11. From the list of different businesses select:

1. Two which are most suitable for a sole proprietorship.

2. Two which are most suitable for a partnership.

(In each case give some reasons for your choice.)

department store medical practice window cleaner textile manufacturer

legal firm airline village shop

12. Decide which of the following small shopkeeper has to do. Which of the points do you think will cause him problems?

1. Advertise in foreign newspapers.

2. Find cheap premises in an area where his customers can park their cars.

3. Find premises which are in good condition

4. Hire a full-time legal advisor.

5. Compete with other small businesses.

6. Find someone to look after the business when he is sick or takes a holiday.

13. Complete the table.

(Use the information from the texts “Types of Business corporations” and “Small Businesses”.)

	Types of businesses
	Sole trader or proprietor	Partnership	Private Limited Company (Ltd)	Public Limited Company (PLC)
Number of proprietors
Source of capital
Profit
Control
Liability
Examples

Symptoms of Sickness in Small Businesses

Owners of small firms frequently have serious problems without realizing it. They are too busy with daily operation to see the big storms ahead. An American consultant, Robert D. Bullock of San Francisco, has worked out a checklist of symptoms that show them when and if their firm is in trouble.

1. There is no real plan for the future. The company is merely reacting to events as they occur. For example, the company depends entirely on one supplier for an important component and has not found an alternative supplier in case the first one is closed by a strike or goes bankrupt.

2. There is a chronic shortage of working capital. Payments to suppliers and even payrolls are delayed until cheques arrive from customers.

3. Employee morale is low, with frequent absenteeism, high turnover in the work force and casual working habits.

4. Profits are low or non-existent because sales are weak or costs are higher than expected.

5. Shipments are chronically late as a result of raw material shortages or a lack of them, poor work scheduling or low productivity.

6. Inventory turnover is low as a result of poor work scheduling or lagging sales.

7. There is a lack of timely and adequate management information: intra-company communications are poor.

8. Orders from major customers are lost and no determined effort is made to find or correct the cause.

9. Executives work overtime but never catch up with their workload. Foremen have so many petty day-to-day problems that they have no time to plan better working procedures.

10. Pricing is done by guesswork instead of by good cost accounting.

11. There is far more scrap and waste left after production than in other plants with similar operations.

12. There is too much reworking of products after final inspection as a result of poor work along the assembly line.

13. Desks are always piled high with paperwork; this shows either inefficiency or insufficient office staff.

Do you know these words?

shortage of	недостаток, нехватка
to delay payrolls	задерживать выплату заработной платы
schedule	план, график
to catch up with workload	справляться с работой, успевать
to guess	строить предположения, угадывать
costs	издержки
turnover in the workforce	текучесть рабочей силы
inventory turnover	движение, оборачиваемость товарных запасов
working capital	оборотный капитал
cost accounting	расчёт, калькуляция затрат

1. Say whether these statements are true or false:

1. It is bad to get components from only one supplier.

2. It is a sign of trouble when costs are higher than expected.

3. The firm loses major orders because of the insufficient office staff.

4. It is a bad sign if executives work a lot of overtime.

5. It is a sign of trouble if paperwork is left lying around all the time.

6. Owners of such firms often put too much emphasis on ‘good communication’.

2. Answer the following questions:

1. Why don’t the owners realize that things are going wrong?

2. What are the financial symptoms of sickness in small businesses?

3. What sign of poor work scheduling can you name?

4. What are the signs of poor office work?

5. What can be the reasons for business failure? Ground your point of view.

3. Find the English equivalents for the following expressions. Make 5 sentences of your own using them.

Иметь серьёзные проблемы, разработать перечень симптомов, реагировать на события, полностью зависеть от одного поставщика, нехватка оборотного капитала, задерживать зарплату, частые прогулы, текучесть кадров, несерьёзное отношение к работе, дефицит сырья, низкая производительность труда, своевременная информация, работать сверхурочно, справляться с работой, расчёт затрат, переработка продукции, предпринимать попытки.

4. Answer the questions. Use Future Indefinite Passive giving positive or negative answers.

Model: - Will they discuss the day-to-day problems of the sales department at the meeting.

1	2
- They certainly will. All these problems will be discussed.	- No, they won’t, I’m afraid. These problems won’t be discussed. It’ll take a great deal of time.

1. Will the manager develop better working procedures in the nearest future?

2. Will “brain drain” weaken the economy of Russia?

3. Will your partner delay the payment?

4. Will Mr. Stone visit our country this month?

5. Will they sign the contract?

6. Will you introduce us to all the staff-members of the company?

7. Will they be informed about all the changes in the contract?

5. Using Future Indefinite Passive find out if:

1. All the staff-members will be informed about the business meeting.

2. The fax will be sent without delay.

3. The business meeting will be held at 1 p.m.

4. The business meeting will be attended by all the stuff-members.

5. The contract will be signed.

Model: Will the seminar be attended by everybody?