be mentioned:
Their shares are quoted in public, they are
listed on a stock exchange (an organised
marketplace where members gather to
trade securities)
These companies offer public insight into
their business mainly to secure the
highest bids (offers to buy shares)
Other large companies are private:
They choose not to have their shares
openly bought and sold (they keep their
business to themselves)
They might have one big problem: how to
raise the capital when they want to grow
and develop?
Private business is often family owned so
the transactions are done away form the
open market
All the companies have one thing in
common: PROFITABILITY
It is the key to successful business and
a measure of business success
Profitability is the highest return
possible for resources used or capital
employed
The amount of money that remains
from business operations
There are four important things that
employees in a company pay attention to:
Work environment
Pay
Promotion possibilities
Job security (probability that you will
keep your job)
Work environment
 It is more friendly in a small family business
(but some family companies are multinationals!)
 Self-employed people working on their own
sometimes complain about feeling isolated
 You may feel more in control running your own
company, but if you have employees to look
after, this can be a big responsibility
Pay
Small family comapnies may or may not
pay good wages and salaries
The pay in multinationals depends on
the rate of unemployment in a specific
area (some multinationals are known for
paying very low wages to people in
places such as fast-food outlets)
The pay of self-employed people varies
enormously
Promotion possibilities:
There are fewer opportunities for
promotion in family companies,
especially if family members are in key
positions
Multinationals will probably offer more
here – the fast-food worker may become a
branch manager (however, the examples
of plain workers becoming top managers
are rare)
Job security
Family companies hesitate longer
before laying people off out of a feeling
of responsibility towards their employees
Multinationals have had different attitudes
towards laying people off, but today, in
general, the companies are quicker to
lay people off than before
Triumph: the reasons for its success
It has a very strong brand name
Its first motorcycle model goes back to the
early 1900s
They invested a lot of money in developing
new models which attracted people’s
attention
They have always been competitive in the
motorcycling business
They have modernised the bike ( it has
a very up-to-date look)
It took them some time to increase the
sales which are mainly exports
To have success in exports they created
subsidiaries in America, Germany and
France
In other markets they have very good
distributors
Their dealers are very professional at
marketing so they can present new
models with a very strong PR campaign
They are in search of dealers to promote
motorcycling (they must be enthusiastic
about the business)
Over 80% of what they manufacture goes
to export markets
Presenting your company
Some useful language and tips
General suggestions:
Find out as much as possible about your
audience
Introduce yourself (name, position,
company)
Outline the structure of your talk
Refer to your notes as often as possible
Use clear visual aids
Summarise your main points
Useful language for: outlining the
presentation
First, I’ll give you some basic
information.
Secondly, I’ll talk about our stores in
other countries.
Next, I’ll talk about career opportunities.
Last of all, I want to look at our future
plans.
Introducing new information:
Here’s some basic information.
Let me add a few figures.
Let’s have a look at some statistics.
What are our strengths?
Ending the persentation:
To conclude, I want to tell you about our
future plans.
Finally, a few words about our new
project.
Thanks very much for listening to my
talk.
Thanks for coming to my presentation.
Presenting a company: Tara Fashions
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for
coming to my presentation. My name is
Marta Rodriguez and I’m Personnel
Director of Tara Fashions.
I’m going to talk to you today about our
company.
First, I’ll give you some basic information
about Tara Fashions.
Then I’ll talk about our overseas stores.
After that I’ll outline the strengths of the
company. Next I’ll talk about career
opportunities with Tara. And finally, I’ll
mention our future plans.
Let me start with some basic facts about
Tara. The company started in 1978. we are
a familiy owned business and our head
office is in Cordoba, Spain.
 We sell clothes for men and women, and our
customers are mainly fashion-conscious people
aged 20 to 35. we have 15 stores in Spain.
 Right, those are the basic facts.
 Let me add a few figures. We have an annual
turnover of about 260 million euro. Our net
profits last year were approximately 16 million
euro. We have a workforce of just over 2000
employees. So those are the numbers.
Now about our overseas stores. We have
4 large stores in France and another 10 in
other European countries.
What are our strengths? We keep up with
fashion trends. If we spot a trend, we can
bring out a new design in 15 days. And we
get it to the stores very quickly.
Ok, now what about career opportunities?
It’s quite simple. If you are ambitious and
fashion conscious, we have opportunities
in all areas of our business. We will
welcome you with open arms.
Finally, a few words about our new project.
We are planning to open a new store in
New York next year. This will give us a
foothold in the US market.
We are very excited about this new
development.
Well, thanks very much for listening to my
talk. Are there any questions?
Verb-noun combinations
Past simple and past continuous
1 Match the verbs and nouns below:
 Exploit
 Extend
 Win
 Make
 Enter
 see
 An award
 An opportunity
 A range
 A market
 An opening
 A breakthrough
2 Match the verbs and nouns below:
 Save
 Fill
 Meet
 Solve
 Protect
 Enhance
 Reduce
 Waste
 Status
 A gap
 A problem
 A need
 Time
 The environment
Complete the text with the correct
expressions from 1 and 2:
Great ideas are generated in different
ways. Sometimes an idea may simply be
when a company _______ an opportunity
to _______ the product range, to offer
more choice to existing customers. Or a
great idea could allow a company to
_______ a market which was closed to it
before.
 Companies which are prepared to spend a lot on
R&D may _______ a breakthrough by having an
original idea for a product which others later
copy, for example Sony and the Walkman.
 On the other hand, some products are
developed in response to customer research.
They come from customer ideas. These
products _________ a real need.
Or the product does something similar to
another product, but faster, so it ______
time. Some people will buy new products
because the pruduct _______ their status
– makes them feel more important.
Other people will buy any “green” product
which ________ waste or ________ the
environment, even if it is more expensive.
If an idea is really good – perhaps the
product ________ a gap in the market – it
may even________ an award for
innovation.
Past simple:
 Form:
I worked. He/she/it worked. They worked.
I didn’t work. Did I work?
 Use:
-we use the past simple to talk about states and
actions which finished:
(He left for Australia yesterday.)
(When I was young, I wanted to be a pilot.)
-the action can be short, long or repeated
(They took a taxi to get there.
The flight lasted 10 hours.
I took the same train every day.)
Past continuous:
Form: I was working. He/she/it was
working. You were working.
They were working.
I was not working. Was I working?
Use: we use the past continuous to:
- talk about actions that continued over a
period of time in the past
(At that time, we were still trying to solve
our recruitment problems.
I was talking to him on the phone when I
heard an explosion.)
- refer to situations that were changing over
time in the past:
(At that time we were coming out of
recession and things were improving.)
- We don’t use the past continuous with
verbs that describe opinions and thoughts:
(What did you think of her proposal?
What exactly did she mean?
He didn’t know that I knew what he was
doing.)
Complete with past simple and past
continuous tense:
Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop,
was born in England in 1942. In the 1960s,
she _______ (train) as a teacher in
England and ________ (work) for the
United Nations in Geneva. She then
______ (decide) to adopt a “hippie”
lifestyle and ______ (begin) to travel
extensively.
While she _______ (travel) around the
world, she _______ (learn) many different
customs and rituals from many different
countries and _______ (become)
interested in anthropology. In 1971, she
married Gordon Roddick. They ran a small
hotel and restaurant in Brighton, but after
three years they decided they ________
(want) a different way of life for
themselves and their two children.