• HR

 Exercise 1: Read the memo!

Hi Jenny,

Good to talk to you on the phone this morning, and thanks for your useful ideas. Here’s a summary of what we decided. Let me know if you disagree or understood something different from the points below:

• Customer-service staff to work half an hour more Mon-Thurs and have Fri p.m. free in lieu.
• Members of existing staff to organise rota amongst themselves so that there is one member of staff on duty on customer service desk on Fr p.m.
• I will advertise and recruit one more part-time post to provide extra cover at peak times.
• Staff to keep a computerised record, from now on, of all customer queries and complaints and the action they have taken.

BW

Mohammed

 Exercise 2: This email from a personal manager to other management colleagues contains one extra word in most lines. Write the extra words on the right.

Dear colleagues,

Many thanks for attending to the highly productive meeting held yesterday                1 to

and apologises also for letting it run somewhat over time. I hope this did not                  2 _____

cause any of you too much more inconvenience. As promised at the end of                   3 _____

the meeting, here is the list of action points and decisions which we were                 4 _____

agreed on during the meeting:

1 The HR Director will look into the suitability of doing psychometric tests                       5 _____

for all of applicants to management positions within the organisation and                        6 ______

report you back at the next meeting in a month’s time.                                                     7 ______

2 In future time, when interviews for posts in the company are held, a                             8 ______

trained interviewer from the HR department will chair the interview                                  9 ______

panel and the head of the department concerned will also be at present.                        10 ______

3 The HR Department will design a standard application form intending to                      11 ______

be used by candidates for all posts at all levels in the company.                                      12 ______

4 The HR Director will propose in writing down to the Board of Directors                         13 ______

that there should be made a change in company policy to the effect that                         14 ______

all vacancies should, if possible, be filled up internally and that external                          15 ______

applications should only be sought for if no suitable internal candidate                             16 ______

can be found.

Many thanks for your contributions on these subjects.

Amalia Fayed

Human Resources Director

Exercise 3: This email from a personal manager to other management colleagues contains one extra word in most lines. Write the extra words on the right.

Dear colleagues,

I’m writing to inform you about the results arising of the management / stuff               1 arising

negotations on pay and conditions held earlier than this week. Staff                            2 _____

representatives were agreed to the following offer:                                                       3 _____

• We will give to them a salary increase of 3% this year and indexed to                    4 _____

inflation over the next two years. This was agreed provided that they kept               5 _____

to the three-year deal.                                                                          

• Flexible starting and finishing times for office staff, and where a possible        6 _____

for production-line staff, and providing this can be arranged with                                   7 _____

production managers and supervisors.                                                                            

• They accepted too the 38-hour working week which we offered them (they          8 _____

had originally been asked for 37 hours) on condition that they raised                        9 _____

productivity by a 5% on present levels.                                                                      10 _____

• Twenty-days’ leave per worker per year across the board.                                       11 _____

We also agreed to provide with subsidized health insurance and a subsidized          12 _____

staff canteen, where the company will pay 40% of the costs and the workers                13 _____

will pay the remainder.                                                                                                                

I would look forward to receiving your queries and comments about the                        14 _____

above agreement.

Best wishes,

Fernando Delgado

Personnel Manager

 Exercise 4: Complete the memo by writing one word in each gap!

Memo

As 1 part of our expansion plans, and with a 2 __________________________ to closer contact with our key markets, we are planning to open new offices in Glasgow, Liverpool and Plymouth, 3 __________________________  decision will involve reducing the size of our Norwich office 4 _________________________ about 20% during the next 18 months and relocating staff in the new offices mentioned 5 ___________________________. We hope to achieve our goal of 20% staff reductions 6 _________________________ Norwich by providing incentives 7 _____________________________ early retirement and, if necessary, voluntary redundancies. Staff wishing to know 8 _____________________________ about our plans and how we aim to reformulate the organisation should consult the company intranet. We shall also be discussing our plans with staff representatives 9 _____________________________ a forthcoming staff-management meeting. If you would like to ask any questions or 10 ___________________________ any comments, please don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail.

Many thanks,

Frank Mason

CEO

 Exercise 5: Write one word in each space in this memo, which Sylvie Ballarin wrote after the staff-management negotiations.

A meeting was 1 held on May 21st between staff representatives and the management in line with management plans. The 3 _____________________ points were agreed on:

• We accepted our staff representatives’ request that all 90 employees should have the option or relocating, 4 ________________ the basis that it is unlikely that this 5 __________________ occur. Our own calculations show that somewhere in the region of 30 staff will accept voluntary redundancy 6 _____________________ than relocate.
• We agreed to a 6% increase 7 __________________________ salary but were unwilling to accept staff representatives’ demand for an across-the-board promotion of all staff 8 ________________________ was agreed that this would be based strictly 9 _____________________ merit.
• We agreed to a 15 000 GBP one-off payment to cover the cost of the move irrespective of the number of family members involved 10 ______________________ the changes. This would avoid discriminating against people with smaller families, 11 _____________________ were move likely to wish to move in any 12 ________________________.
• We furthermore accepted that no one would be 13 _______________________ redundant against their 14 ___________________________ and that voluntary redundancies would be encouraged with a payment of two months’ gross salary over and 15 _________________________ employees’ legal entitlement.

