Unit 1 communication

Communication is an essential part of everyday life. Lack of communication can prove to have detrimental effect on both
a person and business.
I am deeply convinced that efficiency of communication to a large extent depends on people. And it is directly connected
with communication skill of interacting people. Good communicators listen to people and take in what is said, they
maintain eye contact and have a relaxed body language, but they seldom interrupt people. Effective communicators are
good at giving information. They don’t confuse their listener. They make their pints clearly. Their speech is coherent,
eloquent and fluent. Whereas bad communicators usually ramble, they are inhibited and are not able to listen.
What is more, communication tools have improved, especially in the last ten years and the reason for that is introducing
of new communication channels, such as internet, mobile phones, etc. Moreover, nowadays, increasingly, apart of people
communicating with each other we have machine-to-machine communication. Machines are imbedded with
communication devices transferring information to information systems and computers worldwide.
It is generally recognized, that communication today is a lot easier and effective than it was just few years ago. However,
for some companies and people communication is still a sore point.
First of all, internal communication can prove to be one of the hardest nuts to crack in business. Communication comes
up in every department the repercussions of not communicating are vast. Ten years ago the problem with communication
was inextricably linked with long distances and huge amount of paperwork, but given today’s variety of communication
tools, it seems strange that we still have problems. But new-world of high-tech can create barriers: people are hiding
behind their computers. Employees sitting next to each other will send e-mails rather than speak. Moreover, information
overload forces people to spend more time checking and answering e-mails. Introducing of new e-mail systems and strict
rules might help with this problem.
Secondly, It is crucial to maintain communication inside the company but to establish good connections with other
companies. The problem is that employees develop common loyalties that are far stronger than the need to share
information. For example in the mid-1990s there were a lot of light air crashes on Australia caused by lack of
communication between two responsible departments. These departments both felt threatened because government was
trying to save money. The individuals were strongly identified with their companies and were unwilling to share
information. Some people assert, that identifying the subgroups within an organization and making sure each group feels
valued and respected can do far more to encourage the sharing of information.
Breakdowns in communication can seriously affect business. We are now living in information society whose foundation
is based on efficient communication. For example, breakdowns in A-traffic control system can lead to closure of airports
and resulting delay in frights globally. To avoid harmful implications companies and their suppliers are tied up with
agreements where they pay huge fines for delay in fixing communication system. So business is under constant pressure to
be accurate, targeted and timely.
All in all, communication is crucial for society. It has huge impact on all spheres of life, including business and personal
relations.
2. International marketing
Today more and more products and companies go international. They have already developed at the domestic market
and want to expand. They are for example Mc’Donalds, coca-cola, calvin klein, sony, Samsung etc.
When company go international, when it choose country for its work it should take into account many different factors
because some features of country’s economic can complicate company’s entering overseas market. The company should
estimate economic situation in whole, political stability, buying habits of this country, the profile of the buyer to
understand who would buy these products. also company should estimate income distribution, the income level to
understand would be can people pay for it. Another important question for expanding company is competition.
Then company should know how easy to trade there. Are there taxes, barriers, red tape? No doubt when the company go
international it faces with some problems. The typical problems in int. mark. Are challenges in different areas such as
languages, literacy, colour, culture, media, availability and so on.
And before company enter foreign market it should analyze all these challenges to will not be in upsetting situation. So
the company breaking into the foreign market should do market research, choose the right strategy, advertising campaign,
create brand image and after that it will launch a product.

