DESCRIBING A CHART

ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS

PART 1

Ditta Aditya
Unit 5 (BP 2)

Hello, everybody.
I hope you’re all _1_enjoying________ your first week with 2_us__. I
was 3___asked____ to give you a short presentation about the
4__company_______.

First I want to tell you something about our 5__sales_____

_figures_________. Last year, we 6 exported______ products
7__worth____ 50 million US dollars to _8 Asia___, compared with
9__48_ million the year before last. That was really good, but the
10_figures____ for this 11_year___ are even 12_better____. We’ve
13_exported____ 14_goods____ worth 52 million US dollars to Asia
so far, and we expect the 15_final____ figure for this year to be the
16__highest__ in the 17_history____ of the company. That’s the
good 18__news__.
However, while ______ to Asia have _______, exports to Europe have
________. Last year exports to Europe ____ compared with the year
before, and in fact we had the best ______ ever. _______, there’s been
a ________ crisis in Europe and as a _______ our export there have
______ this year.
Vocabulary used in presentation
Greeting Your Audience
1. Good morning/afternoon/evening, everyone.
2. Welcome to [name of event].
3. First, let me introduce myself. I am [name] from
[company].
Beginning Your Presentation
• Let me start by giving you some background information
• As you’re aware, …

Transitioning to the Next Topic

• Let’s move on to…
• Turning our attention now to…

Providing More Details

• I’d like to expand on…
• Let me elaborate further.
Linking to Another Topic
• As I said at the beginning, …
• This relates to what I was saying earlier…
• This ties in with…

Emphasizing a Point
• The significance of this is…
• This is important because…
• We have to remember that …

Making Reference to Information

• Based on our findings, …
• According to our study, …
• Our data shows …
Speaker:
'Let me start the first part of the presentation, with an
overview of current employee under-performance. But
what does employee under-performance mean?
Basically, employees don't do what they are capable
of, with the time and resources available.
Allow me to demonstrate this by showing you a Bar
Chart. This is a bar chart from a well-known
multinational retail company. It shows that over a
ten-year period, between 1998 and 2008, that their
relative labour cost for each product they sold
increased every year. Over the ten years, that
meant a 15% increase. Now, lets ask ourselves why
this happened? Did the number of staff increase?
Yes, it did up to 2006! Did wages increase higher
than inflation? No they didn't! Did other costs fall?
Yes they did. So while there were efficiency savings
in other areas of the business, like in Information
Technology etc..., labour was becoming relatively
more expensive.
This isn't a one-off case. This next graph demonstrates that this is a
trend affecting all companies. It shows the average staff costs as a
percentage of total costs over the last 5 years for the top 100
companies in the UK. The average staff costs is represented by the
red line, while the dotted blue line shows overall costs. As you can
see, whilst overall costs fell by roughly 15% over the last 5 years, the
actual average staff costs as a percentage of overall costs increased
by over 10% over the same period. And this is just an average, in
some cases it increased by almost 15%.
 This isn't a one-off case. This next graph demonstrates that this is
a trend affecting all companies. It shows the average staff costs as a
percentage of total costs over the last 5 years for the top 100
companies in the UK. The average staff costs is represented by the
red line, while the dotted blue line shows overall costs. As you can
see, whilst overall costs fell by roughly 15% over the last 5 years,
the actual average staff costs as a percentage of overall costs
increased by over 10% over the same period. And this is just an
average, in some cases it increased by almost 15%.
I think that you can agree that this is unsustainable. Companies cannot
be competitive in the long-term whilst their staff are becoming
increasing inefficient and relatively more expensive.

Let me illustrate this with an example. You all remember the

American company Samson & Heat? They went bankrupt this July.
What do you think the fundamental reason was? Falling sales? Maybe
it contributed, but other companies faced similar problems and are still
here today! Their fundamental problem was that their overall relative
staff costs had risen by just under 30% in the last 10 years, over
inflation. To put it is simply, they were out-priced by their competitors.'
Try these:
1. A line on a chart that is made up of small circles, is dotted______
2. A polite way to say 'this next example confirms what I've just said',
is ‘let me illustrate this with’
3. A different way to say 'shows' or 'confirms', is demonstrates
4. Another way to say 'by nearly', is by almost
5. A phrase that describes the quantity of time a graph or chart
covers, is Shows that over a ten-year period

1. A way to focus people's attention on a chart or graph etc..., is As

you can see
7. Another way to say 'by about', is __by roughly____
8. A different way to say that something is not an exception, is
Isn’t a one-off case

9. A way to inform people what the different lines, bars etc... on a

chart/graph are for, is Is represented by

10. Another way to say 'by above', is by over

Shows that over a ten-year period
Isn’t a one-off case
Demonstrates
Is represented by
Dotted
As you can see
By roughly
By over
Some other vocabulary to use:
 Verbs: rise, increase, grow, go up to, climb, boom, peak, fall, decline,
decrease, drop, dip, go down, reduce, level up, remain stable, no
change, remain steady, stay constant, stay, maintain the same level,
crash, collapse, plunge, plummet (in high speed).

 Adjectives: sharp, rapid, huge, dramatic, substantial, considerable,

significant, slight, small, minimal, massive.

 Adverbs: dramatically, rapidly, hugely, massive, sharply, steeply,

considerably, substantially, significantly, slightly, minimally, markedly.

 There is also a list of adverbs to describe the speed of a change:

rapidly, quickly, swiftly, suddenly, steadily, gradually, slowly.