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Doing Business in English

March 13th, 2013 | Posted by rachael in Business English - (0 Comments)

English is the International language of Business. English is the primary language used when people from different countries meet to buy and sell, wholesale, or Business to Business.

Many businesses in Europe require their sales personnel to take The Cambridge English tests such as the BULATS, or the CAE as a before interviewing for a sales job.

English is ranked number two in the number of speakers in the world, with Mandarin Chinese being number 1. There were 1000 million English speakers in the world in 2012, as compared with 1151 million Mandarin Chinese speakers. French ranks number 11 with 166 million speakers. You need to know English to work in the business world.

A lot of these English speakers are not native speakers of English. If you do business with another country, say Spain or Germany, the language that they will have in common is English. That is not to say that there will not be misunderstandings. The German, English as a Second language speaker, will have a different accent than the Spanish speaker and it might be difficult for them to really communicate. But at least they will be speaking the same language.

English has many words from all the European Languages so it is possible that a Spanish speaker and a French speaker will already have a bit of vocabulary when they start to learn English.

Business English can be learned through a Business English course, that teaches the essential elements of how to conduct negotiations, giving a presentation, speaking about computers, SWOT and other topics. Check out the business English course by Skype and start speaking English to do Business.

 

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Max Marty and the new Silicon Valley

October 25th, 2012 | Posted by rachael in Business English - (0 Comments)

Max Marty has a wonderful idea to help start-ups to integrate into Silicon Valley.

Start your business on a boat that is floating 10 km out in San Francisco Bay. View and pay attention to this video, it just might be the model for more types of business start-ups in the future!

 

Video Quiz

What advantages do you see with this type of business model?

Who is the main backer of this project?

What will happen when the businesses get too big for the incubator ship?

Over to you

Would you take advantage of this opportunity?

What type of projects do you think would work best?

 

Good luck for your innovative IT project!

 

 

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What is the main function of your website?

August 20th, 2012 | Posted by rachael in Business English - (0 Comments)

What do you need a website for?  View this video and find out the answer to this important question

According to Jason Koeppe, your website should be a driver for your business.
He gives us three tips on how to make your website a profit center.
What are the three tips that Jason give us to make a website more profitable?

Answer these questions for your own business

Now, look at your website and see if your pages do what they are supposed to do.

Is there a call to action?
Is it easy for people do contact you from your website?
Does your website bring in warm leads for you to follow up on?
If it does, then you are on the right path.
How does Jason implement his own advice?
Did you sign up for his YouTube video channel?

Vocabulary used in the video

produce results – make you money
profit center – makes you money
cost center – costs you money
discount that statement – throw it away and not pay attention
sales cycle – how much the product sells throughout the year
leads – people who are interested in your product and have indicated this by writing or calling the business.
get in front of customers – how a business advertises itself
business goals – how much money your business makes every month or year
driving people – bringing people to come and buy
warm lead – a person who has indicated that they are interested in the product or service
cold lead – a sales person calls someone from the phone book
valuable asset – an economic resource
bottom line profits – what amount of money that the business makes

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Toyota workers not getting a raise

February 12th, 2012 | Posted by glenn in Business English - (0 Comments)

Have you ever asked your boss for more money?  Do you work for a large company and have a union to negotiate for your annual pay raise?  The workers at Toyota do and last year, their union decided that it was better for the company in the long run if they did not ask for more money for their workers.

Check out the video first.  Then, print out the questions below and watch the video again, answering the questions.  The answers are given below but try not to peek until you are finished so that you improve your listening skill (not your reading answers skill!)

Toyota workers not getting a raise

  1. Is the union for Toyota workers going to push for a pay rise?
  2. Did Toyota make more or less money than last year?
  3. Why won’t they ask for a raise for workers this year?
  4. What has “eaten into” profits at Toyota?
  5. What is also expected to “slow operations at the Toyota’s domestic plants”?
  6. What do the labour unions plan to focus on?
  7. How much did the union ask for in bonuses last year?
  8. How much did they get?
  9. How many members does the union have?
  10. What is the name of the reporter at Reuters who filed this report?

The answers

1.  No.

(A Toyota Motor labour union is not planning to push for pay rises in upcoming negotiations…)

2.  More.

(…despite an uptake in the auto-makers earnings- uptake means increase)

3.  They are not sure about the economy and the future earnings of the company.

(…given uncertain business conditions)

4.  An increase in the value of the yen (this is bad when you are exporting from Japan because your products become more expensive)

(The surging yen has eaten into profits- surging means increasing more and more)

Note that the earnings have increased but the profits have decreased.

5.  The government will not give them money for producing environmentally-friendly cars anymore.

(The end of government subsidies for consumer purchases of environment friendly cars)

6.  Making sure that pay increments benefit experienced workers first and paying out bonuses that have been requested.

(Ensuring that workers continue to benefit from seniority-based raises and meeting bonus requests.)

7.  1.84 million yen

8.  1.8 m illion yen

9.  Over 60 000

10.  Arnold Gay

 
This is an example of material that we use for our Business English course via Skype.

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