International Marketing is becoming important in today's world of business! One reason it would become of importance
is the cause of a business life cycle. A business creates a product/service. It experiences the 'take off' which is at the start of
the cycle, then they experience the 'ascension' this is when the product is gaining credibility and starting to sell. Then it
comes to its 'peak' where your product/business is established and sales are at its best. However, you then have a decline
thereafter. Now, with International Marketing, you can market your product/service internationally and redo your
business's life cycle. More than 1 time, depending on how much countries you are marketing to. Also, your product/service
may seem suited better for an international market, rather than your own country of origin. You may develop a value-
added product which is too expensive for the purchasing power of country of origin, and you may need to look into
international markets to sell your product at a cost which is profitable to you.
 3. Building relationships.
If you’re eager to build strong relationships, it is essential to foster and encourage them all the time, otherwise they will
sour. The promising ones are those, which are set up on the basis of enthusiasm and mutual care.
So I totally agree with the words of famous American film-maker Woody Allen.You should constantly develop relations,
it is even more important if you try to establish business relations.
In my opinion, there are some key factors in setting stable business relationships.
Firstly, business relationships are about trust. That means you should be honest and transparent, a good person to rely
on, to deal with, not disposed to pass the buck. The best way to jeopardize and even damage relations – to let down your
partner, In that case it’s more than vital to set up open and sharing relationships.
Then you are to be clear, easy to understand. And, sure, so as to maintain and promote business relationships you should
give a quick response to your partner’s needs. In other words, you should make yourself valuable to the partner.
Moreover, understanding business culture is important too. While dealing with people, doesn’t matter if they are
business partners or not, it’s needable to take into account cultural differencies, personal habits etc. When doing business
in South America or in China you ought to bear in mind the peculiarities of face-to-face communications, traditions, beliefs
and so on. For instance, Chinese people are rather stable partners, they prefer to set up “long-standing” close relation,
improving them from time to time with expensive luxurious presents. So, to do business there you must win their respect
and trust, which is of hard work by the way. At the same time Americans aim to establish relations with as many influential
people with startling track record, as possible, for all that personal contacts are very important to them, so they usually
practice private talks before doing business to sound out some facts about the partner and to strengthen the relations.
And at any rate, in order to cement the relations it is very important to show interest to your partner, and refurbish
contacts from time to time. And than you’ll be of a sucess

