?Read the article below about the difficulties of managing a small business, and the questions on the opposite page.

?For each question 13—18, mark one letter (A, B, C, or D) on your Answer Sheet for the answer you choose.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF MANAGING A SMALL BUSINESS

"The organizational weaknesses that entrepreneurs have to deal with every day would cause the managers of a mature company to panic." Andrew Bidden wrote recently in Boston Business Review. This seems to suggest that the leaders of entrepreneurial or small businesses must be unlike other managers, or the problems faced by such leaders must be the subject of a specialized body of wisdom, or possibly both. Unfortunately, neither is true. Not much worth reading about managing the entrepreneurial or small businesses has been written, and the leaders of such businesses are made of flesh and blood, like the rest of us.

Furthermore, little has been done to address the aspects of entrepreneurial or small businesses that are so difficult to deal with and so different from the challenges faced by management in big businesses. In part this is because those involved in gathering expertise about businesses and in selling advice to businesses have historically been more interested in the needs of big business. In part, in the UK at least, it is also because small businesses have always preferred to adapt to changing circumstances.

The organizational problems of entrepreneurial or small businesses are thus forced upon the individuals who lead them. Even more so than for bigger businesses, the old saying is true--that people, particularly those who make the important decisions, are business' most important asset. The research that does exist shows that neither money nor the ability to access more of it is the major factor determining growth. The main reason an entrepreneurial business stops growing is the lack of management and leadership resource available to the business when it matters. Give an entrepreneur an experienced, skilled team and he or she will find the funds every time. Getting the team, though, is the difficult bit. Part of the problem for entrepreneurs is the speed of change that affects their businesses. They have to cope with continuous change yet have always been suspicious about the latest management solution. They regard the many offerings from business schools as out of date even before they leave the planning board and have little faith in the recommendations of consultants when they arrive in the hands of young, inexperienced graduates. But such impatience with management solutions does not mean that problems can be left to solve themselves. However, the leaders of growing businesses are still left with the problem of who to turn to for advice.

The answer is horribly simple: leaders of small businesses can ask each other. The collective knowledge of a group of leaders can prove to be enormously helpful in solving the specific problems of individuals. One leader's problems have certainly been solved already by someone else. There is an organization called KITE which enables those responsible for small businesses to meet. Its members, all of whom are chief executives, go through a demanding selection process, and then join a small group of other chief executives. They come from a range of business sectors and each offers a different corporate history. Each group is led by a moderator, an independently selected businessman or businesswoman who has been specially trained to head the group. Each member takes it in turn to host a meeting at his or her business premises and, most important of all, group discussions are kept strictly confidential. This encourages a free sharing of problems and increases the possibility of solutions being discovered.

What does the

A．It is wrong to assume that they are different from other managers.

B．The problems they have to cope with are specific to small businesses.

C．They find it difficult to attract staffs with sufficient expertise.

D．They could learn from the organizational skills of managers in large companies.

&8226;Read the article below which reviews a new book on company planning.

&8226;Choose the best sentence from the list on the opposite page to fill each of the gaps.

&8226;For each gap 8-12, mark one letter (A-G) on your Answer Sheet.

&8226;Do not use any letter more than once.

Firms need a better way of planning

Nick Field, in his book Strategy Management, offers a new approach to help companies map out their future.

Many companies have lost the art of strategy-making. They spend too much time looking at process change, organisation and systems. They do not invest enough effort in determining where they want to be in their markets and how they are going to beat their competitors They have got things out of balance. In many companies, the development of strategy is in crisis.

In a recent magazine poll, only six per cent of executives rated their company highly for long-term planning skills. (8) If this figure is accurate, it is not surprising that 29% of the FTSE 100 companies failed to achieve real sales growth between 1992 and 1996, when takeovers are excluded from the figures.

There can be no doubt about the value of effective strategy-making. Recent research has shown that what are described as 'visionary' companies - those with clear strategies for the future - deliver higher shareholder returns. They are less at risk from short-term earnings pressures because they know - and they can convince others - that they will survive these.

(9) Times have changed. The big company of today is not being defeated by another big company but by the small companies. So how do they do it? And where do companies that are failing in this respect turn? If a company accepts that their strategy development is not 'the best in the class', if they acknowledge that they need to do more to map out their future, influence rather than be influenced, shape their market instead of being shaped by it, how should they take on this strategy-making challenge? Field's book Strategy Management puts forward a new approach to help companies rediscover the power of forward planning. (10) The book is straightforward to understand and use, and offers practical and specific directions. Research and empirical testing have proved that it can be useful in all areas of industry and should be of value to any company.

