Corporate Reviews

Products can be sold as unbranded commodities. Raw materials, for example, are still treated in this way. Nowadays branding is becoming increasingly dominant. It is becoming important even in the supply of industrial components and in unbranded areas such as vegetables.

What is the power of brands? Before answering this question I would like to ask a few more. Would you buy unpackaged, unbranded breakfast cereal from an itinerant street-trader? Would you buy perfume as a present for a female relative if it came in an unlabelled brown bottle? Would you buy an anonymous microcomputer from an anonymous source? Your answer will be a resounding ”No”. It is quite natural. Branding saves us a lot of time as consumers. A simple word or two comes to represent a wealth of associations, for us and for others and can offer detailed expectations. So, that we don`t need to ponder on the possibly murky channels used by the trader in obtaining supplies of breakfast cereal. We know our female relative will like the perfume. We also know the range of compatible software for the microcomputer. Consumers learn to rely upon brand names when evaluating competing products. In services the situation is alike. Branding can serve the consumer by offering consistent identified services which may reduce confusion and save on search time.

The main options in brand strategy. A company can sell under its own brand or under that of another company. In the latter case it is often a retailer`s own label. Some companies attempt to obtain the benefits of both strategies by family branding and at the same time having several sub-brands.

Nowadays it is rather difficult to find a company which is not concerned with its corporate story. Sites of the companies are flashy with these stories starting from the very day of foundation of a company. Owners write books about the history of their company, tell stories on the TV and in the newspapers and even become the prototypes in the movies. And finally, there appears such a halo of the heroism around those tycoons, who was just recently abused in the mass media.

Life in the open. It is very important for the customers and business partners to know everything about the company. Everyday the system of the business grows and each and every company develops and acquires a new quality of the services or products provided. This means a gradual transition on the higher level, where the relations with the investors, customers and personnel are weightier and need another level of quality of the approach. That is why the corporate story is a tool of the home and foreign policy of the companies. The corporate story is needed especially when company goes public – to get your stocks placed you have to show all the skeletons from your closet. Or in such markets as banking and finance, insurance or real estate the lack of facts in the background can lead to unfortunate results and loss of the customers. These companies have to be transparent and express stability with the help of a corporate story.

Corporate story and corporate legend. The notions of the corporate story and corporate legend differ quite a lot. The first one is the report consisting of the facts and figures, and the other one is the incentives for the customers and raise of the corporate culture. But both of them are of high importance, but that information which is interested for the investor is not interested for the staff and vise versa. The main difference is that corporate legends get more human – they have personalities such as owners or managers.

In today`s multicultural and global business environment knowing a lot about your area of expertise isn`t enough. The ability to get along with others, demonstrate good manners and make others feel comfortable is becoming increasingly important to career success. Without these skills you risk losing customers, support of colleagues and associates.

The changes in work environment. We have all noticed how informal the work environment has become. Have a look at the way we dress, meet, greet and interact with one another. Even business interaction has become more casual. There are increasingly sensitive issues to be aware of as we work and cooperate with a variety of people from different cultures and countries. No matter how bright or intelligent a person may appear, landing the job or success at work will not happen without good human relation skills. That`s where business etiquette comes in. Where do our students learn and develop the skills they need to maneuver in an even more complex society? Many of our students don`t learn these skills at home. They don`t know how to handle very basic social or business situations. Many of them are comfortable with casual family gatherings but are not familiar with more formally organized events. If they are not learning such things at home, someone else must give them a hand. But the question is: who. Business etiquette skills are very important especially for the students of economic specialities. Future human resources managers, economists, finance managers are to be able to handle different business situations which need the skills of etiquette.

How to integrate business etiquette into the course of English? A foreign language teacher can do a lot in this area. He can organize a lot of various activities devoted to teaching business etiquette. At such lessons and seminars students can discuss table manners, review the basic table settings. The teacher can present workshops where students can learn the main rules of writing resume, formal dressing, the rules of introduction. We are living in a new millennium and becoming reliant on technology as our primary means of communication with each other. It`s a teacher`s responsibility to assist students in becoming proficient in human, social and business relations. Success in the business world will be impossible without these skills.