What is the French and German plan to create bi-national champions really about? 4 страница

Dell

Michael Dell prefers to view his company as a high-tech Robin Hood, delivering cheap prices to " parts of the market where customers are not getting a fair deal."

Michael Dell's mixture of price sensitivity and tech savvy has worked well, especially recently. Its now famous business formula, called the Dell model, includes setting up superefficient factories, keeping parts on hand for only a few days before they're used and selling computers based on common industry standards like Intel chips and Microsoft operating systems. Most notably, Dell cuts out the retail middlemen and sells directly to customers over the Internet.

By its nature, the Dell model requires aggressive expansion. Back in the mid-'90s, Michael Dell would often say he didn't need to enter new markets because the PC business was growing so quickly. Then the Dell model helped uncork the PC's downward price spiral, and suddenly computers were a commodity that everyone owned. " Dell's problem is that it picked a business that you now need to be great in just to break even, " says Wharton professor David Croson.

Newsweek

• Text 5. Translate the text orally.

Nike's New Advice? Just Strut It

The sneaker giant is betting big on a foray into the fickle world of street fashion

When Mindy Grossman took the helm of Nike Inc.'s apparel division three years ago, it was staggering along like a winded sprinter. The New York fashion veteran wasted no time whipping things into shape: slashing costs, consolidating global sourcing, and centralizing design. Her efforts have paid off. While sales at the core footwear business grew just 5%, for the fiscal year ended in September, apparel sales climbed 12%.

But this race isn't anywhere near done. With a host of collections set to hit stores next spring, Grossman, wants to move the sneaker giant well beyond clothes for serious athletes and into the market for sporty street apparel. By combining Nike's high-tech athletic materials with casual fashion, she hopes to gain an edge over other apparel makers in creating " must-have outfits."

Getting it right in the faddish casual-wear market is notoriously difficult. Nike figures it has little choice, and if anyone can pull it off, say industry watchers, it's Grossman.

BusinessWeek

UNIT 6

• Text

HALFWAY DOWN A LONG ROAD

Carlos Ghosn's efforts to meld Nissan with Renault have become the stuff of management legend. But the alliance faces some daunting challenges

WHEN Carlos Ghosn moved from Renault to tackle the problems at Nissan, after the French car company took a 36.8% stake in the ailing Japanese firm in 1999, it looked like mission impossible. Yet two years later, much has been achieved. A thumping loss of ¥ 684 billion ($6.1 billion) in the year ended March 2000 has been turned into a profit of ¥ 331 billion for the past fiscal year. Nissan has, as Mr Ghosn says, moved from the emergency ward to the recovery room. This success, in the face of universal skepticism, is already the subject of six books, with four more being written. Harvard Business School and INSEAD have both prepared case studies on the turnaround, and Harvard is working on a second.

The Nissan story is interesting not just as a dramatic corporate recovery, but also as a study of how to work in an alliance, and of how a foreigner can shake up a failing Japanese company, despite a perceived cultural gulf. Mr Ghosn plays down the cultural aspect: " I don't know what is a Japanese company, " he says. As with anywhere else, " you just get bad ones and great ones." He defines his objective at Nissan as no less than turning it into the best-performing car company in the world.

He is off to a good start. Last year, he more than tripled the operating profit margin to 4.75%, bringing him over halfway to meeting his target of 8% by 2005. Small wonder that the car industry is buzzing with rumours that the man dubbed Le Cost Killer in his Renault days will be headhunted to solve the problems of GM, Ford or DaimlerChrysler.

The real challenge now, says Mr Ghosn, is to change attitudes at Nissan, from design through to sales. About the first thing he noticed at the company, which had been making losses year after year and losing domestic-market share for a generation, was that nobody seemed to take responsibility when things went wrong. Managers blamed the strength of the yen or the poor state of Japan's economy for the company's plight, ignoring the fact that competitors such as Honda and Toyota were prospering. The first thing Mr Ghosn did was to form " cross-functional" teams to work on ways to break down barriers between departments. " It's at the interstices between functions that you get real creativity, " he notes.