The approach put forward is based on two key building blocks, the first being that any company considering its future must have a commitment to win. (11) The second building block is competitive advantage. The author defines four prime areas that differentiate organisations and influence purchase decisions. These are 'the performance of the product or service, sold at the most attractive price, with extraordinary levels of service and strong emotional values.' It may require only one of these areas to produce a competitive advantage. Take Coca-Cola for example. (12)

Companies can explore how to win by building on their commitment and working around this approach to identify which one or more of these four sources of advantage will lead to success.

A Clear guidelines are given on how to become involved with customers and build new forms of competitive advantage.

B Through the brand name, the company has established a relationship with customers' feelings that has made the product highly successful,

C Another survey estimated that only one in ten companies had the information they needed to make strategic decisions.

D Lacking any debate about the future, these are typically reduced to a once-a-year form-filling exercise.

E If this comes across forcefully enough rivals will see it and go elsewhere, believing the market will be taken over by another.

F In the past, it was generally believed that the scale of the company was the most significant factor.

G They do not invest enough effort in determining where they want to be in their markets and how they are going to beat their competitors.

(8)

?Read the article below about how to deal with employees with trade secrets.

?Choose the best word to fill each gap from A, B, C or D on the opposite page.

?For each question 21-30, mark one letter (A, B, C or D ) on your Answer Sheet.

What if You're on the Receiving End?

For most employers, the principal concern is the employee who takes trade secrets to a new job -- but what about the employer who unwittingly hires someone who has stolen trade secrets?

An employer is going to be liable if he knew or he should have known that this employee was (21) with trade secrets. Thus, it's important to do an entrance interview (22) on trade secrets, ask him outright if he signed a nondisclosure agreement. If so, review it. Show the employee the (23) provisions of the Economic Espionage Act and have him sign a statement (24) that he understand what the potential liability is and he's not bringing any trade secrets with him.

There's a "very fine line" between hiring an employee for "general knowledge, skills and experience" and hiring an employee to gain (25) to a competitor's trade secrets. But, if the (26) employer has not specified to the worker what information is secret and what information is not, you will be well insulated if you have the worker sign a one-page form. in which he or she agrees not to (27) company policy against disclosing or using the trade secret of former employer.

But once an employer is on (28) that an employee is using someone else's trade secrets, the employer must (29) action: even then, the employer may not be able to avoid liability entirely.

Firing an offending employee as soon as the misappropriation is discovered may not (30) the employer of liability, but it goes a long way toward showing a judge or jury that the company limited the damage to the extent that they could.

(21)

A．presented

B．dealing

C．entrusted

D．coming

&8226;Read the article below about evaluating the work of company directors.

&8226;Choose the best sentence from the opposite page to fill each of the gaps.

&8226;For each gap (8-12), mark one letter (A-G) on your Answer Sheet.

&8226;Do not use any letter more than once.

&8226;There is an example at the beginning, (0).

EVALUATING THE PERFORMANCE OF THE BOARD

Few employees escape the annual or twice- yearly performance review. (0) G. The answer is not a great number. And the smaller the company, the fewer checks there are on how well the directors are doing. Some of the largest companies formally assess the performance of their board, but very few new or growing companies have managed to get round to establishing any such procedure.

Many business experts believe, however, that it is important for all companies to review the performance of the board. (8) Another reason is that the beard itself needs information on how well it is doing, Just as much as other employees do. For the chief executive, appraisal of some sort is absolutely essential for his or her own sake and for the good of the company. Indeed, many of those who have reached this level remark on how lonely the Job of chief executive is and how few opportunities they get to discuss issues relating to it.

There is some evidence to show that once smaller companies put a board appraisal process in place, they find this process relatively easy to operate. (9) Their counterparts in larger organisations, however, are often afraid that appraisals could be a challenge to their status. So, how should companies assess their beard? (10) At a very basic level, this could simply mean getting all the directors to write down what they have achieved and how they can improve on it. At the other end of the scale is the full 360- degree' appraisal. Here, each director is appraised in a systematic manner by a combination of the chairman and fellow directors.

In the largest companies there are many methods for assessing the beard. A number of such companies have self-assessment schemes. The chairman may meet each board member individually to ask how things are going, in a fairly informal way. The whole board might also meet to talk about its progress in open session. (11) These might ask for people's opinions on the board's main tasks or on how well the committees are working.

Research indicates there has been some improvement in the way the appraisal of board members is conducted. (12) The chairman will have been involved directly or indirectly in the appraisal of all members of the board. Whose Job is it, then, to appraise the chairman?

