GUIDE 3 ORGANISATION

Learning objects

Vocabulary Building a. Open your Market Leader book on page 23. Do exercises A and D. If necessary, go to www.dictionary.cambridge.org and look up any words you do not know. 

D. QUALITIES OF ORGANISATION

GOOD:

Decentralised

Democrativ

Dynamic

Professional

Progressive

Competitive

Qualified

Organised

BAD

Bureaucratic

Impersonal

Centralised

Conservative

Hieranchical

Old-fashioned

Corrupt.

Which of the word describe your organisation?

Organised

Decentralised

Dynamic

Progressive

Impersonal.

b. Look at more organizational structure samples and vocabulary at:

Vertex42. com. Organizational Chart Template. Retrieved on Dec. 9th 2010, fromertex42. com. Organizational Chart Template. Retrieved on Dec. 9th 2010, from http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/organizational-chart.html

c. Interactive activity #1: Vocabulary review!

2.1 Grammar activities

a. Open your Market Leader book on pages 25 and 26 and do the “Language Review” exercises: A, B, C, D, and E. You will be working on various noun combinations: possessives, nouns as adjectives, phrases with of, and compound nouns forming one word.

E. Make sentences with the noun combinations In Exercise D.

1. We need to improve our BUSINESS PLAN to next year.

2. Mr. Marino has a strong and organised MANAGEMENT STYLE.

3. We are thinking to hore more people to our SALES DEPARTMENT.

4. We want to renew the COMPANY'S LOGO.

5. Panama will host the world FAIR TRADE.

6. The technician has worked against VIRUS COMPUTER.

b. Get some extra practice on noun combinations here: http://www.better-english.com/grammar/nounnoun.htm

c. Interactive activity #2.

Actividad 3

4.1 Reading and Writing activities I

a. Open your Market Leader book on page 24 and read the article “Dirty Business, bright ideas.” Do exercises C, D, and E on page 25.

E. DISCUSS THESE QUESTIONS

1. Would you like to work in a company like SOL? Why?

I think is easy to believe that the best way to work is an autonomy job, but mos of the people don't have the necessary skills to answer to the outcomes of a job of this kind.

Thus, I prefer to work in a flexible company, that measure the job by results and not by the schedules or time.

2. Would Liisa Joronen's ideas work in your own company or organisation?

I think is interesting the autonomy and the measure of performance, but in my mind is most important to create a great job environment.

Currently, the companies have as central objective to rise the profit but I believe is important too to keep in mind the well-being of the employees.

b.Work in groups. Go to http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2009/ and choose two companies from the “great place to work” list (2009). Look up information about those two companies and discuss with your team why you think those two companies were included on the “great place to work” list.

                     

First, I chose Starbucks. I think that this company was included in the ranking because offers an expensive perk in EE.UU. to their employees: insurance health. And this perk is offered to all staff, included part-time employees.

Second, I opt for Zappos.com because offers perks to improve daily life like free lunchs and and 100% coverage of health insurance premiums.

4.2 Reading and Writing activities III
a. Final assignment 2, part 1: Team work. Browse this website http://www.greatplacetowork.com/ and sum up, in your own words, the main characteristics of a “great place to work” company. Write 150 to 200 words. Even if this is a group assignment, every member of the team must submit this assignment on Blackboard (every group member submits the same file).

After to analyze the website, on my mind, the principal characteristic to create a great place to work are to hire employees loved by their job and if they didn't do, the employer has to create an environment to encourage the staff.
Other important aspect is to develop programs to grow the employees, it mean that the staff feels that is making progress in the company, and to improve the culture of collaboration between employees.
I think that one characteristic common to all great places to work is the successful communication to know the specific needs of employees and to try to answer that.
Finally, the companies have to create a great environment according with the objective of the business but trying to develop a creative atmosphere and to offer several perks to cover needs like health, eating, entertainment, security and personal development. These aspects are more important to staff than the salary.

b. Final assignment 2, part 2. Team work. To improve your business and writing skills, present an International Translation Company to a group of investors. Do not forget to describe: 1) the organization structure, 2) the responsibilities of each department, and 3) why your company has characteristics of a “best place to work.” Even if this is a group assignment, every member of the team must submit the file on Blackboard (every group member submits the same file).

Multilingual Business Consultants

Presentation to investors

 You can see too the interactive presentation on:

http://prezi.com/tvez7qrtw-fu/multilingual-business-consultants/?utm_source=em0shvwpu&utm_campaign=gro&utm_medium=email&rc=ex0shvwpu

I want you to be part of this project! Maybe you have heard about the globalization and the free-trade agreements (FTA) and is possible that currently you need tools to make business by the world. Well our corporation offers a communication solution focused in specific translation about international trade.

Now I want to introduce the branch company in Latin America, because I want you to be part of this project and I want to expand it by the world.

Our Mission

Multilingual Business Consultants is a company that offers comprehensive consulting services in translation and multilingual communications focused in the areas of business and international trade, providing to customers comfort, security and confidence to help them successfully close business with foreign companies.

