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Over to you

1.Choose a company that has stretched its brand successfully or stretched it unwisely. Research your chosen company, then present your analysis of why the strategy worked/didn’t work.

2.Discuss how companies can protect their brands against piracy when expanding globally.

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Module 2

E-recrutment

Get started

Discuss these questions.

1.When you are thinking about your future career, how can you find out about the different companies and organizations you could work for?

2.What sort of process do you have to go through in order to get a job? Describe the various stages.

Read the article and answer these questions.

1.Which modern technological resource are companies now using to recruit the next generation of employees?

2.Besides their own website, which two other types of site are companies using to attract and recruit graduates?

3.At which stage in the recruitment process is online testing useful?

4.In which two main ways is this generally useful to both employers and graduates?

5.Why is it important to companies to give quick automated feedback?

6.Why is it not sufficient for companies simply to use their own website to attract young recruits?

7.What are companies trying to achieve by engaging with potential employees outside of the company’s own website domain?

8.According to the article, are all employers proficient at using web resources to attract and recruit employees yet?

Online recruitment: shopping for talent in a virtual world

by Sarah Murray

Since 2007, Ernst and Young’s recruitment strategy has included a page on

Facebook. On the site, job candidates can meet students gaining work experience,

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participate in opinion polls and join discussion groups, whose topics cover everything from psychometric testing to working in China.

However, the accounting firm’s move into social networking is only one example of the way companies can use the web to attract top talent. Some companies have extended their use of the Internet in the recruitment process and are using web tools very effectively. As well as making use of the services of companies such as Monster, the world’s largest online recruitment group, they are using online technology to speed up the application process. This allows candidates to find out details about the job they are applying for and complete the first stage of the application.

One important part of this process is online testing. Taking a practice test on a corporate website means an individual can measure themselves against the standards of the company in areas such as numeracy for example. For companies, these tests can weed out inappropriate candidates before they have even started the application process. And for graduates, they save time and money. If they don’t measure up, they can withdraw from the process without having to spend time on application forms or travelling to another city.

It is important for companies to follow up with automated feedback on the tests, however. Candidates who do well in practise tests and receive instant feedback telling them that they have exceeded the standard requirements find that very encouraging, and so tend to stick with the company and continue their application.

However, the web offers automated form filling, particularly when it comes to identifying the best talent among the graduate community. Traditionally, companies thought about how to find the right candidate. Today, however, they think about how the right candidate can find them – by “setting up shop” in other parts of the Internet, outside their own web domains. Tech-savvy, younger generation individuals now entering the job market spend much of their lives online and expect recruiters to be there too.

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For companies, this means engaging in the online social networking that plays such an important part in the way young recruits “interact” with their peers. As well as social networking sites, virtual works such as Second Life also provide opportunities to engage prospective candidates, whose “avatars” (invented online characters) can interact with those of the company’s employees.

Much of the real power of the Internet in recruitment exists in these external sites, where companies can build an employer brand and tap into potential recruits by engaging in issues about which these individuals are passionate. This means companies need to establish a presence in everything from chat rooms to blogs.

But while some forward-thinking companies are doing this, many recruiters have yet to tap into these audiences. ‘Organizations are a bit unsure at the moment of how to take advantage of this,” says Emma Parry. Research Fellow at Cranfield School of Management. But it’s something they’ll ha ve to do in the future because, for this generation of recruits, that’s the way they communicate.

Vocabulary notes

1.Recruitment – набор (подбор, наем0 персонала, рекрутмент,

2.Job candidates - соискатели,

3.To gain experience - приобретать опыт,

4.Psychometric test - психометрический тест (представляет собой вопросник с вариантами ответов; проводится при найме персонала и при отборе в некоторые учебные заведения с целью оценить качества кандидатов:

личностные характеристики, карьерные интересы, общая эрудиция,

математическое и логическое мышление, интеллектуальные способности

(тесты для определения IQ), адекватность психофизических реакций и т. п.), 5. Accounting firm - бухгалтерская фирма (предоставляющая консультации и услуги по ведению бухгалтерской отчетности для различных

предприятий),

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1.Which well-known Internet site is playing a major role in Ernst and Young’s recruitment strategy?

2.What’s the world’s largest online recruitment group ?

3.Give a specific example of how online testing is useful, firstly to the company and secondly to the potential job applicant?

4.Which virtual world are some companies using in order to meet potential recruits?

5.How can potential recruits use that resource to meet and talk to company employees?

6.Which other two Internet forums do employers use to meet young people?

Match the verbs and the verb phrases (1-8) with the noun phrases (a-h) to form word partnerships relating to the use of online technology in the job application process.

1.To use

2.To complete

3.To follow up with

4.To find out

5.To take

6.To save

7.To measure themselves a) Inappropriate candidates

b) Web tools very effectively c) A practice test

d) Time and money

e) Details about the job

f)The first stages of the application

g)Against the standards of the company

h)Automated feedback

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Decide which actions belong to the candidate and which belong to the company.

One of them applies to both.

Choose the best explanation for each word or phrase from the article.