A. It is often the case that the directors of such companies are even happy to receive criticism, as this can prevent them from making basic mistakes.

B. The rest of the workforce sees it as unfair if the directors are the only members of the company to escape appraisal.

C. These are encouraging as they put a limit on the power of the chairman to assess fellow directors.

D. Alternatively, questionnaires might be distributed to directors, forming the basis for future discussion.

E. One issue remains, however, when all the others have been dealt with.

F. It is generally agreed that it is the chairman's responsibility to ensure the regular appraisal of each member of the board.

G. However, one wonders how many companies have in place a formal appraisal process for their board of directors.

(8)

•Read the article below about managing a small business.

•For each question 13-18, mark one letter(A, B, C or D)on your Answer Sheet, for the answer you choose.

The Difficulties Of Managing A Small Business

Ronald Meets asks who chief executives of entrepreneurial or small businesses can turn to for advice.

The organisational weaknesses that entrepreneurs have to deal with every day would cause 'the managers of a mature company to panic, ' Andrew Bidden wrote recently in Boston Business Review. This seems to suggest that the leaders of entrepreneurial or small businesses must be unlike other managers, or the problems faced by such leaders must be the subject of a specialised body of wisdom, or possibly both. Unfortunately, neither is true. Not much worth reading about managing the entrepreneurial or small business has been written, and the leaders of such businesses are made of flesh and blood, like the rest of us.

Furthermore, little has been done to address the aspects of entrepreneurial or small businesses that are so difficult to deal with and so different from the challenges faced by management in big business. In part this is because those involved in gathering expertise about business and in selling advice to businesses have historically been more interested in the needs of big business. In part, in the UK at least, it is also because small businesses have always preferred to adapt to changing circumstances.

The organisational problems of entrepreneurial or small businesses are thus forced upon the individuals who lead them. Even more so than for bigger businesses, the old saying is true--that people, particularly those who make the important decisions, are business' most important asset. The research that does exist shows that neither money nor the ability to access more of it is the major factor determining growth. The main reason an entrepreneurial business stops growing is the lack of management and leadership resource available to the business when it matters. Give an entrepreneur an experienced, skilled team and he or she will find the funds every time. Getting tile team, though, is the difficult bit. Part of the problem for entrepreneurs is the speed of change that affects their businesses. They have to cope with continuous change yet have always been suspicious about the latest 'management solution'. They regard the many offerings from business schools as out of date even before they leave the planning board and have little faith in the recommendations of consultants when they arrive in the hands of young, inexperienced graduates. But such impatience with 'management solutions' does not mean that problems can be left to solve themselves. However, the leaders of growing businesses are still left with the problem of who to turn to for advice.

The answer is horribly simple: leaders of small businesses can ask each other. The collective knowledge of a group of leaders can prove enormously helpful in solving the specific problems of individuals. One leader's problems have certainly been solved already by someone else. There is an organisation called KITE which enables those responsible for small businesses to meet. Its members, all of whom are chief executives, go through a demanding selection process, and then join a small group of other chief executives. They come from a range of business sectors and each offers a different corporate history. Each group is led by a 'moderator', an independently selected businessman or woman who has been specially tranined to head the group. Each member takes it in turn to host a meeting at his or her business premises and most important of all, group discussions are kept strictly confidential. This encourages a free sharing of problems and increases the possibility of

A．It is wrong to assume that they are different from other managers.

B．The problems they have to cope with are specific to small businesses.

C．They find it difficult to attract staff with sufficient expertise.

D．They could learn from the organisational skills of managers in large companies.

— Read the article on the opposite page about the marketing guru Theodore Leavitt.

— Choose the best sentence from below [o fill each of the gaps.

— For each gap 8 - 12, mark one letter (A - G) on your Answer Sheet.

— Do not use any letter more than once.

— There is an example at the beginning, (0).

Did this man invent marketing?

For the world of management - or the trend-setting part of it which read the Harvard Business Review (HBR) - 1960 was the year that marketing began. Extraordinary as it seems today, until HBR published an article by a German- American academic called Theodore Levitt saying that 'industry is a customer-satisfying process, not a goods-producing process', most managers operated on the principle that people would buy whatever their companies produced, with the aid of a little advertising.

(0) It was one where the public was so pleased to have any choice of goods after the barren years of World War II that consumer products virtually sold themselves. There might be competition between different makes of soap powder or toothpaste, but no-one in industry seriously considered probing more deeply into what customers wanted, or might want in the future.