 Sylvie Ballarin

Human resources director

• Management

 Exercise 6: Read the email!

Dear all,

I’ve noticed in the last few weeks that a number of team members have been arriving late for work and, as a result, arriving late for our daily team meetings. This unfortunately means that: the meetings themselves start late and as a consequence, we don’t have time for all the items on the agenda valuable time is wasted while latecomers are updated on discussions and decisions. This will to ensure that the project finishes on discussions and decisions. I’m very aware of the hard work and long hours you are all putting in on this project, so, rather than speaking to the individuals concerned, I would ask you all to please make an extra effort with timekeeping. This will help to ensure that the project finishes on time and within budget.

Many thanks,

Max

• Company strategy

  Exercise 7: Complete the letter with possible words and expressions!

Dear Francesca,

Further 1 to our discussion last week, I think it would be a good idea to 2 ___________________ our ideas about investigating new markets for our products a stage further, especially as we’ve 3 ________________________ expressions of interest from distributors in other parts of the country.

I’d be grateful, therefore, 4 __________________________________ you could write a proposal for this activity 5 _________________________ we could then put to other managers for their reactions.

6 ___________________ your proposal please include:

• reasons for reasearching new markets
• the types of market we might break into
• how the research should be _______________________
• the resources which will be needed for carrying 8 _____________________ the research.
• your recommendations.

I look forward to having your idea sas 9 _______________________ as convenient.

Many thanks in 10 ________________________________.

Natalie

 Exercise 8: Complete each gap in this email with a suitable word!

Dear Mr Lee,

We are a specialist producer of top-quality reflective optical compontents for microscopes and 1 other scientific instruments based in Lublin, Poland. 2 _______________________ you may have read in the trade press, just over a year ago we patented an improved version of an extremely compact mirror which is 3 _____________________________ of reflecting almost 100% of the light it receives. Sales of this mirror (in 4 ________________________ original form) to our customers in Europe and the US have risen from 1 mil USD two years ago to just 5 ___________________________  4.5 mil USD last year.

6 ____________________________ to our excellent sales projections, based on market research in Europe and America, we have increased our production capacity by 100% and are now also 7 _______________________ a position to begin supplying other markets with our products. Our plans, therefore, include an Asian presence, and 8 _____________________________ that objective in mind, we are seeking a distibutor, 9 _______________________ possibly a joint-venture partner in your country. Other products which we have in the pipeline and 10 _____________________________ we should be launching within the coming year include a refraction-free liquid lens for micrscopes and a self-cleaning eye-pice suitable 11 _______________________ a wide range of optical instruments.

Aniela Polanski, Magiczne Lustra’s CEO, 12 __________________________ be undertaking a tour of Asian countries next month, with a 13 __________________________________ to identifying possible sales partners, and would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss our plans and demonstrate our products. Please 14 _____________________ me know if this possibility would interest you and what dates would be the 15 ____________________________  convenient for you.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Marion Armley

PA to Aniela Polanski

Exercise 9: Correct the mistakes in the email!

Dear Ms Armley,

Thank you for your letter of December 8th in that you mention your                              1 which

interest for seeking a distributor or joint-venture partner to market your                 2 _____

products in your country.

Like I am sure you know, Singapore Instruments are the leading local                          3 _____

distributor of optical and electronic components for scientific                                 4 _____

instruments, not just in this country but too in the region, for clients                      5 _____

who are major manufacturers of scientific and medical apparatus. For                    6 _____

addition, we distribute scientific and medical apparatus to universities                             7 _____

and hospitals throughout the region, together with replacement pieces                            8 _____

when necessary. Our sales in this sector last year are in the order of                               9 _____

3.2 mil USD.

We have been aware about your company and its gound-breaking                           10 _____

innovations for a number of years now and could welcome the                                 11 _____

opportunity to meet your CEO, Aniela Polanski, seeing samples of your                      12 _____

products and hear her proposals. We would certainly be interested in                              13 _____

a arrangament whereby we acted as exclusive distributors of your                              14 _____

products, and we would also consider the possible of a joint venture if                     15 _____

this appeared to be the best way to proceed.                                                                 16 _____

I personally will be absence from the office during the first week of                                    17 _____

January. Although, I would be most interested to meet Ms. Polanski                                  18 _____

when I return, and we would be delighted to do the necessary                                      19 _____

arrangements for her while she is here. Please finalise the details of her                       20 _____

visiting with my assistant, Miss Cheung.                                                                               21 _____

I look forward to meeting Ms. Polanski.