4. Success
There is a wide range of success factors that make for successful individuals, products and companies.
A successful business is frequently a market leader; it always makes profit and is moving forward and interested in
innovation. Moreover, it has motivated stuff and loyal customer base. Its’ brand is world-famous and has an instantly
recognized logo. Shares, which are issued by a successful company, worth millions on the stock market. It has branches
and subsidiaries all over the world with headquarters in a prestigious location.
There is a good example of an electronic watch company that was established by a woman and had only six employees,
and now the company has over 500 employees. The success of the company was achieved through deliberate steps. A vast
opportunity was created by the advert of LCD watch technology. At the same time, Swiss manufactures overlooked the
phenomenal growth potential of the market, and as a result it was not difficult to enter market, as demand was greater
than supply. In a few years time, prices started to become very competitive as the retail market became saturated. So the
company developed new products such as gifts and luxury items, cut prices on some products and also switched its’
capacity to producing new product – clocks. And the company has become one of the best known manufactures in the
world. According to theу CEO of the company, their vision and strategic planning as well as utilizing some management
tool were crucial to the success. Furthermore, they used internet to promote products and developed a good customer
relationship management system. It all were based on three rules the company followed: be prepared, seize an
opportunity once it emerges and stay open-minded.
Nevertheless, the success of a company is bond with people. Different types of organization require different types of
leaders. Start-ups need dynamic, decisive and dedication entrepreneurs. Mature companies should have inspirational and
charismatic CEO, who can encourage stuff not to sit on the fence. Companies in crisis or difficulty require turnaround
specialists with their flexibility. Thus, different companies are looking for mangers and employees with different
personality make-ups.
Steve Jobs is the co-founder of Apple. Currently he is also the CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, famous for computer
animated films. He helped popularize the concept of the home computer with the Apple. He was fired from Apple by John
Sculley later rejoined the company and turned its fortunes around with the iPad. But not everybody knows that he was
dropped out of college and the Apple was founded in garage. Steve Job is an example of a successful person, who can use
his innate qualities and abilities efficiently.
There is also another way to achieve success, through nepotism or money and ruthlessness. Some People have powerful
of authoritative relatives and it is common knowledge that they probably just jump on the chance and will use their links.
To sum up, there are variable ways to achieve success. Each way requires certain qualifications. Moreover they are
different for companies, products and people. Anyway the first step on the way to success is consideration of strength and
weaknesses.
 5. job satisfaction
Do people really like their jobs? Definitely, everyone knows from the news about dissatisfied workers going on strike or
even acting violently toward their supervisors, directors, but overall people are quite satisfied with their jobs. According
to the surveys percentage of satisfied people averages in the US is about 85 percent. The feelings, reflecting attitudes
toward one’s job, are known as job satisfaction.
There are three most important parameters of job satisfaction. First, job satisfaction represents emotional reaction for
the situation lay at the office. It’s impossible to see it, it can be only experienced. Second, job satisfaction is defined often by
that extent how much results of work correspond to expectations. For instance, if organization employees see they work
much more, than other department employees, but receive less for that, more probably, they will have negative attitude
toward their job, supervisor and colleagues.
They will experience dissatisfaction feeling. From another hand, if they see, they get favorable attitude and materially
rewarded, their attitude toward the job will be positive. They will experience satisfaction feeling from their job.
Let’s mark several factors, influencing on Job Satisfaction. For example, last research show that if after college
graduation students are immediately employed according their specialization, then on the basis of both events coincidence
it’s probable to predict a following job satisfaction. 3 There are the main factors influencing on Job Satisfaction below:
Job itself. The main source of satisfaction is, of course, job itself. Thus, for instance, research, dedicated to job
characteristics and carried out in correlation with working place projecting, testify that the very content of work and
autonomy by its implementation represent two most important motivation factors correlated with labor. As research
indicated,
 3
other main components of job satisfaction are interesting and difficult job without time for tedium and job
giving a man one certain status.4
Payment. The system of money rewards is considered as a significant but multicomplex and multisided job
satisfaction factor. Money not only gives people an opportunity to satisfy their primary needs, but also fosters
satisfaction of higher levels needs. Employees more often perceive their salary’s level as a reflection of that how
management estimates their contribution to the company’s activity. Additional indulgences are also important,
but their role is less meaningful. One of the reasons is that employee more often have no the slightest idea about
the amount of received as indulgences. Moreover, many are prone to underestimate these indulgences; insofar
they do not see their practical value. Nonetheless, recent research indicated that if employees have an
opportunity to choose themselves to some extent independently indulgences from the whole package rendered
by the company that is named a flexible indulgences system, then they receive greater satisfaction from
indulgences receivables and the job in the whole.6
Job promotion. Promotion opportunities make different influence on job satisfaction. That comes because of
that promotions can be implemented in various forms and be accompanied with diverse rewards. For instance,
people receiving promotion for the length of service, although experience satisfaction from job but not in such an
extent as employees, which receive promotion for the results achieved. Aside from, job promotion with salary
increase of 10% usually does not give that pleasure as position promotion with a supplement of 20%. These
differences can explain, why promotions on the level of high management bring larger contenting than
advancements on the lower levels of organization.
Guidance. Guidance also represents moderately important factor by the analysis of job satisfaction. In some
other places the importance of leadership skills could be analyzed. Here it’s sufficient to restrict yourself with a
comment of that there are two main leadership parameters influencing on job satisfaction. First is an orientation
of the chief on the employee that is measured by the degree of getting interest of the management in his
colleagues’ favorability. As a rule, this interest exerts in that if chiefs verify the activity of their subordinate, give
advices regarding his work, support, and also treats him not only officially, formally, but also informally. In the
US employer are usually discontented with their principals just on the given parameter. For instance, recently
navigated questioning showed that less than half of respondents receive regular feedback and support in their
problems solving from the side of principals.7
Working groups. Direct affect on job satisfaction makes the very nature of work groups. Benevolent, ready to
come to help colleagues are personally a certain source of job satisfaction feeling for any individual. Working
group serves for a single office worker is a source of support, comfort, advice and enjoyment from the very job. A
“good” working group fosters a gaining of a greater joy and pleasure from job. On another hand, when the
opposite situation is observed, i.e. when it is hard to get along with the people, the given factor imposes negative
impact on job satisfaction.
Working conditions. One more factor imposing moderate impact on job satisfaction is working conditions. If
conditions are good (e.g. offices are neat and cosy, clean and engaging), staff could easier manage their job. If bad
working conditions were available (e.g. it is hot or noisy in the office), it would be more difficult for employees to
implement their work. Otherwise, working conditions affect job satisfaction similar to working group’s influence.
If all were favorably around, there would not be problems with job satisfaction.