Levitt changed all that with one article in HBR, entitled 'Marketing Myopia'. 【8】______ His message was very simple. Selling was not marketing, he pointed out. 'Selling concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. 【9】______ And it does not, as marketing invariably does, view the entire business process as consisting of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse and satisfy customer needs. Selling focuses on the needs of the seller, marketing on the needs of the buyer.'

Levitt began by explaining that every industry was once a growth industry. But growth will not continue through improvements in productivity or cost reduction alone. 【10】______ He cited the Detroit automobile industry as a prime example: ruled by the production ethos, in 1960 it was simply giving the customer what it thought the customer should have. 'Detroit never really researched the customer's wants. It only researched the kinds of things it had already decided to offer him,' Levitt wrote. Eventually, it was punished by the Japanese with their compact cars. 【11】______

Industries can die if they don't understand how their markets are changing, Levitt warned, citing his famous horse-whip example: after the automobile killed the horse and carriage as personal transportation, makers of horse-whips could not save themselves by improving the product. 【12】______ These days, although Levitt called marketing a 'stepchild', it has come a long way towards growing up.

A. Only a thoroughly customer-oriented management' can maintain it.

B. It is such a far-sighted assessment that many companies are still failing it.

C. They needed to reinvent their whole business by studying what customers would now want fan belts, say, or air cleaners.

D. It is not concerned with the values that the exchange is all about.

E. It set him up as the first marketing guru and over the years HBR has sold hundreds of thousands of reprints.

F. These were what customers wanted after the oil price shocks of the early 1970s.

G. Business in the 1950s had been a complacent, producer-oriented world.

The journal published a series of articles that reviewed the [prospects] for a new era of “genetic medicine”.

A.background

B.exploration

C.survey

D.outlook

?For each question 13-18, mark one letter (A, B, C or D) on your Answer Sheet for the answer you choose.

Creative teams and management

When Colgate launched its then revolutionary Colgate Gum Protection toothpaste in 1990, company executives were confident they had a hit on their hands. The toothpaste incorporated a groundbreaking antibacterial technology they thought was the biggest innovation since fluoride. But in the mouths after the toothpaste's six-country rollout, the product's market share reached a meager 1% -- one fifth of the company's projections.

What went wrong？ A new round of market research found that the original launch strategy mural the "breakthrough" message, the ads positioned the new toothpaste as a line extension instead of a revolutionary advance, and the public just didn't buy the product's broad claims. Up to this point, Colgate's president, Bill Shanahan, had attended only quarterly review meetings, now he rolled up his sleeves to rescue the product, establishing a worldwide marketing team and meeting regularly with global business vice president Kathleen Thornhill and CEO Reuben Mark to follow the team's progress.

Shanahan and others at the very top sifted through the research and took pat in the advertising development meetings, working elbow to elbow with the marketing team. Renamed Colgate Total, and promoted with a retooled ad campaign that stressed the toothpaste's 12-hour protection, the product was a hit in most of the 103 countries outside the United States.

Shanahan continued to lavish personal attention on the product, putting Colgate Total under the direct supervision of Jack Haber, then worldwide director of consumer oral care products, and committing $35 million and a team of 200 employees to the project. With that kind of senior-level backing, Haber pulled out the stops, spending $20 million to promote Colgate Total to U.S. dentists alone. Within two months of its domestic launch in 1997, the product captured 10.5% of the U.S. toothpaste market and within six months muscled perennial champ, Procter & Gamble's Crest, out of first place. Colgate Total has remained number one ever since.

What transforms a good product idea like Colgate Total into a blockbuster？ We spent ten years studying more than 700 new product development teams and interviewed over 4130 project leaders, team members, senior executives, and CEOs intimately involved in product development and launch. Of the hundreds of teams we studied, just 7% of them -- 49 in all -- created products that scored a perfect ten on our measure of blockbuster success. To achieve that score, products had to reach or exceed company goals, customer expectations, profit and sales targets, garner company and industry awards, and attract national attention.

Products don't become blockbusters without the intense, personal involvement of senior management usually a CEO or division head. In every case studied, top management played an intimate, active, often daily role. This approach has been out of favor for decades, creative teams, the thinking goes, should be empowered by management and then left alone. Too much attention stifles innovation. To that we say "Baloney." Our work shows that, in the best case, management involvement should stat on day one. Ideally, senior managers work closely with the product team to establish must-have features and then help clear a path for the team. Top managers control resources, and they have the authority to allow the team to break rules and cut through red tape. And, crucially, senior managers serve as cheerleaders and visionaries, broadcasting a message of organizational commitment that

A．The results ran contrary to the company's expectation.

B．It achieved a great success.

C．It took a great portion of market share.

D．The new technology was not popular among customers.