U N IT 4 H SUCCESS
Read this news report and identi fy nine common prefixes.
Rabbit, t h e successful mobile phone
company, has renamed itself
ChirChat Media as part of its effort
to establish itself worldwide.
Although some industry
commentators see the name change
as risky and an indication of their
overconfidence, the company
continues to outperform all its rivals
in the competitive telecoms market.
In a statement, co-founder and CEO
Markus Danton said that it was an
exciting time for the company and
that its achievements had been
underestimated in the past. He went
on ro say, 'We are a n u l tramodern
I]
D Cross out the word in each group that does not follow the prefix in bold.
liJ
EXAMPLE: multinational
company taking the next logical
step ro achieve our aim of becoming
the leading company in the sector
worldwide.'
He denied reports of problems in
the recently entered Asian markets,
claiming journa lists had been
misi nformed. His ex-business
partner Darius Schnell, who left the
company less than three months
ago, was nor available for
comment. Many experts feel M r
Schnell's contributions r o the
success of the company have been
devalued in recent press reports
since his hasty exit last N o v ember.
Match the prefixes in Exercise A to these meanings.
1 too much 4 extremely 7 with
2 better / more than 5 former 8 too little
3 badly 6 opposite 9 again
1 under perform I rate I charge I j7fflftf
2 co producer I worker I boss I author
3 re launch I engineer / locate I decide
4 over spend I lose I estimate I supply
5 mis manage I judge I look I calculate
6 out win I produce I bid I class
7 ultra efficient / cautious / modern I big
8 ex boss I director I employee I staff
9 de merge I grow I nationalise I regulate
Complete these sentences with words from Exercise C in the correct form.
1 Several sales staff <:' 'l � err e r fr. r� �� last year and didn't meet their targets.
. . . . . . .
2 Smith and Turner were the two . . . . . . . . . . . . of the report.
3 We will . . . . . . . . . . . . our product as soon as we have finished the modifications.
4 Sales were very disappointing. We . . . . . . . . . . . . the n u m ber of people who would buy our
product in Asia.
5 Because the company has been . . . . . . . . . . . . for years, we are close to bankruptcy.
6 It was an expensive acquisition. They had to . . . . . . . . . . . . their rivals to take over the
company.
7 Our . . . . . . . . . . . . factory has state-of-the-art machinery.
8 My . . . . . . . . . . . . was impossible to work with, so I left the company.
9 There is much more competition in . . . . . . . . . . . . financial markets.
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UNIT 4 H SUCCESS

II Discuss these statements.

1 Outselling your rivals is the best indicator of success.
2 Mismanagement is the biggest cause of business failure.
3 Rebranding is often a pointless exercise.
See the DVD-ROM � 4 Underfunding and overstaffing are the quickest way to failure.
for the i-Glossory. W
5 Undercutting the competition is a dangerous business strategy.

IJ �>» CD1.26 Isis Innovation is a technology development company owned by the

Successful U niversity of Oxford. Listen to Tom Hockaday, its Managing Director, talking
about the essential qualities of a successful business and complete the gaps
businesses
in these two extracts.
I think that the absolute essence of a business, or a . . . . . . 1 business, is one that .. . . . .

manages to . . . 2 and
. . . . . . .3 something, whether that is a . . . . . . • or a
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . 5,
. . . . . . . . . . . .

but manages to . . . . . .
. . . . . . 6 it for more than it 7
. . . . . . . . . . . . to 8
. . . . . . . . . . . . it.

... we are investing in the . . . . . . . . . . . .9 to take it through various stages of development, so

that we can demonstrate it has . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,
. . . . . . . . . . so that we might be able to attract
more rounds of . . . . . . . .
. . .. .. ... ...
. . .. 11 investment or finance from other sources.

Tom Hockaday
m �)» CD1.27 Listen to the second part of the interview and summarise in a short
paragraph what Tom says about Natural Motion - the type of company it is,
what it does and the reasons for its success.

Watch the
interview on II �>» co1.2s Listen to the final part of the interview and answer these questions.
the DVD-ROM. 1 Which types of business does Tom expect to succeed in the near future?
2 Which four examples does he give?

Read the article on the opposite page and correct the six mistakes in this
paragraph about Carlos Slim.
Carlos Slim is probably the richest man you have ever heard of. The major influences on
his life were his father, Julian, who was born in Mexico, and Jean Paul Getty. He studied
finance at Harvard University and on graduating set up as a stockbroker. He made a lot
of money in the Mexican recession of 1982, selling his assets in the middle of the crisis.
In 1990, Slim gained control ofTelmex, which owns 90% of Mexican telephone lines
and is the largest part of Slim's empire. Slim is also involved in charity through his
Carso Foundation.

m Match the words on the left with words on the right to form word
partnerships. Then check your answers in the article.
1 business a) spree
2 economic b) acumen

3 annual c) recession
4 retail d) point

5 turning e) sales
6 buying f) outlets

7 global g) crisis

38
 UNIT 4 .. .. SUCCESS

II Complete this text with the word partnerships from Exercise B.