7. Ecommerce
Until the recent few years, Ecommerce is getting more and more attention from entrepreneur and consumers,
both local and international. One of the main reasons is due to the highly successful operations of some well
known names on the Internet, such as eBay, Yahoo and Dell. The sales revenue these companies shown in their
annual reports are without doubt, one of the biggest factors why Ecommerce is important in the commercial
market nowadays.

Ecommerce proved its importance based on the fact where time is essence. In the commercial markets, time
plays an important role to both the business and consumers. From the business perspective, with less time spent
during each transaction, more transaction can be achieved on the same day. As for the consumer, they will save
up more time during their transaction. Because of this, Ecommerce steps in and replaced the traditional
commerce method where a single transaction can cost both parties a lot of valuable time. With just a few clicks in
minutes, a transaction or an order can be placed and completed via the internet with ease. For instance, a
banking transaction can be completed through the Internet within a few minutes compared to the traditional
banking method which may take up to hours. This fact obviously proves that Ecommerce is beneficial to both
business and consumer wise as payment and documentations can be completed with greater efficiency.

From the business viewpoint, Ecommerce is much more cost effective compared to traditional commerce
method. This is due to the fact where through Ecommerce, the cost for the middleperson to sell their products
can be saved and diverted to another aspect of their business. One example is the giant computer enterprise,
Dell, which practice such a method by running most of their business through internet without involving any
third parties. Aside from that, marketing for Ecommerce can achieve a better customer to cost ratio as putting an
advertisement on the internet is comparably much cheaper than putting up a roadside banner or filming a
television commercial. For Ecommerce, the total overheads needed to run the business is significantly much less
compared to the traditional commerce method. The reason due to that is where most of the cost can be reduced
in Ecommerce. For example, in running an Ecommerce business, only a head office is needed rather than a head
office with a few branches to run the business. In addition to that, most of the cost for staff, maintenance,
communications and office rental can be substitute by a single cost, web hosting for the Ecommerce business.

To both the consumers and business, connectivity plays an important part as it is the key factor determining the
whole business. From the business point of view, Ecommerce provides better connectivity for its potential
customer as their respective website can be accessed virtually from anywhere through Internet. This way, more
potential customers can get in touch with the company's business and thus, eliminating the limits of geographical
location. From the customer standpoint, Ecommerce is much more convenient as they can browse through a
whole directories of catalogues without any hassle, compare prices between products, buying from another
country and on top of that, they can do it while at home or at work, without any necessity to move a single inch
from their chair. Besides that, for both consumers and business, Ecommerce proves to be more convenient as
online trading has less red tape compared to traditional commerce method.

In global market sense, the appearance of Ecommerce as a pioneer has opened up various windows of
opportunities for a variety of other companies and investors. For instance, due to the booming of Ecommerce,
more and more resources are being directed into electronic securities, internet facilities, business plans and new
technologies. In result of this phenomenon, a variety of new markets have emerged from Ecommerce itself giving
a boost to the global market.

In short, if without any major obstacles, Ecommerce will certainly continue to mature in the global market and
eventually, it will become an essential business plan for a company in order to survive and stay competitive in
the ever changing market.