When he first spelled out his recovery plan to senior managers, he met pockets of resistance, but decided to ignore them. Then he began to see changes as more executives accepted that the plan was worth a try. Now he waxes enthusiastic about Japanese managers. " When you get a clear strategy' and communicate your priorities, " he says, " it's a pleasure working in Japan. The Japanese are so organised and know how to make the best of things. They respect leadership."

The next thing Mr Ghosn has to do is to improve Nissan's brand image with cars that are not just well manufactured, but exciting. Next year, no fewer than 12 new models will be unveiled, as the Japanese company begins to design a whole new fleet based on ten basic platforms (the floorpans and basic body parts), which it will share with Renault. By 2010, Renaults and Nissans will be made of essentially the same building blocks, even though they will look different. This platform-sharing is expected to bring huge savings.

The same will be true of the companies themselves as they create a more integrated structure. Renault has the right to increase its stake in Nissan to 44%. But it will not want to exercise its option until the Japanese company's huge debt has shrunk, as this would go on Renault's balance sheet.

Nissan also has the right to buy Renault shares, something that looks less unlikely now that its market capitalisation is about twice the French company's. Its profits last year were three times Renault's $1 billion. Ironically, having helped Nissan back on its feet, the French company's fortunes are declining, partly because its model range is ageing all at once.

Mr Ghosn sees the development of the alliance as " managing the contradiction between synergy and identity." Too much synergy, throwing the companies together willy-nilly, and you lose identity. " Identity matters, " he says, " because it is the basis of motivation, and motivation is the fuel that companies ran on." Renault people identify with their company and brand, as do Nissan people with theirs. That is an important thing to hold on to, says Mr Ghosn.

So Renault has no immediate plans to take over Nissan; nor is the resurgent Japanese company going to swallow Renault, which is still 44% owned by the French government. Instead the two will become genuine partners, perhaps like the Royal Dutch/Shell oil and gas group. Mr Ghosn sees Renault-Nissan as a global group, with Renault the European core and Nissan the pole for Asia and America.

There is no other alliance quite as deep as this in the car industry. Certainly, the industry needs new ways to do things. DaimlerChrysler is a takeover with deep problems, while the General Motors/Fiat tie-up, involving some platform-sharing, is far from solving either company's problems. Alliances, however deep, are normally seen as sub-optimal, because they fail to rationalise assets. Mr Ghosn is determined to show that creative thinking can contradict that view.

The Economist

Exerise 1. Translate the following into English.

cross-functional teams; lackluster demand; to become the best performing company; to sell at bargain prices; bargain basement; to extend fresh credits; to raise capital; to sell a stake in another company; principal and interest; to meet pockets of resistance; debt burden; to lose a domestic market share to rivals; to define one's objectives; to dispose of one's prized assets; a tie-up; long-term (fixed) liabilities; equities; to bring huge savings; to be headhunted; headcount; to lurk in odd comers; to hide money in odd comers; to be in great, (dire, financial) straits; to drag smb downhill; to communicate one's priorities; small wonder

Exercise 2. Translate the following into Rusian.

компания, переживающая трудности; компания на грани банкротства: задача; процветать; терять долю на рынке; стареющий модельный ряд; высокий курс йены; считать что-либо причиной бедственного положения компании; настоящие партнеры; творческое мышление; помочь кому-либо встать на ноги; эффект взаимоусиления; эффект масштаба; представить новый продукт; поглощение компании; использование одной и той же концептуальной модели; использовать одинаковые комплектующие

Exercise 3. Study the following word combinations. Translate them into Russian.

a) " debt"

Exercise 4. Translate the following extract paying attention to the underlined words.

A downgrade is no trivial matter. Companies with even the lowest of the four investment-grade ratings — a Baa in Moody's rating system, and a BBB with S& P — can borrow at an average 3.6 percentage points over benchmark Treasury rates — roughly 6.6% for a five-year loan.

But once companies slip into " junk" status, they are in dire straits. With default rates on junk-rated companies' debt above 9%, their average interest rate is 10 percentage points above Treasuries — roughly 13% for that five-year loan.

