Test on the video film. Task I. Before watching the film, make sure you know the following words and word combinations: - break-even point / analysis - cash flow - chief

A. Previewing task.

Task I. Before watching the film, make sure you know the following words and word combinations:

- break-even point / analysis - cash flow - chief executive officer (CEO) - consumerism - errors in planning - expenditures - management by objectives (MBO) - market share - promotional campaign - qualitative / quantitative approach - revenue / profit - variable

- to avoid failure - to be at one’s disposal - to deliver - to diminish risk - to evolve - to face / reduce uncertainty - to forecast competition - to have a loss - to launch a product / program - to measure performance - to predict / forecast / assess / control future events

B. While watching.

Task II. Match the business mentioned in the film with the reason for its failure:

1. a stainless Tubing Mill

2. a casualty insurance firm

3. a handsome resort hotel

a) faulty political predictions led to wrong assumptions about casino gambling

b) competition from lower priced Japanese products hadn’t been forecast

c) the top executives failed to calculate the advance that electronic computers would give to its competitors

 

Task III. Choose the forces that influence an early stage in the planning process:

governmental, political, environmental, geographic, economic, social

 

Task IV. Fill in the gaps using the words given below:

information, operations research, planning, break-even, ratios,

qualitative, quantitative

1. The techniques can be categorized as either … or … approaches.

2. The strategy has been called quantitative because of the type of information that is used: figures, …, and percentages.

3. The … tools that managers routinely use are designed to increase their understanding of the future environment.

4. The … analysis relates cost, revenues and production capacity.

5. The term … implies the use of scientific management techniques to analyze a problem and evaluate possible solutions.

6. Planning techniques provide the manager with … that reduces some uncertainty.

 

Task V. Translate the sentences into Russian:

1. Thousands of large and small firms have failed because of errors in planning.

2. That’s certainly a source of uncertainty, which makes it difficult for us to set any sort of course of action.

3. More recently, planning function has evolved into more complex patterns that generally decentralize this function.

4. The qualitative approach to making forecasts is based on the principle that the manager and his associates have most of the information they need to make forecasts.

5. The quantitative approach views objective data as the most reliable.

6. Neither qualitative nor quantitative strategy is the best in every instance. Each situation must be evaluated separately according to its own unique set of circumstances.

7. There are two kinds of predictive information: the first is a forecast of the future environment, the second is a forecast of the effect of the manager’s actions on that environment.

8. The tools of planning include all those methods, tactics and procedures that managers use to predict and control future events.

9. A budget is a schedule that shows inflows and outflows of cash, capital and other resources.

10. Game theory attempts to predict how competitors will respond to price changes, new promotional campaigns and new products.

 

C. Follow-up activities.

Task VI. Having watched the film, answer the following questions:

1. There are two “worst enemies” of good planning. What are they?

2. What are the tools of planning mentioned in the film? Try to give their brief characteristics.

3. Executives and managers must plan in the face of new forces in the environment. What are these forces?