8. team building
Nowadays it’s necessary to be able to work in team. It’s very important to build a successful team. but on the
other hand it’s difficult. But if the company wants to be successful in business everyone in the organization must
work together to increase revenue, maximize profits and keeps costs down. It’s possible if every team member is
focusing on the main objectives of the organization.
For building effective team it’s important to have a corporate culture that encourages teamwork. Also every
member of team should understand what is expected of them and must feel that his job is valued by the
management. So team members must receive feedback regularly on their performance. But everyone should
understand that good team work depends on everyone in team.
 And person should have many features for it. He should be communicative, enthusiastic, flexible, loyal,
sociable, tolerant and so on.
But in my opinion the key factor of team building is a good team leader. Of course it’s not always easy to be a
good team player. He must share his knowledge with colleagues, compromise his own views for the good of the
whole, should be honest. Much time should be spent in some form of group activity. And as a result the most
effective teams are able to solve problems more easily that one person can.
Making teams more productive is a constant issue for most managers. Productivity is, of course, the essence of
what makes businesses competitive, but it is particularly important in times of economic slowdown such as the
one we are currently experiencing.
A common pitfall seen in business organizations is the confusion between a "group" and a "team." With "team"
being a buzzword in today's business world, we often think that any work in which various people work together
is, by definition, a team. This is a gross error. We have always worked as a group. A restaurant, for example, is a
group in which there is a general manager, cooks, waiters and waitresses, cleaning people, and so on. Each
person performs specific tasks given to them by management, and each person is evaluated according to how
well he has done the task at hand. They work as a group, but not as a team.
A team is also a collective, but as opposed to a group, decisions are shared, the rules are internally established,
and the rewards (or punishments) are shared by all. Companies often actively push team-building since they
force people to cooperate with one another, thus getting rid of the usual internal fighting that costs companies
plenty. However, not all activities should be handled as teams, because one problem with the team concept is
that it usually requires more time as decisions have to be reached as a consensus rather than by the unilateral
moves of a manager.
To make teams more productive, you need to consider the purpose of the task at hand. Are you trying to repeat
established processes in more efficient ways? In this case, the composition of groups or teams need to be more
homogenous, since people who think alike are likely to get results faster. Productivity-oriented teams need to
focus on procedures that are either not followed, or followed slowly.
Making teams more productive is a constant issue for most managers. Productivity is, of course, the essence of
what makes businesses competitive, but it is particularly important in times of economic slowdown such as the
one we are currently experiencing.
A common pitfall seen in business organizations is the confusion between a "group" and a "team." With "team"
being a buzzword in today's business world, we often think that any work in which various people work together
is, by definition, a team. This is a gross error. We have always worked as a group. A restaurant, for example, is a
group in which there is a general manager, cooks, waiters and waitresses, cleaning people, and so on. Each
person performs specific tasks given to them by management, and each person is evaluated according to how
well he has done the task at hand. They work as a group, but not as a team.
A team is also a collective, but as opposed to a group, decisions are shared, the rules are internally established,
and the rewards (or punishments) are shared by all. Companies often actively push team-building since they
force people to cooperate with one another, thus getting rid of the usual internal fighting that costs companies
plenty. However, not all activities should be handled as teams, because one problem with the team concept is
that it usually requires more time as decisions have to be reached as a consensus rather than by the unilateral
moves of a manager.
To make teams more productive, you need to consider the purpose of the task at hand. Are you trying to repeat
established processes in more efficient ways? In this case, the composition of groups or teams need to be more
homogenous, since people who think alike are likely to get results faster. Productivity-oriented teams need to
focus on procedures that are either not followed, or followed slowly.
Sometimes these teams may need to recommend changes in procedures, and should work with a measurement
mentality. Productivity is, after all, the measure by which we count how much is produced for each labor hour.
Finally, teams that search for a more productive way of doing established tasks should recommend changes only
when the change in productivity will be significant. Changes, after all, usually come with much pain, and they are
not worth the time and effort if they yield only a mild improvement.
The second, and probably more important, role of teams is to generate innovations. These innovations are
often oriented to developing new products, but they may also be used to generate major changes in the structure
of a department or the whole organization, changes of working climates, and so on.
In developing new products, teams need to be highly creative. Generally, diversity in teams yields creative
results, since blending different mentalities and viewpoints makes for an innovative outcome. Managers need to
give these teams lots of time and space, since creativity is not a process that can be forced.
While the eventual success of innovativeness will be measured in terms of profits, as any other business
process, internally teams should focus on how innovative the results are, since innovativeness is what generates
product differentiation with competitors. In my opinion, teams that create innovations should not be involved at
all in testing or evaluating how "realistic" they will be once in the market. I would recommend this chore to a
different group or team of people, and let the innovative teams continue generating new ideas.
The issue of generating working teams is much more complex than what is indicated in this brief essay. But
this summary should provide managers with the basic road to follow in order to make teams more productive
and creative.
9. Raising finance.
Lend only that which you can afford to lose.
When the company is growing rapidly, when it needs to finance its expansion plans it can turn out, that the
company doesn’t have enough financial resourses . In that case it needs to consider raising finance from other
external sources.
There are a number of potential resources of finance to meet the needs of a growing company:
- Existing shareholders’ and directors’ funds
- Business angels
- Clearing banks (overdrafts, short or medium term loans)
- Bank overdrafts, which allow company to overdraw their current account. They are usually
secured on current assets.
- Hire purchaise and leasing- provide finance for the acquisition of specific assets such as cars,
machinery etc.
- Merchaint banks (medium and long term loans)
- Venture capital – is intended to invest in start-ups and growing businesses. It’s a good source of
equity finance.
The key decision company should make, whether it will choose an equity or debt as a source of finance.
The main differences between borrowed money and equity are that in case of debt – company risks with
business assets and even personal assets of shareholders. It is always at a risk of being placed into
administration, if it defaults on debt interest. While in case of equity, investors take a risk of failure like other
shareholders.
As we can see raising finance is extremely risky process, for both lender and borrower.
Regarding lenders, it worth mentioning, that they take their chances not to get money back when due, for
instance, if borrower is a company, which has gone bust.
Nevertheless, in my opinion, a borrower risks more than lender. First of all, investors or lenders usually
differentiate their investing, so that in case if one project will not succeed they still will have a chance to have
profit from other projects. While a borrower has to pay the money he borrowed anyway, no matter has he any
profit or not. Moreover, there is always a chance that if you lend money to a right person for a right project you’ll
have money for old rope. In addition, lender may reject a request for a loan, that can be jeopardizing for a
borrower. To avoid this risk, borrower can persevere and try to find another lender, but it is vital to work on
some certain areas, for example produce a more convincing business plan, improve credit rating,etc.
To sum up, business is always connected with high risk, no matter are you a borrower or lender. You should
carefully consider all risks, and only then make a decision to lend or to borrow money. But business is a risk, and
if you are ready to risk, it worth it

