Curso de Inglés de Negocios
Unit 04 – Advanced Business Course – Risk
"Exploring cultural differences in business relationships and communication"
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- Juan Carlos Martinez
- Advanced Business Course
- More Lessons
Audios Unidad 4
Audio 4.1
Nowadays, of course, there’s a lot more consultation and discussion, but in the end someone has to take the final decision – and that’s me. Sometimes you feel nervous putting your signature to a multi-million dollar agreement. If I’ve got it wrong – well, I prefer not to think about that. But, of course, I’ve only reached the position I’m in because I’m not over-cautious by nature. I have been accused of being reckless – for example, when I took the bold step of cutting all our topof-the-range prices by 30% last November. I was proved right on that one. To an outsider, my decisions may sometimes look rash, but you can be sure I’ve only reached them after carefully weighing up all the pros and cons. I have a duty to the shareholders not to behave in an imprudent way with their investment. You have to ask yourself again and again: am I being prudent? Or is this course of action basically foolhardy? And, of course, the other side of the coin is that I wouldn’t be doing anyone any favours by completely avoiding justifiable risks that carry the possibility of sizeable returns.
I think it’s what comes with responsibility. Sometimes it feels like the whole of my daily working life is filled with risk – but that’s because I have quite a lot of freedom to make decisions. For example, I can decide exactly what deal I offer potential clients on price or discounts. That means I don’t always know for sure that I’ve got it right. Sometimes I put the phone down and immediately I’m wondering how sensible that was. In many ways, the biggest risk I face in my work is the risk of wasting time. As they say, time is money – it’s actually my income. If you think you’ve got a good potential lead, you can spend days following up, and then the whole thing can just collapse and you end up with nothing. So to some degree you have to be cautious about deciding which leads to follow up
I think most people think mainly of health and safety issues, but it’s not only that. My responsibility covers all areas of risk within an organization – financial, legal, environmental, technological. When I discover a potential problem, my job is to assess the severity of the loss that could result from it – maybe in equipment or time or knowledge, or even human life – and put a financial value on that. I also calculate the probability of that risk actually happening. I can then decide which risks need immediate attention, and which ones are manageable. In many cases you can find ways to completely avoid the risk. For example, if you determine that a staircase is potentially dangerous – you close it down and repair it. But, outside of safety issues, avoidance isn’t always the most prudent course of action. If you went to the CEO and advised him to avoid every risk, you’re probably gonna get a deeply sceptical response. A totally risk-averse company is never going to make much progress.
Audio 4.2
Jean-Luc … How about now, Greta? Is that any better? [Yeah.] Good. Any more technical hitches? No? OK. So, if the document-share programme is now working, you should all be able to see page seven of the proposal on screen … Joana, could you talk us through this?
Joana Yes, sure. Well, if you could look at the bottom of page seven, where it says ‘Risk summary’, you’ll see that I’ve summarized some of the risks involved in this proposal.
Thomas … OK, so that’s one problem. And as a result, the price of minibus hire in the locality has increased dramatically over the last year.
Jean-Luc That’s interesting, Thomas, thank you, but I think it’s probably best left for another meeting. Maybe we’re digressing a little. If I could just bring the conversation back to the agenda …
Joana Am I right in saying that the general opinion is we can go ahead on this?
Khalid Khalid here. Er, I still have serious reservations. Are we really prepared to lose three of our best-selling products, including the Nile Cruise, just to chase this pipe dream of green tourism? I suggest that we keep all the current tours, but include the opportunity for clients to pay a voluntary charge for carbon offsetting. Now, by doing this …
Jean-Luc OK, thanks, Khalid, maybe we can let Joana answer that.
Joana Well, if you remember, we did explore this last year – that was just before you joined us,
Khalid – and we decided at the time that it wasn’t the route to go down.
Jean-Luc You’re saying that it’s not worth reconsidering?
Joana I really don’t think so.
Khalid With respect Joana, do luxury travel and green tourism really go together? And do we really believe that our customers will pay thousands of dollars to stay in a mud hut without running water, next to a termite mound? That’s what I’m asking
Jean-Luc OK, Khalid, you’ve made your point.
Greta – I’d be interested in hearing what you think about this.
Greta Well, at first I was very much in favour of Joana’s proposal, but I admit that I’m having some second thoughts about it. Which is why I put forward an alternative proposal that we’re going to discuss later on. I think we have to take the long view. There is huge growth in this sector and we …
Khalid What do you think of this? We offer customers the option of paying the carbon offsetting as an extra …
Jean-Luc Sorry, Khalid. Could you let Greta finish, please? Khalid OK, sorry.
Greta I was just saying that I think if we’re going to stay competitive in this market …
Jean-Luc … so that all seems OK.
Thomas – I have a question for you here. How likely is it that our current partners along the Mombasa coast would buy into this proposal?
