Livro 27

CURSOS DE IDIOMAS\nGLOBO\nBUSINESS ENGLISH\nAUDIVISUAL\nINTERATIVO\nPROGRAMADO\n27\nPUBLICAÇÃO SEMANAL ILUSTRADA\nGLOBO BUSINESS ENGLISH\nVol. 27\nUNIT 53 - 54\nGLOBO CURSOS DE IDIOMAS\nGLOBO\nBUSINESS ENGLISH\n\nPLANO GERAL DA OBRA\nBUSINESS ENGLISH é um curso elaborado por especialistas para ensinar simultaneamente a leitura e o desempenho em várias línguas.\n\nNÍVEL 1. Indicado para pessoas com conhecimento.\nNÍVEL 2. Acesso a pessoas sem nível médio de conhecimento.\nNÍVEL 3. Indicado para pessoas que dominam a língua.\n\n\nO CURSO\nBUSINESS ENGLISH é um curso elaborado por especialistas para ensinar simultaneamente a leitura e o desempenho em várias línguas.\n\nCOMO ACOMPANHAR O CURSO\n\nAPOSTILAS\nAS FITAS\n\nNÚMEROS ATRASADOS\n\nISBN: 85-250-1153-3 A BOARD WITHOUT DIVISIONS\nUnit 53\n\nContents\n\n• A Corporate Business\n □ Introduction\n Politics and business.\n □ Fresh Frozen Foods Plc: A Board Without Divisions\n □ A divisional board meeting in South Africa.\n □ Dialogue: A Cape Party\n A party is given for the directors of the company.\n\n• Business Matters\n □ Some Questions and Answers about...\n Marketing (8)\n The marketing mix (6): Public relations.\n □ Executive Search (28)\n Managing a territory for Guinness.\n\n• Business News\n □ Scandal in Japan (1)\n A 'Financial Times' report on the repercussions of the resignations of the presidents of two leading Japanese stockbroking houses.\n\n• The Use of English in Business\n □ Conjunctions (3)\n Clauses of reason, purpose and precaution.\n □ Glossary of the Key Business Words and Phrases Used\n\n• Answers\n\n Subject: Politics and business.\n\nThere is very little, if anything, that a government can say or do that does not affect business and industry in one way or another. This is one of the reasons why there are so many business institutes and organisations protecting their members and trying to influence (and in some cases put pressure on) the government to do what they want, which usually does not coincide with what everyone else wants.\n\nThe strength of a country's currency reflects the policies of its government. The currency goes up and there are cries1 of alarm from exporters whose goods now cost more and are consequently less competitive. The currency goes down and there are cries of anguish from those who have to import their raw materials, which now cost more, preventing them from competing against cheap foreign imports. Pressure from the green lobby causes the government to change the law on pollution. More cries of anguish from those who now spend millions on converting their factories.\n\nIn the international arena there is a reduction in tension between East and West leading to massive disarmament. The defence industry helplessly2 looks on3 as it sees its markets for guns4, tanks, missiles, planes, warships and radar defence systems all disappear. Now the spotlight5 is on South Africa. Reforms there have led to the lifting of economic sanctions. Thousands of companies that previously did good business in South Africa are now smiling again. One of them is Fresh Frozen Foods, which has a subsidiary in Cape Province and another in Natal. We shall now see how they have been affected by recent developments.\n\n1 cries\ngritos\n2 helplessly\nimpotentemente, sem poder fazer nada\n3 looks on\nobserva, fica olhando\n4 guns\narmas de fogo\n5 spotlight\nfoco Fresh Frozen Foods Plc.\nA Board Without Divisions\n\nSubject: A divisional board meeting in South Africa.\n\nThe venue\nLike the other divisional boards of the Group the board of Fresh Frozen Foods (Africa) Ltd meets four times a year: twice in London and twice in Africa. The choice of the African venue is not arbitrary but in strict rotation. The two meetings last year were held in Kenya and Natal and the February meeting this year was held in Tanzania, so now it is the turn of BSAFF in Cape Town to be the hosts. For the first time in years all the directors are looking forward to the meeting. South Africa's long years of political isolation have suddenly come to an end, Apartheid has been swept away4, economic sanctions against South Africa have been lifted and the United States and the European Community are now looking into the possibilities of investing in the country again. At last the Triple 'F' directors can feel optimistic about the future.\n\nThe divisional board\nThe board of Fresh Frozen Foods (Africa) Ltd consists of the four managing directors of the African subsidiaries: Colin Harvey of Kenya Tinned Meat; Roy Redgrave of Tanzanian Vegetable Canning; Willem de Vries of BSAFF and Lawrence Trent of Natal Fruit Canning. Frank Holloway sits on all the divisional boards as a director and the other parent company director on this particular board is Leslie Carrighan. The chairman is Harold Farley, a businessman from Natal and like the chairman of the other divisional boards, one of the two.