Task One - Problems• For questions 13-17, match the extracts with the problems,

Speaker One
Woman: Well, now it’s all over, I can only hope we’ve learnt the right lessons from the experience. Although the consultants at the time urged caution, the board were sure of the plan - after all, it was the sort of thing they’d pulled off before - and ploughed ahead with the launch of the new division. But the board wouldn’t accept that the predicted boom in these new overseas markets was bound to be unstable because of likely fluctuations in currency rates and share prices, and that’s where it all came unstuck. They reacted sensibly, though, and now we have established a good joint venture there, which is a better bet than going it alone, or slashing costs all over the place and laying people off in a panic.
Speaker Two
Man: In the end, you’d have to say we had a lucky escape - I mean, it could have been a lot worse. It’s very difficult to know where your brand is really positioned.., we’ve always accepted that our research almost inevitably will be running a bit behind. Consumer tastes change so quickly these days, and that’s where we suffered, and lost market share. The directors, once it was clear what was happening, attacked the problem and looked at various options. They could have looked to generate revenues with a share issue, but I think they were right to go for clipping back by reducing expenditure wherever possible - you’re better placed to regroup with a tight ship. The plans to develop higher quality products for the future look pretty plausible now.
Speaker Three
Woman: Well, I now know to take all this talk about the importance of communication skills seriously... I used to think it was all rather woolly, but when you’ve seen the damage misunderstandings can do... I suppose the board was a grouping of people with such strong backgrounds individually that each of them expected to be top dog, and that it was perhaps inevitable that they’d clash over what direction the company should go in. Anyhow, it looked very grim for a while but, in the end, two of them took the pretty sizeable payoffs they were offered and moved on. From our point of view, at least it saved us from the prospect of the group being split up and the shares sold off.
Speaker Four
Man: We were all extremely glad to see the back of that particular episode in the company’s history. I know there’s quite a trend to constantly reviewing your sourcing in the search for cost savings, but it was crazy to move over to such an untried firm. The trouble was we were getting nearly all our parts from them, so everything was leaving the factory here with faulty components, with appalling results. We should have listened to the consultants, but on this one we thought we knew better. It got so bad that predatory offers were being made for the division, and we had to think hard about how to save the brand’s reputation. Raising fresh capital through new shares was the right way to go and enabled us to cover the losses we made in sales.
Speaker Five
Woman: I sometimes really do think that the people who know least about a company are the people who run it... that’s why there’s such an industry in advising on and supplying the skills for managing change. We went along assuming that we were selling well because of what we saw as our core qualities - but we were wrong. It was just that we happened to have got our pricing right, so when we changed that, it all started falling apart. Things got decidedly grim for a time, and drastic action was required. A merger was considered, and an aggressive takeover had to be fought off. In the end, it was easier to accept an offer for the Budget Products Division, and avoid major redundancies, than to go on trying to keep the whole thing afloat.