Thomas Can I just check – we are now talking about the alternative smaller-scale proposal suggested by Greta, rather than Joana’s full scale original idea?
Jean-Luc Yes. I think that’s where we’ve got to. Is that right? Joana?
Joana Reluctantly, yes. I’m not fully convinced as yet.
Thomas To me, it sounds a lot more manageable. Our partners can make a transition over a period of years rather than overnight – and depending on customer uptake, we can go faster or slower as appropriate. I think that makes more sense than trying to do everything at once, and possibly falling flat on our faces.
Jean-Luc OK, well, we seem to have some sort of consensus – although we still have to convince
Joana that this is the right course of action …
Jean-Luc OK, I’m not sure this is getting us anywhere! Well, I’d like to draw things to a close, so can I just ask everyone to sum up their views in two or three sentences? I’ll mention any of your remaining doubts or questions to the board when I report our discussion.
Greta, can you start, please?
Greta It’s been quite hard, but I think we’ve made the right decision. It would have been too risky to commit ourselves to …
Audio 4.3
Thomas … and as a result, the price of minibus hire in the locality has increased dramatically over the last year.
Jean-Luc That’s interesting, Thomas, thank you, but I think it’s probably best left for another meeting.
Khalid I suggest that we keep all the current tours, but include the opportunity for clients to pay a voluntary charge for carbon offsetting. Now, by doing this …
Jean-Luc OK, thanks, Khalid, maybe we can let Joana answer that. Joana Well, if you remember, we did explore this last year – that was just before you joined us, Khalid – and we decided at the time that it wasn’t the route to go down.
Khalid With respect Joana, do luxury travel and green tourism really go together? And do we really believe that our customers will pay thousands of dollars to stay in a mud hut without running water, next to a termite mound? That’s what I’m asking.
Jean-Luc OK, Khalid, you’ve made your point. Greta – I’d be interested in hearing what you think about this.
Greta … I think we have to take the long view. There is huge growth in this sector and we …
Khalid What do you think of this? We offer customers the option of paying the carbon offsetting as an extra …
Jean-Luc Sorry, Khalid. Could you let Greta finish, please?
Jean-Luc OK, I’m not sure this is getting us anywhere! Well, I’d like to draw things to a close, so can I just ask everyone to sum up their views in two or three sentences?
Audio 4.4
Steve Hi. You must be Reza.
Ali Reza Yes. Ali Reza, actually.
Steve Sorry. Ali Reza.
Ali Reza It’s quite all right. It’s Steve, isn’t it? I’ve seen your picture on the website.
Steve Right. So, you’ve come over for this meeting?
Ali Reza Yes. I just arrived this morning.
Steve How was the journey? Ali Reza Not too bad. I managed to sleep a little on the plane.
Sophia I thought I recognized that voice. Hello, Harry. How are you?
Harry Sophia. Nice to see you. You’re looking well.
Sophia Thank you. It’s really nice to see you. I wondered if you’d be coming.
Harry Yeah, well, I may be old, but you can’t get rid of me that easily.
Sophia So, they’re keeping you busy then?
Harry Absolutely.
Sophia And are you still enjoying it? Really?
Harry Ah. Well …
David Kornelia! I had no idea you were coming over for this event.
Kornelia David – hello! Good to see you. It must be two years or more since we last met.
David Wasn’t it at that conference in Egypt?
Kornelia Oh yes, on the Red Sea – it was really beautiful.
David Yeah, but do you remember that taxi ride back to the airport?
Kornelia Yeah – I thought we weren’t going to make it.
David And then to make matters worse, the airline lost all our bags!
Kornelia Yes – that was no laughing matter!
David So anyway, how are you doing?
Kornelia Fine, thanks.
David Someone said you’d had a difficult year.
Kornelia Well. Yes. I have had a few ups and downs.
David Ups and downs?
Pietro Hello. May I join you?
Janos Yes, of course. Have a seat.
Pietro I’m Pietro Agnelli from the Turin office.
Janos Janos Rezmuves. From Szeged in Hungary.
Pietro Good to meet you. Wait a minute … You’re not the Janos who pulled off that big Integra deal, are you?
Janos Well, it wasn’t just me. There was a whole team involved. And anyway,
Pietro, I’ve heard quite a lot about you, too. You got the gold award last month, didn’t you?
Marc Well, I’d been working in the Paris office for five years when senior management decided I needed to see more of the world. So I’ve been in Manhattan for the last … oh, six or seven months, I guess. In a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park.
Maria Lucky you! Marc Yeah … it sounds good, I know, but the job’s pretty challenging. But I’m enjoying it. Maria Challenging in what way?
Marc Well, it’s a well-established team and they had their own way of doing things, so as far as they’re concerned I’m still the new guy …
Ejercicio C - Escritura
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