\n\nNow that South Africa has established friendly relations with most of the other African states, there is no longer any need for Roy Redgrave to be managing director of the company. As de Vries is the managing director of the largest of the four subsidiaries it is logical that he should also be the number one on the divisional board. Roy Redgrave will therefore stand down1 at this meeting and de Vries will be proposed and elected in his place. Another example of the place of politics and diplomacy in business may be seen from the imminent changes in the composition of the board.\n\nFor some time now Frank Holloway has been looking out for Africans who could serve as divisional directors. He wants to have at least two by the end of 1991 and intends to suggest at this present meeting that the number of directors be increased to an unprecedented ten. His reason for this is that Triple F Africa is made up of three countries, whereas those of Australasia and North America represent only two. One of Holloway's nominees2 for the board is Dr Nygraph, of Kenyan Tinned Meat, and the other is Stephen Musya, a member of the board of several Tanzanian companies. If accepted, the latter will be a non-executive director. Holloway has sounded out several of the other directors and there does not seem to be any objection to the idea.\n\n1 will ... stand down\ndeixará o posto, se demitirá\n2 nominees\ncandidatos A CORPORATE BUSINESS\n\nArrival\n\nHaving spent the Monday in their offices, attending to the more urgent business before their three days’ absence, the divisional board directors travelled to Cape Town on the Tuesday. Holloway and Carrington, however, left London on Monday evening at 20:00 and arrived at Cape Town at midday on Tuesday. They spent the rest of the day recovering from jet lag. Those coming from other parts of Africa arrived at various times during the day, were met at the airport and driven to their hotel. They all came together that evening at the welcoming party given by Vilem de Vries and Adriaan Viljoen at the house of the latter. It was a beautiful evening and the party was held in the garden. Viljoen, who had previously been export manager, was now the director of overseas business development and Holloway saw him as a future managing director when de Vries retired.\n\nWednesday\n\nIn the morning they were taken round the factory and offices to see what interested them. They did not go as a group, like a state president with his entourage on an official visit, but individually and accompanied only by one member of the staff. Holloway was keen to see what they were doing in R&D on convenience foods while Carrington wanted to visit the fish farms to see this with a visit to R&D to talk about freezing fruit. At midday everyone returned to the main offices, where they had a working lunch to discuss what they had all seen. This proved an admirable preparation for the board meeting in the afternoon. A CORPORATE BUSINESS\n\nThe board meeting\n\nThe divisional boards of Fresh Frozen Foods Plc are not just another level of management committee, they are boards \"with teeth\". The fact that the chief executive was always present – albeit as one of the directors and not as managing director or chairman – in no way inhibited the frankness of the discussions. If there was a particularly contentious issue on the agenda, a meeting could be quite lively, though without ever getting out of hand.\n\nThe Cape Town meeting opened with the usual formality of the secretary reading the minutes of the last meeting and submitting them for approval. Roy Redgrave then announced that he was standing down as managing director and Vilem de Vries was duly elected in his place. It was at this point that Frank Holloway proposed having two blacks on the board. \"While I’m not in favour of having a black on the board just because she is female,\" he said, \"the rapidly changing political situation in Africa makes a whites-only board something of an anachronism, and I assure you, gentlemen, there is nothing anachronistic about Triple F. Everyone agreed that the addition to the board of two men as outstanding as Dr Nyagah and Stephen Msuya would be a step forward. The company secretary said that as the articles of association allowed for up to ten directors, they would not have to be amended.\n\nVilem de Vries then gave a brief review of the current situation in South Africa and said that business was still fighting the credit squeeze. In order to keep inflation (the prime interest rate having been running at 10.2 percent) from rising to Latin American levels, the prime interest rate had to be high – even though it had come down a point in the spring, it still stood at 20 per cent. At the moment 40 per cent of the country’s workforce was unemployed, yet paradoxically this did not prevent workers’ wages from rising 16.7 per cent in 1990 – well above inflation.