10. Customer service

Most anyone will agree that customer service is one of the most important parts of your company's overall
strategy to conducting business. Without customers you really don't have a business. If this is the case, why is it
mostly everyone as consumers can easily cite examples of poor customer service in their daily lives? I believe
every company either has or thinks it has good customer service. However, if certain steps are not taken to
ensure this, the reality of their situation is often far worse than their current perceptions.
In any organization the commitment to customer service begins at the top. The company's leaders must buy
into the fact that they not only need to meet their customer's expectations, but actually strive to exceed them.
They must develop a company culture that understands this concept. In today's world competition is tougher
than ever. If you can't provide goods or services when somebody wants them, there are often four or five other
companies ready to fill this void. You rarely get a second chance once you drop the ball. If the company's leaders
do not accept this fact, or are not willing to provide the necessary resources to meet their customer's needs, they
will soon find themselves scrambling for business.

Proper training is one way to develop a company culture that embraces excellent customer service. Every
employee must understand what is expected of them when interacting with customers. Is there a uniform way to
answer the phone? Are there set procedures in place when a customer has a question or problem? Is there an
established chain of command to make sure that issues are handled in a timely fashion? And most importantly is
everyone trained to carry out these company procedures? How you handle the problem is far more important
than the problem itself. A customer must always feel their best interests are being taken into consideration, even
when you can't give in to their demands. It is far better to say no with a smile, than yes with an attitude.
Getting feedback from your customers is an excellent way to track and measure your level of service. You
should not only benchmark your company against your competition, but also against the goals you set for
yourself.

 Once again you must remember you are trying to not only meet, but exceed your customer's expectations.
Written surveys are one way to gage customer satisfaction. This can be useful to obtain feedback on a wide
variety of company functions. Always allow for written comments, as these usually will help shed light on
problem areas. Management's interaction with customers is an excellent way to not only measure overall efforts,
but to also show the level of commitment the company has towards their needs. You always feel better if you
have the chance to talk to someone who actually sets policy, not just someone paid to carry it out.
In today's world of bigger, faster, better you need to be the company that gets it right the first time, and if you
don't, you quickly rectify your mistakes. If you consistently make this part of how you conduct business, your
customer's loyalty will continue to grow. Meeting and exceeding the customer's expectations in the products and
service you provide today, is the best way to ensure future growth and success.

