In Company Intermediate second edition

Part A 2.22
A: OK, this brings us on to the next item on our agenda this morning, which is
online business. Now, I know some of you are concerned about the recent
performance of E-Stock, our online subsidiary. So I’ve asked Gary Cale, our new
head of e-business, to bring us up to date. Over to you, Gary.
B: Thanks, Michelle. To start off, then, I know you have all seen the figures up to
the last quarter – disappointing to say the least. Nine months ago, when we first went
online, we were getting over 250,000 hits a day. Three months ago, when I joined this
company, we were getting just 60,000 and it was obvious we were failing to attract
sufficient customers to our website. So, what was going wrong? In a word,
technology. The problem was not the service we were offering, but the website itself.

Part B 2.23
B: Now, three things make a good website. First, access to the website must be
fast. The slow access speed of our website meant people were getting bored waiting
for pages to load and simply going somewhere else. Second, a good website must be
easy to use. Ours was so complicated, customers sometimes didn’t know if they were
buying or selling! And third, a good website must have excellent search engines. Ours
didn’t. To give you an example of what I mean, a fault we hadn’t noticed in the
programming caused fifteen hundred people to invest in a company that didn’t even
exist. Yes, embarrassing. I’m glad I wasn’t here to take the blame for that one!

OK, to move on. Greenbaum-Danson is unquestionably one of the world’s leading

financial services companies. We’re the biggest, oldest and most respected firm in the
business. But to succeed in online stock trading, to succeed in any area of e-business,
you need a first-class website. So, creating a first-class website was our first priority.
The next thing was Internet advertising, winning back the customer confidence we’d
lost. That’s a longer job, but we’re making progress. The final thing, and this always
takes time in e-business, will be to actually make a profit. Well, we can dream!

Part C 2.24
B: Have a look at this. It’s a graph showing the number of trades our customers
make per day on our website. As you can see, the figure was fluctuating for the first
three months and then fell sharply to bottom out at just 10,000 trades a day. For a
In Company Intermediate End of course test, Class Audio CD2 tracks 22-24 1
In Company Intermediate second edition

company of our size, that wasn’t too impressive. But look. We’re up to nearly 40,000
trades now, our highest ever, and still rising.

OK, I’m going to break off in a minute and take questions. So, to sum up. One,
improvements in our website have led to more hits and increased trading. Two,
advertising on the Internet will help us win back customers. Three, profits will follow.
E-trading in stocks is the future. In the US alone it’s the way a quarter of the public
choose to buy their shares. This is the information age and the Internet is the ultimate
information provider. I’m reminded of what banker Walter Wriston once said:
‘Information about money is becoming more valuable than money itself.’ Thank you.

In Company Intermediate End of course test, Class Audio CD2 tracks 22-24 2