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T a s k 13.
A. Understanding main points
Read the text about how businesses will be organised in the future and answer these questions.
1. Which of these statements gives the best summary of the ideas in the article?
a) New communications technologies enable information to be shared instantly across the world.
b) In the future most people will be self-employed or will work as freelancers.
c) Companies are having to restructure due to developments in electronic communications.
2. What exactly do the authors mean by the term 'e-lance economy'?
a) Most work inside large companies will be done using e-mail and computers.
b) In the future tasks will be done by individuals and small companies linked to the Internet.
c) Business between companies will increasingly be done through the Internet.
В. Understanding details
Mark these statements T (true) or F (false) according to the information in the text. Find the part of the text
that gives the correct information.
1. Big corporation will soon go out of business – F.
2. There is a move towards decentralisation of decision-making in many companies.
3. Many companies are now experiencing cash flow and similar financialproblems.
4. No more than 10 per cent of workers in the US work for the top 500 companies.
5. ABB and BP Amoco have sold many parts of their businesses.
6. Large organisations can save money by centralising all transactions.
7. Computer companies have decentralised their decision-making process.
8. It is possible that the shape and structure of companies will be very different inthe future.
T a s k 14. Before you read discuss these questions.
1. Can there be such a thing as a 'world car'? Or should cars be designed to suit the tastes of different mar-
kets? What are the financial and marketing implications?
2. Which do you think is better for an international company – strong central control of international op-
erations or decentralised decision-making? Does it depend on the business the company is in?
FINANCIAL TIMES WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 15
Case study: Ford and Honda
Haig Simonian on two car groups' different routes to the global market Rising costs and the worldwide spread
of shared tastes in car styling have prompted the industry's giants to exploit global
5 economies of scale. But rivals such as Ford and Honda have approached the task very differently. Ford is
one of the world's earli-
10 est multinationals. Its first foreign production unit was set up in Canada in 1904 – just a year after the
creation of the US parent. For years Ford operated on a regional
15 basis. Individual countries or areas had a large degree of auton omy from the US headquarters. That meant
products differed sharply, depending on local execu-
20 tives' views of regional require ments. In Europe the company built different cars in the UK and Germany
until the late 1960s. Honda, by contrast, is a much
25 younger company, which grew rapidly from making motorcycles in the 1950s. In contrast to Ford, Honda
was run very firmly out of Japan. Until well into the 1980s, its
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