11. Crisis management

Crisis is an ambiguous phenomenon. Crisis is a difficult situation that affects performance but at the same time
provides people with opportunities to improve their performance. When written in Chinese, the word crisis
compounded of two characters – one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.
It is generally recognized, that crisis can arise in varied spheres of life. There are personal crisis, mid-age crisis,
adolescent crisis, economic, domestic, currency crisis, financial crisis etc. Any kind of crisis can prove to be
detrimental, so it should be managed as soon as possible.
The implications of previous world economic crisis are still affecting the whole business world. Many
researches were devoted to the problem of crisis management.
Crisis management experts have identified steps for companies in a crisis. First of all, before crisis, the crisis
management program should be written down, also companies should try to predict upcoming crisis and
practice making decisions under stress by role play a potential crisis. Secondly, during the crisis, a crisis
management team should be set up, you directors should be informed, and the last but not the least important
step is to disclose as much information as you can. As soon as crisis is gone, the company should find out what
happened and why it happened, analyze all actions the company took to deal with the situation, and finally, work
out an action plan to ensure the crisis does not happen again.
However, frequently, the crisis arises suddenly. And managers should make decisions and take actions fast.
If poor handled the consequences of the crises can be bad public relations, desertion by customers and even
lawsuits. Every failure is bound to create a dissatisfied customer, which in turn creates other problems for the
company.
Thus, there are some basic principles of successful crisis management. The first is early recognition of the
problem. The second principle is accepting responsibility. Once responsibility is accepted, the two most urgent
needs for the company to address are communication and compensation. Those companies who communicate
truthfully can have a chance to recover after crisis. For example, Heineken was face with the problem of having
bottles of beer with glass in them, those were in more than 150 markets. But through open communication and
response they successfully managed the recall and maintained brand confidence.

A crisis is defined by the dictionary as a 'critical moment or turning point.'  A business book, on the other
hand, might define a crisis as a substantial, unforeseen circumstance that can potentially jeopardize a company's
employees, customers, products, services, fiscal situation, or reputation.  Both definitions contain an element of
urgency that requires immediate decisions and actions from people involved.   
Crisis Management is the process of preparing for and responding to an unpredictable negative event to
prevent it from escalating into an even bigger problem, or worse, exploding into a full-blown, widespread, life-
threatening disaster.  Crisis management involves the execution of well-coordinated actions to control the
damage and preserve or restore public confidence in the system under crisis.   
In the context of corporate governance, excellent crisis management is a 'must' whenever a crisis occurs
because of the crisis' enormous potential impact on the company's reputation and financial standing.   Poor
handling of a crisis situation can ruin the confidence of the customers or the public in a company and jeopardize
its survival, a situation that normally takes a long time to correct, if it still is reparable at all. Such is the
importance of public perception of a company's handling of a crisis situation that media coverage management
has become an important ingredient of crisis management.             
In fact, the definition given by the American Institute for Crisis Management (ICM) for the word 'crisis'
underscores the association of a crisis with media coverage by default.  ICM defines 'crisis' as "a significant
business disruption which stimulates extensive news media coverage. The resulting public scrutiny will affect the
organization's normal operations and also could have a political, legal, financial, and governmental impact on its
business."                         
Crisis management doesn't start only when a crisis arises and ends when 'the last fire has been put out'.  Crisis
management requires actions before a crisis happens, while the crisis is unfolding, and after the crisis has
ended. In fact, crisis management is divided into these three stages: 1) pre-incident stage, which involves
identification of potential crisis situations and developing contingency plans for responding to each of them;  2)
incident stage, which involves management of an ongoing actual crisis situation itself; and 3) post-incident
stage, which includes corrective and preventive actions to preclude the recurrence of the same crisis situation
and business recovery actions to restore public confidence in the brand or the company.                  
There are many different ideas or theories on how to best manage a crisis situation.   These differing ideas,
nonetheless, have some common elements:  1) the need to anticipate potential crisis situations and prepare for
them; 2)  the need to provide accurate information during a crisis; 3) the need to react as quickly as possible to
the situation; 4) the need for a response that comes from the top; and 5) the need for long-term solutions.     
Anticipating potential crisis situations that a company may encounter and formulating and documenting
contingency action plans for them are a basic requirement of any crisis management program.   These plans
should also be well-rehearsed by all employees, so the conduct of regular drills is also needed. Any company
must be prepared to deal with fires, bomb threats, personnel violence, and natural disasters such as earthquakes
and tornadoes.  In the semiconductor industry, the discovery of a life-threatening device reliability issue,
process gas leaks, hazardous chemical spills, and even the sudden loss of a major supplier are examples of crisis
situations.   
One of the hardest things to contend with during a crisis is the craving of customers or the public for a
constant supply of information.  Accurate information pertaining to a crisis are often not readily available at
once, and are too bitter to announce to the public once they become available.  If the crisis does not concern the
public, then a company may get away with staying quiet about it.                  
Otherwise, the press will usually be all over the place within hours.  In such a case, there is no choice - most
experts agree that it is better to provide accurate information, no matter how painful they sound, than to
manipulate the situation by giving false information to the public, which often backfires with tremendous
repercussions.  Thus, a company that has developed a culture of internal secrecy and manipulation is of great
disadvantage in this respect, because they would find it difficult to provide honest information and subsequently
resort to the thing they usually do: hide the truth. PR work for high-profile crises is something that any
management team must be well-trained for.    
Being indecisive, playing time, or inability to get accurate information quickly can be disastrous during a
crisis.  Management must act swiftly and decisively to contain the problem, assess affected goods, ensure
business continuity, allay public fears, and preserve company reputation even while the crisis is still unfolding.  
Since a crisis by definition is unpredictable, a company needs to have a system for assembling a crisis
management team that knows what to do within an hour after a crisis occurs, 24 hours  day, all year long.     
The visibility of top management people during a crisis is highly recommended by experts because it assures
the public that the problem is getting due corporate attention.  Management must also actively pursue long-term
corrective and preventive actions to avoid being in the same crisis situation again.    
A comprehensive crisis management program includes the following components: 1) an emergency response,
which consists of all activities pertaining to safe management of immediate physical, health, and environmental
effects of the crisis; 2) business continuity, or the company's ability to continue delivering goods and services
despite the crisis; 3) crisis communications, which pertains to the internal and external PR management
activities during a crisis; 4) humanitarian assistance, or the company's efforts to alleviate the physical,
emotional, and psychological effects of the crisis on other people; and 5) drills and exercises that allow
personnel to rehearse what they need to do in a crisis situation.