Lenders and the commercial paper market are increasingly leery of junk-rated companies. " It has become more costly than ever to have your credit rating downgraded, " notes John Lonski, chief economist at Moody's.

Some borrowers complain that rating agencies have become too quick to downgrade. Others grouse that creditors now treat a downgrade to junk as tantamount to default, rushing to cut their exposure to troubled companies. " A liquidity crisis is a phone call from a ratings agency, " Vivendi Universal CEO Jean-Rene Fourtou complained at a recent news conference.

Rating agencies say the markets want them to anticipate credit problems sooner. " There's more pressure on rating agencies to act more quickly than we did before, " notes David A. Wyss, chief economist at S& P. Low rates notwithstanding, many companies may find money harder and harder to come by.

BusinessWeek

Exercise 5. Translate the following texts using some of the words and word combinations from the above exercises.

Долги тянут «Нисан» вниз по наклонной плоскости

Положение хуже, чем казалось, и сделка с французской фирмой «Рено» вряд ли поможет поправить дела.

Такое признание было ошеломляющим. Председатель совета директоров «Ниссан мотор компании» заявил, что ошибки руководства в управлении огромной задолженностью второго по значению производителя автомобилей в Японии довели компанию до отчаянного положения. Но его откровения вызывают гораздо более тревожные вопросы: какова точная величина долгового бремени компании «Нисан»? И если уж «Нисан» допустил ошибки в управлении задолженностью, сколько же других японских компаний совершили подобные промахи?

Фактическое состояние задолженности «Нисан» будет в значительной мере сказываться на оценке инвесторами перспектив альянса между японским производителем автомобилей и французским «Рено», компанией, которая окажется вероятным спасителем «Нисан». Чаще всего упоминается размер долга по автомобильному бизнесу в 21 млрд долл. США, превышающий собственный капитал компании в 2, 5 раза.

Однако еще больше долговых обязательств, возможно, скрывается в других потаенных уголках японской автомобильной империи. В соответствии с новым законодательством о консолидации долга «Нисан» придется взять на себя задолженность своих дочерних компаний, где ее доля участия составляет не менее 40 %.

Обслуживание собственного долга и оказание помощи попавшим в беду филиалам становится еще более трудной задачей из-за значительных убытков компании. Ежегодно «Нисан» должна раскошеливаться на сумму в 847 млн долл. США для уплаты процентов. Недавнее понижение рейтинга долга «Нисан» до уровня самых высокорискованных долговых инструментов приведет в этом году к увеличению платежей еще на 254 млн долл. США.

Дружественно настроенные банки, особенно входящие в ту же финансово-промышленную группу, «кейрецу», всегда были готовы переоформить долговые обязательства или предоставить новые кредиты — теперь же они проявляют все большую разборчивость. В настоящее время иссякает число финансистов, проявляющих готовность потакать привычке «Нисан» жить в долг. Поэтому компании пришлось продать по бросовой цене свои самые ценные активы. Даже миллиарды «Рено» могут не защитить «Нисан» от будущих потрясений.

(По материалам журнала «Businessweek».)

P.S. Менеджмент по Госну

Глава «Нисан» Карлос Госн, бразилец по национальности, родившийся в Ливане, гражданин Франции, принадлежит к числу самых популярных представителей бизнес-элиты Японии. Он говорит на пяти языках и имеет репутацию лучшего специалиста по реструктуризации и улучшению дел в компании. Его появление в «Нисан» было связано с тем, что японская компания заключила старатегический альянс с французским концерном «Рено». В 1999 году Госн принял убыточную компанию, долги которой превышали 15 миллиардов долларов. Но уже вскоре Госн вновь сделал «Нисан» прибыльным предприятием. Госн проводил жесткую политику: он закрыл пять заводов «Нисан» в Японии, в результате чего в общей сложности 23 тысячи человек потеряли свои рабочие места. За четыре года «Нисан» освоил 19 новых моделей. План на ближайшие два года — 16 моделей. Стратегия оказалась верной: долги к концу 2002 года были полностью погашены. В настоящее время по размеру прибыли «Нисан» занимает первое место среди производителей отрасли.