\n\nWhen the subject of substantial investment from London was discussed both Harvey and Redgrave asked for similar help for their own companies. Carrington explained that an initial investment in the company with the greatest – BSAFF – would benefit them all, since some of the increased profits from Cape Town could then be invested in the other three companies. Among the other items discussed was the possibility of shipping out to Kenya machinery no longer needed by the Perth Meat Canning Co. and if the Tanzanian Vegetable Canning Co. could report on the viability of their starting a fish canning division, they could have machinery no longer needed by Grimsby. The proceedings ended just after six o’clock, the company’s most satisfying meeting for many years. A CORPORATE BUSINESS\n\nText Comprehension\n\nAnswer the following questions:\n1. Do the divisional boards meet three times or four times a year? \n2. Is the choice of African venue arbitrary or in strict rotation? \n3. Was the last meeting in Natal or Tanzania? \n4. Are all the directors or only some of them looking forward to the meeting? \n5. Have economic sanctions against South Africa been lifted or are they still in force? \n6. Are any of the managing directors of the African subsidiaries on the board? \n7. Is the chairman of the divisional board an academic from Cape Province? \n8. Why is it logical that Vilem de Vries should be the managing director of the divisional board? \n9. Who is Adriaan Viljoen? \n10. Why did Carrington want to visit the fish farms? \n11. Did Lawrence Trent visit R&D to see what they were doing in convenience foods? \n12. How did the board meeting open? \n13. What did Holloway think about a whites-only board in view of the rapidly changing political situation in South Africa? \n14. What was the prime interest rate in South Africa before it came down a point in spring? \n15. Why is the substantial investment from London being put into BSAFF and not the other subsidiaries?\n\nNotes on the Introduction\n\nKey business words\ngreen lobby\ngru\-po de pressão ambientalista\nlaw on pollution\nlei contra a poluição\ndefence industry\nindústria de armamentos\n\nComments on key structures\n• Note the phrase in one way or another – de um jeito ou de outro.\n• Note the phrase put pressure on – pressionar.\n• Note the phrase preventing them from competing – impedindo-os de competir.\n• Note the term lobby – vestíbulo. As many representatives of pressure groups meet members of parliament in the lobby of the parliament building, they are called lobbyists (lobbistas). They go there to lobby their member of parliament (pressionar para tentar convencer).\n• Note that the international arena refers to the world political stage.\n• Note the phrase did good business, from the verb to do business – fazer negócios. Notes on the Text\n\nfish farms\nviverios de peixes\n\ncredit squeeze\nrestrição do crédito\n\nprime interest rate\ntaxa de juros especial\n\nNote the phrase come to an end in have suddenly come to an end – de repente terminaram.\n\nNote: For political reasons certain African states refused to allow their nationals to sit on (sem embargo de) the board of a company whose managing director was South African. Roy Redgrave therefore agreed to become managing director of the divisional company until there was a change in the political climate. This change has now come about and Redgrave has stood down in favour of de Vries.\n\nNote how business development can be used for a specific job. If a company needs to export, it can appoint an export manager or an export development manager or a manager for overseas business development etc. Once upon a time everyone knew what an export manager was. Now under the rather pretentious new system of names it is more difficult to know an executive's job from his title.\n\nNote the terms welcome party (parties) – festa de boas-vindas – and farewell party – festa de despedida.\n\nTraining for Corporate Directors\n\nAn interesting survey has just been published by the Institute of Directors in London. It is based on the answers received from 500 directors, over two thirds of whom were either chairmen or chief executives. In an article in the Daily Telegraph of May 28, Roland Gribbon reports on the findings of the Institute. Nine out of ten of the 500 said they did not receive any preparation for their boardroom posts before they were appointed. Three out of four of the chairmen and chief executives did not receive any formal training after becoming directors. Directors are normally appointed because of their academic, professional or technical skills, which are only of secondary importance in the boardroom. The report accompanying the survey suggests ‘trainers’ for individual directors, courses for developing boardroom skills and for company chairmen to assume responsibility for ensuring that all directors are properly prepared for their posts. Professionalism appears to be gradually working its way to the top of the pyramid.