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Computer Technologies

One thing is clear. Technology, venture capital and enthusiasm are not enough. Basic management skills, especially in such key areas as marketing and finance, are at least as important in a new high-tech venture as in the more common low-tech startup. High — tun mangers - typically young, brainy, single -minded and arrogant - nearly possess such skills. The problem is that high -technology enquires above - average management. Too often in small companies it's below – average.

The high - tech manager needs to have one foot in the lab and one foot in the market place. S/he must understand the logy and be able to ask the right questions but also be capable of getting close to the market and to customers.

A kind of fuzziness is typical of high - tech startups. It stems from a lack of understanding of that the market for a particular product is and from letting technological in actuation lead to the continual introduction of new products.

One of the biggest problems is not nearly understanding business strategy. You cannot just introduce products one after the other.

There has to be a portfolio strategy. You need aging products that enquire no investment but which will generate cash to fund embryonic products. That's very hand to do and it's essential to have experienced management. One of the pitfalls of many firms is that once they have succeeded in a certain product line, they try to develop, a new product line without continuing to improve the old one.

But developing second generation products and getting them to market is becoming increasingly difficult. As technologies grow more complex and new ones emerge, development costs are rising and product life - cycles are shortening. The chances of generating enough funds from a first product to finances a second product are very slender.

The situation is made even more difficult as the classic small high - tech company product - the personal computer - increasingly becomes a "commodity" with little to distinguish high - tech companies are becoming increasingly dependent on market - niche strategy.

 

Tasks to the topic:

1. What is a manager from your point of view?

2. Read the classification of managers and skills in the texts and discuss it.

3. Study the rules for the Manager at the end of the first text and comment them.

4. Take a sheet of paper, copy the topical texts and complete rules (write as much, as you can).

5. Write down a composition “I am a manager” based on the texts above.

 

Markets

The Role of Market

Reports in the press tend to say "the market did this" or "the market expected good news on the economic front", as if the market were a single living entity with a single conscious mind. This is not, of course, the case. To understand reports of market behaviour you have to bear in mind the way the market works.

A market is simply a mechanism, which allows individuals or organizations to trade with each other. Markets bring together buyers and sellers of goods and services. In some cases, such as a local fruit stall, buyers and sellers meet physically. In other cases, such as the stock market, business can be transacted over the telephone, almost by remote control. There's no need to go into these details. Instead, we use a general definition of markets.



A market is a shorthand expression for the process by which households' decisions about consumption of alternative goods, firms' decisions about what and how to produce, and workers' decisions about how much and for whom to work are all reconciled by adjustment of prices. 70

Prices of goods and of resources, such as labour, machinery and land, adjust to ensure that scarce resources are used to produce those goods and services that society demands.

Much of economics is devoted to the study of how markets and prices enable society to solve the problems of what, how and for whom to produce. Suppose you buy a hamburger for your lunch. What does this have to do with markets and prices? You chose the cafe because it was fast, convenient and cheap. Given your desire to eat, and your limited resources, the low hamburger price told you that this was a good way to satisfy your appetite. You probably prefer steak but that is more expensive. The price of steak is high enough to ensure that society answers the "for whom" question about lunchtime steaks in favour of someone else.

Now think about the seller's viewpoint. The cafe owner is in business because, given the price of hamburger meat, the rent and the wages that must be paid, it is still possible to sell hamburgers at a profit. If rents were higher, it might be more profitable to sell hamburgers in a cheaper area or to switch to luxury lunches for rich executives on expense accounts. The student behind the counter is working there because it is a suitable part-time job, which pays a bit of money. If the wage were much lower it would hardly be worth working at all. Conversely, the job is unskilled and there are plenty of students looking for such work, so owners of cafes do not have to offer very high wages.

Prices are guiding your decision to buy a hamburger, the owner's decision to sell hamburgers, and the student's decision to take the job. Society is allocating resources - meat, buildings, and labour— into hamburger production through the price system. If nobody liked hamburgers, the owner could not sell enough at a price that covered the cost of running the cafe and society would devote no resources to hamburger production. People's desire to eat hamburgers guides resources into hamburger production. However, if cattle contracted a disease, thereby reducing the economy's ability to produce meat products, competition to purchase more scarce supplies of beef would bid up the price of beef, hamburger producers would be forced to rise 72

prices, and consumers would buy more cheese sandwiches for lunch. Adjustments in prices would encourage society to reallocate resources to reflect the increased scarcity of cattle.

There were several markets involved in your purchase of a hamburger. You and the cafe owner were part of the market for lunches. The student behind the counter was part of the local labour market. The cafe owner was part of the local wholesale meat market and the local market for rented buildings. These descriptions of markets are not very precise. Were you part of the market for lunches, the market for prepeared food or the market for sandwiches to which you would have turned if hamburgers had been more expensive? That is why we have adopted a very general definition of the markets, which emphasizes that they are arrangements through, which prices influence the allocation of scarce resources.

Tasks to the topic:

1. Read the text and translate it.

2. What does the word “market” mean?

3. Suggest the Russian equivalents: a single living entity with a single conscious mind; a shorthand expression; to be reconciled by adjustment of smth.; a suitable part-time job; to offer high wages; to guide smb's decision; to cover the cost of smth.

4. Replace wordsby synonyms: at a distance, of the neighborhood, carried out, done; ask for, make certain that; buy, illness, managing, put up; rareness.

5. Do you agree with the described in the text role of the market?

 

MONEY: its history and functions

Money is used for buying or selling goods, for measuring value and for storing wealth. Almost every society now has a money econo­my based on coins and paper notes of one kind or another. However, this has not always been true. In primitive societies a system of barter was used. Barter was a system of direct exchange of goods. Somebody could exchange a sheep, for example, for anything in the market place that they considered to be of equal value. Barter, however, was a very 73

unsatisfactory system because people's precise needs seldom coincid­ed. People needed a more practical system of exchange, and various money systems developed based on goods which the members of a society recognized as having value. Cattle, grain, teeth, shells, feath­er, salt, tobacco have been used. Precious metals gradually took over because, when made into coins, they were portable, durable, recog­nizable and divisible into larger and smaller units of value.

A coin is a piece of metal, usually disc-shaped, which bears lettering, designs or numbers showing its value. Until the eighteenth and nine­teenth centuries coins were given monetary worth based on the exact amount of metal contained in them, but most modern coins are based on face value, the value that governments choose to give them, irrespective of the actual metal content. Coins have been made of gold (Au), silver (Ag), copper (Cu), aluminum (Al), nickel (Ni), plastic and in China even from pressed leaves. Gold proves to be the most popular. Since civiliza­tion began gold has been regarded as a symbol of power and wealth. In many societies gold was seen as a magic substance which could protect people against illness or evil spirits. Mankind never seems to have enough gold and the search for it has driven men mad. The need to search for gold has been compared to a disease, and is called 'gold fever'.

An incredible variety of items have served as money at various times and places, but all can be classified as either commodity money or fiat money. Commodity money is valuable apart from what it will buy. Gold, for example, is useful in jewelry or dentistry, even when it is not used for money. But some money is useless except when treated as money. Certain pieces of paper of which you would probably like (e.g. 100 dollar bills) are example of fiat money. Use of fiat money is ultimately based on faith-faith in its purchasing power, in its general acceptability, and in the stability of the government that issues it.

Most governments now issue paper money in the form of notes which are really promises to pay. Paper money is obviously easier to handle and much more convenient in the modern world. Cheques, bank­ers' cards, and credit cards are being used increasingly and it is possible to imagine a world where 'money' in the form of coins and paper currency will no longer be used. 74


Date: 2016-01-05; view: 885


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