В 2005 году Госн вернулся во Францию, чтобы возглавить «Рено», одновременно сохраняя за собой пост главного исполнительного директора «Нисан». Доля альянса «Рено-Ниссан» на автомобильном рынке достигла 9, 3%, по объему продаж альянс уступает лишь компаниям «Дженерал Моторс», «Тойота» и «Форд».

(По материалам статей из журнала «Итоги».)

Exercise 6. Translate the following texts.

Text 1

Can Ford Fix This Flat?

Ford Motor's International boss, David W. Thursfield, has sent Ford of Europe its marching orders. Get the fourth-quarter numbers back in the black.

The top brass at Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, Mich., want visible proof that the elusive turnaround — promised for three years now — is nigh. Last month, Ford announced it expected its European unit to lose $1.2 billion this year, plus second-half restructuring charges of as much as $656 million.

Eking out a small fourth-quarter operating profit is clearly just the start. Despite all the whittling and reengineering to date, the $19 billion unit still suffers from a bloated cost structure and models that make European drivers yawn.

Unless new products can recharge sales, Ford's position is likely to weaken further. UBS Warburg analyst Saul Rubin forecasts a loss of $400 million for Ford Europe. " History does not offer much comfort about the ultimate success of these efforts, " says Scott Sprinzen, auto credit analyst at Standard & Poor's in New York, citing repeated attempts to fix Ford Europe. " We believe there's a risk of additional restructuring."

Ford's anxieties about Europe go far beyond stemming the losses from a large division. In late 2001, when Ford's North American operations were floundering, new CEO William C. Ford Jr. adopted Ford Europe's two-and-a-half-year-old turnaround plan as the blueprint for repairing the No. 2 carmaker's core auto operations at home. So red ink in Europe is raising red flags about Ford's broader turnaround efforts.

While the carmaker is progressing toward its goals in cost cutting, plant closings, factory flexibility, and quality in Europe and the U.S.. the success of its next-generation models is still uncertain. In Europe, Ford has delivered more than 80% of the new vehicles that it promised would revive sales, but market share remains weak. In the U.S., where Bill Ford has promised " a product-led recovery" that is just kicking off now, investors remain wary. That's why Rubin titled his latest Ford report: " If Europe Is the Template, Proceed with Caution."

When it comes to the industry mathematics in Europe, Ford's in a bind. Steadily shrinking sales and ebbing market share make it doubly difficult to turn a profit, and the huge fixed costs of excess capacity can quickly wipe out the most diligent effort to cut costs. Ford Europe sells nearly 300, 000 fewer cars annually in Western Europe now than it did a decade ago.

The already brutal competition is bound to ratchet up as the Japanese prepare for a major European offensive. Analysts say Ford is among the automakers most vulnerable to losing market share to Toyota, Nissan, and Honda.

To hold their ground, weaker brands such as Ford and Fiat are resorting to profit-eroding discounts, " I cannot see anything happening to reverse the trend. Instead of leading, they are limping behind the competition. The turnaround plan is 10 years late, " says analyst Stephen B. Cheetham at Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. in London.

BusinessWeek

Text 2

У компании «Форд» проблемы

Состояние компании «Форд» (Ford) вызывает все большие опасения. Так, международное рейтинговое агентство «Стандард энд Пуэрз» (Standard & Poor's (S& P)) понизило рейтинг компании, обосновав это «недостаточностью мер, принятых для восстановления конкурентоспособности».

Одна из основных проблем компании — большие долги. По данным на 30 сентября, консолидированный долг компании сос­тавил 162 млрд долларов. «Стандард энд Пуэрз» допускает возможность дальнейшего понижения рейтинга компании «Форд». Третий квартал закончился для компании относительно благополучно — чистые убытки оказались значительно ниже прогнозировавшихся.

Однако, несмотря на некоторое оздоровление финансового состояния компании, специалисты «Стандард энд Пуэрз» сомневаются в том, будет ли аккумулировано достаточное количество денежной наличности по сравнению с ожидаемыми расходами. Инвестиционные банки также не рекомендуют своим клиентам вкладывать деньги в ценные бумаги «Форд».