Vision

In the year 2015, Multilingual Business Consultants will be a recognized organization in Colombia for the quality, comprehensiveness and effectiveness of its consulting services in different international markets. It will be a leader in establishing trade relations across many cultures and languages, based on experience, expertise and suitability of their staff.

The company

Our consultants are highly qualified and specialized to cater requirements efficiently and effectively with professional standards and service quality only.

We have on our side the latest technology to offer virtual online service, in addition to the translation in any format and length, with complete security and confidentiality of information.

Many of our clients are companies that want to expand, but there are also those international companies that are motivated to invest in our country, so they are given the same services, overcoming language barriers.

Structure

On our staff there are managerial workers and excellent translators and editors from Colombia and from neighboring countries.

The corporation includes dozens of translators and editors of different languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese and Japanese), including native speakers.

More important departments Chief Executive Officer (CEO) leads the development and execution of the corporation and the long term strategy with a view to creating shareholder value. He takes the most important decisions and decides how develop it.Financial Officer This officer is responsible for managing the financial risks of the corporation and to create a financial planning.Accounting Officer He analyzes fiscal activities, transactions and financial records of the business to ensure that all regulations and laws are being adhered to. He reviews too financial documents such as purchase orders, vouchers and other papers and he prepares the budget based on past spending patterns. Chief Operating Officer Is a one of the highest positions in the corporation and he must to review the daily operation of the business. Chief Marketing Officer Is an executive responsible for marketing activities in the organization. That includes the sales management, product development, distribution and marketing communications and customer service, among others. Head of Human Resources He is involved in board member selection and orientation of human resources, executive compensation and planning the successions. Chief Brand Officer. He is the responsible for a brand's image of the company.

Central positions

Professional Translators.  We have technical translators that have specific and high skills for producing documents, guides and recordings about our central matter, trade, on different languages.

Professional interpreters: Our interpreters, on the other hand, are able to translate in both directions and help to understand the terms of a deal.  We offer two types of interpreting: consecutive and simultaneous.

Editors: You can ensure that your documents are written in correct business English before publishing. We have professional editors with knowledge grammatical, spelling and are able to find common errors.

Proofreaders: If you need, we offer professionals in reading, detecting and correcting of texts or business documents.

Project Managers: Our project managers have the responsibility of the planning, execution and closing of a project about external trade. You can trust us all your ideas in a native language and we can reproduce it in other languages and in different formats such as TV, radio, printed or internet.

Why we are the best?

Service outside of office hours, to accommodate the schedule of the business partners of our clients.

Offer services on an hourly or contract (on-site services).

Understanding the client's business and provide advice.

Being multilingual consultants in marketing, law, international trade, ICT.

We experience our staff.

Providing a specialized service.

Build relationships of trust with clients, with the responsibility to handle sensitive information from their business.

Advantages over other companies

The companies that provide translation services don´t specialized in international trade

Usually provides translation services for documents, not a full service consulting.

Generally, the cost of the service is done by extending the document to be translated without any advice.

Why this is the best place to work?

People often claim that Multilingual Business Consultants is a great place to work because we give various perks to the employees. For instance, we give awards to the best and most creative workers with extra payments or free days, because we feel very strongly that the most important asset is the people and their ideas. For this reason, we promote the creative culture, with an office that provides an inspirational working environment with water fountains.

Some days we celebrate special days with our staff and, in addition, our payment is 65 dollars by the hour. This is taller than our competitors.

Another perk is our onsite fitness center and the job sharing program. 

4.3 Interactive activity # 3:
In this interactive activity, you will first read a text about a company that claims to be one of the greatest places to work at. Read the information about this company, and do the quiz to make sure you understand the main ideas of the text. Please visit this website and read the information about Google: http://www.google.com/corporate/diversity/bestplace.html

Which 3 great-place-to-work features would you value the most if you were given a job at Google? Why?

Well, I value most a great environment, that allow to develop the potential and personal skills because there are appealing perks but circumstantials, thus I prefer essence features to improve my career.

Activity 4

4.1Speaking – Portfolio activities I

a.Find a tongue twister on the Internet, record it, and post it on your portfolio.

b.Open your Market Leader book on pages 28 and 29 and discuss the case study with your team.

CASE STUDY: AURIC BANK

Report to chief executive

After looking over the options to cut costs and increase efficiency, I suggest to take option 4: Outsource the call centres to a company based in India.

Even though this option includes the fire of the near 2.500 employees in our country, the option 4 would allow us to pass costs from 16 million to 5,5 million for the next five years.

It means that the savings by introducing this possibility will be above 10 million in the next five years. Thus this is the cheapest option.

In addition, I advise to choose the company based in India because after to check its characteristics, I could see that it has international experience.


However I would like to see reports of consumer satisfaction before to take a decision. 

We need  keep in mind the future of the fired employees and the way to compensate them.

Best wishes,

Diana Marcela Tinjacá 

4.2 Speaking – Portfolio activities II
a. VOICE CHAT 1: Prepare a business meeting where you discuss how the company should be organized. Every member of the team must participate. Be argumentative! Practice the conversation with your team, and contact your tutor to present your voice chat.