1. “…whose topics cover everything from psychometric testing to…”

a)mathematical tests

b)tests that measure personality and attitudes 2. “…in areas such as numeracy…”

a)skills with numbers and mathematics

b)ability t read numbers accurately

3. “…can weed out inappropriate candidates…”

a)select suitable candidates

b)eliminate unsuitable candidates 4. “…if they don’t measure up…”

a)aren’t big enough

b)aren’t competent enough

5. “..tech-savvy, younger generation individuals…”

a)with specialist technical skills

b)knowledgeable about and able to use modern technology

Over to you

Visit the website of any companies you know of and find out if they provide online services for potential applicants. Complete a practice test or two and see how you measure up.

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Module 3

The global supply chain

Get started

Discuss these questions

1.When you hear the name “Nike”, what images come to your mind?

2.How much of Nike’s sports shoe production do you think is based in the US?

3.What do you understand by the term virtual enterprise?

Read the article and answer these questions.

The logistics challenge of global business.

In little more than a generation, US-based sports company Nike Inc. reinvented the concept of the sports shoe. It transformed the cheapest of massmarket footwear into high-tech, high-performance products, with all the cachet of haute couture and carrying price tags to match.

Technologically, Nike’s products are leading edge, as is its brand-led marketing, which successfully used sporting-superstar endorsement to establish the brand as an icon of youth subculture. However, as in any global organization, logistics and the management of supply chain is a crucial strategic issue at Nike.

From its headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, Nike operates a globespanning virtual enterprise. At its core are a set of business processes, designed to combine its state-of-the-art R&D capabilities with a ruthlessly low-cost manufacturing strategy. The company outsources virtually 100 per cent of its shoe production, for example, retaining in-house manufacturing of a few key components of its patented Nike Air System.

Nike’s basketball shoe, for example, is designed in Oregon and Tennessee and developed jointly by Asian and US technicians in Oregon, Taiwan and South Korea. The shoes themselves are manufactured in South Korea (men’s sizes) and in Indonesia (boy’s sizes), from 72 components supplied by companies in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and the United States. Moreover, the complexity

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of the product means that it passes through more than 120 pairs of hands during the production process. It also means that there is a danger of extended lead times.

Tying the whole Nike enterprise together are information systems that coordinate each step of these far-flung activities, and a logistics infrastructure capable of bringing the components together at precisely the right time, as well as managing the supply of finished goods into the global marketplace.

Significantly, both are flexible enough to cope with the consumer product, materials and process innovation, allowing the company to bring more than 300 new shoes design to market each year. However, this punishing rate of innovation brings with it levels of finished inventory if sales forecasts are not achieved.

In the United States and Europe, primary distribution of Nike products is increasingly outsourced to specialist third parties, who are linked into the company’s global sales and customerservice support system. These links allow the contractors to prioritize shipments and manage order fulfillment at cost effectively as possible, while ensuring that product-availability information is readily accessible to all decision-makers throughout Nike’s virtual enterprise.

Importantly, too, thee organizationally capabilities will be extremely useful for Nike if fashion-conscious young consumers turn away from designer sports shoes, forcing the company to rely more heavily on sales of its widening portfolio of sports equipment, clothing, watches and eyewear.

When the supply chains are global and the products are fashion oriented, the management of logistics becomes a key factor in business success or failure.

Vocabulary notes

1.To reinvent – обновлять, переделывать,

2.Mass-market - рынок товаров массового производства,

3.High-performance – высокоэффективный.

4.Cachet - показатель, признак,

5.Haute couture – высокая мода,

6.Price tag - ценник (ярлык, бирка, этикетка с указанием цены),

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7.Leading edge product - товар-лидер, лидирующий [ведущий] товар

(товар с крупными конкурентными преимуществами),

8.Product endorsement – раскручивание продукта посредством знаменитостей,

9.To establish – основывать, создавать,

10.Supply chain - логистическая цепочка (процесс создания товара от материально-технического снабжения, через производственный процесс и складирование готовой продукции до системы доставки и розничных продаж),

11.Globe-spanning – охватывающий весь мир,

12.State-of-the-art – современный,

13.Ruthlessly – безжалостно, беспощадно,

14.To outsource – 1) привлекать (внешние ресурсы, специалистов,

услуги) для выполнения собственных, внутренних задач компании, 2)

переводить производство из региона с более дорогой рабочей силой в регион

сменее дорогой,

15.Lead time – 1) период освоения новой продукции (начинается с изготовления опытного образца и завершается серийным производством продукции), 2) задержка, запаздывание,

16.Extended - длительный, затянувшийся,

17.Far-flung - широко раскинувшийся, обширный, широкий?

18.Significantly – существенно,

19.Punishing - трудный, тяжёлый, изнурительный,

20.Finished inventory – запас готовых изделий,

21.Sales forecasts - прогнозирование сбыта, прогнозирование продаж, прогнозирование объема реализации (оценка возможного объема продаж в прогнозируемом периоде),

22.Customerservice support system – система поддержки обслуживания клиентов,

23.Contractors - подрядная организация,