План восстановления, который компания собирается официально представить в ближайшее время, пока никак не влияет на динамику акции «Форд» на рынке. Более того, инвесторы крайне недоверчиво относятся к заявленным в плане мерам по реорганизации.

Дело в том, что компания предполагает уменьшать производственные издержки и бороться с увольнениями. Но первое, по сути, противоречит второму. Уменьшение производственных затрат без сокращения служащих практически неосуществимо. От компании ждут более жесткой и активной политики глубокой реорганизации.

Пока этого нет, перспективы дальнейшего развития «Форд» остаются крайне туманными.

Эксперт

Exercise 7. Translate the following text into Russian.

Detroit's Wounded Giant The world's biggest car firm needs to confront its demons

IN 1943 General Motors invited a promising young author Peter Drucker (who died in November, 2005) to study the company from the inside. The book this sojourn produced influenced generations of leaders and managers. But it was ignored by GM itself, which remained famously bureaucratic and as complacent as one might expect of a company that then dominated the biggest car market in the world. One wonders what a business academic on a similar mission would make of the world's biggest carmaker today: its domestic market share is down to around 25%; it has tumbled back into losses; and it is hobbled by the high wages and generous health benefits promised to its existing and former workers.

Unless GM can magically turn around its falling market share and mounting losses while slashing its labour costs, it could be headed for bankruptcy in a couple of years. It is burning cash at the rate of $5 billion a year and faces extra liabilities of up to $11 billion following the collapse of Delphi, the parts maker spun out of GM six years ago. It is planning to sell a slice of its profitable finance business and has sold at a loss its stake in a Japanese carmaker, Fuji's Subaru, to Toyota - the nemesis that looks set soon to snatch its crown as the world's biggest car firm. Earlier this year, GM even had to pay $2 billion to wriggle out of a promise to buy all of Fiat, Italy's ailing carmaker in which it had unwisely invested $2.4 billion some years ago.

GM's travails are most often discussed in terms of the enormous costs of the pension and health-care promises that it so cavalierly made to employees in easier times. But the company is also like some Gulliver tied down by other, equally damaging, concessions it made to the United Auto Workers Union (UAW), which mean it cannot easily close factories and cut payrolls to adjust to straitened circumstances.

Making these self-inflicted constraints even worse has been GM's inability to do what it once did best: come up with products that American consumers love to buy. For almost a decade GM has sustained its sales volumes only by offering deep price discounts that eat into its already weak profit margins. Ford and the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler have been obliged to follow suit. GM has improved the appeal and quality of some products, notably its Cadillac models, but not enough to win the loyalty of American consumers long accustomed to turning to Toyota, Nissan and Honda for everyday transport and to Mercedes and BMW for fancier models.

The Economist

Exercise 8. Write a report and make a presentation on one of the following topics.

1.Renault-Nissan, the past and the future of the alliance.

2.Carlos Ghosn - personal profile.

3.Carlos Ghosn's track record in turnarounds.

4.DaimlerChrysler, a bumpy road to success.

5.Compare the two combinations - DaimlerChrysler versus Renualt-Nissan.

6.Is Ford Motor Co. still in trouble?

7.Is Toyota a full-fledged global company?

8.Porsche - VW.

9.General Motors - the rise and fall of the giant.

10.General Motors and the formation of the management theory (Alfred Sloan, Peter Drucker).

UNIT 7

• Text

THE CASE FOR BRANDS

Far from being instruments of oppression, they make firms accountable to consumers

IMAGINE a world without brands. It existed once, and still exists, more or less, in the world's poorest places. No raucous advertising, no ugly billboards, no McDonald's. Yet, given a chance and a bit of money, people flee this Eden. They seek out Budweiser instead of their local tipple, ditch nameless shirts for Gap, prefer Marlboros to home-grown smokes. What should one conclude? That people are pawns in the hands of giant companies with huge advertising budgets and global reach? Or that brands bring something that people think is better than what they had before? The pawn theory is argued, forcefully if not always coherently, by Naomi Klein, author of " No Logo, " a book that has become a bible of the anti-globalisation movement. Her thesis is that brands have come to represent " a fascist state where we all salute the logo and have little opportunity for criticism because our newspapers, television stations, Internet servers, streets and retail spaces are all controlled by multinational corporate interests." The ubiquity and power of brand advertising curtails choice, she claims; produced cheaply in third-world sweatshops, branded goods displace local alternatives and force a grey cultural homogeneity on the world.