In 2008, influenced by China's success and its appetite for commodities, shipowners went
on a . . . . . . . . . . . .1, and . . . . . . . . . . . .2 of vessels reached an all-time high. The . . . . . . . .3 came the
. . . .

following year with the housing crisis, credit crunch and . . . . . . . . . .

. •
. in the United States,
which led to a . . . . . . .s. Orders for ships dried up, and department stores and . . . . . . . .6
. . . . . . . . .

throughout the world had empty shelves. However, business is recovering and there
has been a transformation of the industry from one that relied almost exclusively on a
shipowner's innate . . . . . . . . . . 7 to today's highly sophisticated finance-based ind ustry.
. .

EJ I f you had Carlos Slim's money, what kind of businesses would you buy?
What kind of lifestyle would you lead?

Profile: Carlos S l i m
by James Quinn

local and foreign investors alike, looking

50
to sell in the midst of one of the coun­
try's worst economic crises.
The period led to the formation of one
of the key pai1s of Slim's empire - Grupo
Carso, which today has annual sales of
55 $8.Sbn a year and owns retail outlets

such as Sanborns and Sears, as well as a

wide range of manufacturing businesses.
Eight years later, in 1 990, came the
second major turning point in S l i m's
60 career when Mexico decided to priva­
tise its national telecoms company.
Slim went head to head with America's
Southwestern Bel I , France Telecom and
as many as 35 other domestic investors,
65 but managed to seize control of Telmex.
Some 90 per cent of the telephone
l i nes in Mexico are today operated by
Telmex . B u t it is the low-cost mobile
phone network America M6vil, which
10 he also controls, which has grown to be

Carlos Slim is either the world's richest 25 and to American oil b i l l ionaire Jean the most substantial part of his empire.
or second-richest man, with a fortune Paul Getty. S l i m learned o f Getty's opening up other parts of Latin America
estimated to be in excess of $67bn. Pos­ business arnmen as a young boy and to mobile telephony. It now operates in
sibly the richest man you ' ve never has gone on to mi rror his a b i l i ty to 1 1 countries, including Brazil, Ecuador
5 heard of, u n t i l recently his i n fl u ence make money. 75 and Guatemala.

had largely been restricted to his native JO Aged 1 1 , he invested in government Many commentators believe that his
Latin America, where his sprawling saving bonds, keeping a detailed ledger recent buying spree is part of' a desire to
family empire controls more than 200 to track all of his purchases. By 1 5 , he replicate what he did in Mexico in the
companies, spanning everything from had bought a very small shareholding in 1 980s on a world stage, taking advan-
10 banking and retail to telecoms, roacl­ Banco Nacional de Mexico - then the 80 tage of the global recession by investing
building and restaurants. B u t given the J5 l a rgest bank in Mexico, and one to in d i stressed assets al knock-down
size o r his fortune, he was unlikely to which he has recently been l i nked with prices while he can.
stay local for long. In recent years, he buying, as the current owner Citigroup I n spite of his obvious wealth, he
has begun to stretch h i s increasingly looks to divest some of its assets. remains frugal in his tastes, and is often
1 5 long tentacles north of the border and While studying civil engineering at 85 seen wearing a plastic-effect wrist­
into the United Stales. and this week �a university in Mexico City, he realised watch which doubles as a calculator.
took the American intelligentsia some­ the way to make money was from H i s clothes tend to be bought from the
what by surprise by revealing plans to investing in companies. and so set up many retailers his empire owns.
inject $250m into the New York Times. on his own as a stockbroker on gradua­ Over the next four years. he has com-
20 S l i m puts h i s success clown to h is tion, working 14-hour clays. 90 mitted to spend $ 1 0bn through h i s

admiration for his father J u l ian - who 45 I t was not until the Mexican reces­ charitable Carso Foundation, whose
emigrated from the Lebanon aged 1 4 sion of 1 982 that S l i m really began to main aim is to fight marginal isation and
and made his fottune investing in prope1ty make some money, taking advantage of poverty by investing in health, educa­
in the 1 9 1 0- 1 7 Mexican revolution - a nationwide ' fire sale' o f assets by tion and employment.

from The Telegraph

39