12. management styles

There is no ideal management style.
There is a great variety of management styles. Autocratic, liberal, task-or team-oriented and others. But some
experts believe, all of them could be easily devided into three basic ones: directing, delegating and discussing. In
my opinion each has it’s advantages and disadvantages, but we can hardly decide if one of them is better, than
the others.
So, I totally agree, that it is next to impossible to outline ideal management style. For all that, I’m sure, I can
name the worst one – directing management. Regarding this style, I should list it’s key points:
-The manager is not interested in any feedback, but only in task-accomplishment
-The manager doesn’t listen to his subordinates, but only directs them as to what actions to take, and what
results to perform.
- in most cases such managers are not prone to encourage creativity, and expect their employees to stick to the
plan, hence the staff, under the constant pressure, is not enthusiastic about their job.
However, I should mention, this style can appear to be successful, especially concerning Russian business, in
conditions of economical uncertainty .
Moving on to the next management style, discussing style, it’s of reason to mention its main defining points:
- Manager takes every given opportunity to discuss the essential business issues
- These discussion turn out to be extremely efficient, for the employees come up with creative and
promising ideas, learn to ask questions, to listen to their colleagues and to sound out new information,
after all.
- Manager performs the role of advisor, adjusting the problems and encouraging subordinates for
a discussion.
To sum up, this management style is very efficient and wide spread among the most successful international
companies.
Speaking of the last, delegating style, I can mention, it combines some points of directing style and some of
discussing one:
-Manager gives an authority and responsibility to his employees
-manager highlights problems, sets goals, monitors the results, but the way of task accomplishing isn’t of
special interest for him
- the problem is, that in case of a failure the burden of responsibility will take the employees, that’s the bad
news for them.
Nevertheless, this management style is sure to be efficient, if only subordinates keep manager informed when
the plan is off track, or don’t want to pass the buck.
In conclusion, I’m sure, that all of styles, listed above, can be successful, but it is worth combining them in order
to achieve an outstanding performance.