Brands have thus become stalking horses for international capitalism. Outside the United States, they are now symbols of America's corporate power, since most of the world's best-known brands are American. Around them accrete all the worries about environmental damage, human-rights abuses and sweated labour that anti-globalists like to put on their placards. No wonder brands seem bad.

Product power or people power

Yet this is a wholly misleading account of the nature of brands. They began as a form not of exploitation, but of consumer protection. In pre-industrial days, people knew exactly what went into their meat pies and which butchers were trustworthy; once they moved to cities, they no longer did. A brand provided a guarantee of reliability and quality. Its owner had a powerful incentive to ensure that each pie was as good as the previous one, because that would persuade people to come back for more.

Just as distance created a need for brands in the 19th century, so in the age of globalisation and the Internet it reinforces their value. A book-buyer might not entrust a company based in Seattle with his credit-card number had experience not taught him to trust the Amazon brand; an American might not accept a bottle of French water were it not for the name of Evian. Because consumer trust is the basis of all brand values, companies that own the brands have an immense incentive to work to retain that trust.

Indeed, the dependence of successful brands on trust and consistent quality suggests that consumers need more of them. In poor countries, the arrival of foreign brands points to an increase in competition from which consumers gain.

Anybody in Britain old enough to remember the hideous Wimpy, a travesty of a hamburger, must recall the arrival of McDonald's with gratitude. Public services live in a No Logo world: attempts at government branding arouse derision. That is because brands have value only where consumers have choice, which rarely exists in public services. The absence of brands in the public sector reflects a world like that of the old Soviet Union, in which consumer choice has little role.

Brands are the tools with which companies seek to build and retain customer loyalty. Because that often requires expensive advertising and good marketing, a strong brand can raise both prices and barriers to entry. But not to insuperable levels: brands fade as tastes change (Nescafe has fallen, while Starbucks has risen); the vagaries of fashion can rebuild a brand that once seemed moribund (think of cars like the Mini or Beetle); and quality of service still counts (hence the rise of Amazon). Many brands have been around for more than a century, but the past two decades have seen many more displaced by new global names, such as Microsoft and Nokia.

Now a change is taking place in the role of brands. Increasingly, customers pay more for a brand because it seems to represent a way of life or a set of ideas. Companies exploit people's emotional needs as well as their desires to consume. Hence Nike's " just-do-it" attempt to persuade runners that it is selling personal achievement, or Coca-Cola's relentless effort to associate its fizzy drink with carefree fun. Companies deliberately concoct a story around their service or product, trying to turn a run-of-the-mill purchase into something more thrilling.

This peddling of superior lifestyles is something that irritates many consumers. They disapprove of the vapid notion that spending more on a soft drink or ice cream can bring happiness or social cachet. Fair enough: and yet people in every age and culture have always hunted for ways to acquire social cachet. For medieval European grandees, it was the details of dress, and sumptuary laws sought to stamp out imitations by the lower orders; now the poorest African country has its clothing markets where second-hand designer labels command a premium over pre-worn No Logo.

The flip side of the power and importance of a brand is its growing vulnerability. Because it is so valuable to a company, a brand must be cosseted, sustained and protected. A failed advertising campaign, a drop-off in quality or a hint of scandal can all quickly send customers fleeing. Indeed, protesters, including Ms Klein's anti-globalisation supporters, can use the power of the brand against companies by drumming up evidence of workers ill-treated or rivers polluted. Thanks, ironically enough, to globalisation, they can do this all round the world. The more companies promote the value of their brands, the more they will need to seem ethically robust and environmentally pure. Whether protesters will actually succeed in advancing the interests of those they claim to champion is another question. The fact remains that brands give them far more power over companies than they would otherwise have. Companies may grumble about that, but it is hard to see why the enemies of brand " fascism" are complaining.