Yours truly,

Oliver Lee

CEO

 Exercise 10: Correct the mistakes in the email!

Dear Mr Zhao,

Thank you for your letter of March 14th in where you                                   1 which

mention the possibility of visiting our country with the                                   2 _____

intention of opening out a market for your services, I                                    3 _____

apologise for not replying earlier, that was due to the fact                             4 _____

that I myself was on an overseas travel until just this week.                          5 _____

We would indeed be interested in meeting your. Like you                             6 _____

probably know, we are a specialist provider of financial                           7 _____

advices for small private investors in high-technology firms                    8 _____

based on Western Europe. Many of our clients would                                 9 _____

welcome the possibility of extending their portfolios for                          10 _____

include similar firms located in the Far East (your area of                        11 _____

specialisation). Similar, as you state in your letter, since                           12 _____

many of your clients has expressed an interest in the                               13 _____

European market, I believe we would be well placed to                              14 _____

provide the sort of informations they require.                                            15 _____

A collaboration between our two firms could be particularly                    16 _____

fruitfully for both, and I would welcome the opportunity to                       17 _____

discuss this with yourself.                                                                             18 _____

I am available for since a meeting whenever it is convenient                         19 _____

for you. Please, contact me by email to arrange this. We                                20 _____

would too be delighted to arrange your hotel                                                 21 _____

accommodation and any other details of your trip.                                        22 _____

For your interest, I enclosed a variety of company literature                      23 _____

of the type we send to our clients.                                                               24 _____

I very much look forward to hear from you.                                         

• Marketing

Exercise 11: Complete each gap in this email with a suitable word!

Maria,

Here’s a summary of our discussion yesterday and the decisions we 1 came to:

• We discussed 2 __________________________ advertising medium would be 3 _________________________ suitable for our B2B software products and decided that 4 _______________________ addition to our web-based advertising, we should also 5 ________________________ use of the trade journals which companies of the type we supply software to are 6 ____________________ to read.
• We agreed that you would contact a couple of advertising agencies, who would 7 ____________________ up with proposals and sample designs for our ads. We would also ask them to identify suitable journals and 8 _________________________ us an estimate of the total cost of running the campaign.
• We agreed that measuring the effectiveness of the advertising will be relatively easy to 9 _______________________. Any customers acquired 10 ____________________ the course of the campaign or shortly 11 ____________________ will be asked how they heard 12 ____________________ us – by word of mouth or through our advertising. We will then, in due course, be 13 _______________________ to measure 14 ____________________ effective the advertising has been in relation to the money we have invested 15 ________________________ it.

Carlo

 Exercise 12: Complete this letter by putting the adverbs in brackets in the correct position in each sentence. In many cases, more than one answer is possible.

Hello Bill,

1. I’m writing to report on the effectiveness of the advertising we’ve been doing. (briefly / recently / just).
2. Sales have been slow, despite our campaign. (disappointingly / unfortunately)
3. I think this is because the advertisements do not state what we do. (frankly / clearly enough)
4. They do state that we are electrical engineers. They don’t state what our speciality is, i.e. repairing electric motors. (curiously / however)
5. I was looking at the page and I notice that it looks similar to advertisements for our rivals, Manning Ltd. (surprisingly / also / just an hour ago).
6. People phone us up asking if we are Manning Ltd. (quite often / indeed).
7. I believe that we need to continue advertising (firmly).
8. We need to improve the appearance of our advertisements. (urgently / however).
9. I’m meeting a friend from an advertising agency, and he’ll come up with something which works (more effectively / tomorrow / hopefully).

Best wishes,

Mike

• Sales

 Exercise 13: Complete the email by writing one word in each space.

Dear Mr Slade,

Many thanks for sparing the 1 time to talk to me this morning about personal security for your employees working on their 2 __________________________. I thought the conversation was extremely useful, and it seems to me that 3 _____________________ are several areas 4 ______________________ our company could offer you services whoch would improve your staff’s security and give 5 _______________________ them and you greater peace of mind.

6 _______________________ we can provide is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week personal alarm service. 7 _________________ a member of your staff has to 8 ____________________ when they feel threatened 9 ______________________ press the button and we will 10 _________________________ the necessary measures to locate them and provide them with protection.

Our system is being used 11 _______________________ great success by many companies, several in this region, and we 12 __________________ be deligthed to supply you 13 _______________________ references from satisfied clients.

I very 14 _____________________ look forward to meeting you on Friday at 4 p.m. when we will be able to discuss the options we offer 15 ____________________________ more detail.

Many thanks again for giving me your valuable time.

Best wishes,

Rosa Levy

• Finance

  Exercise 14: Complete the letter on the right using the words or phrases below!

according to                 and that                        as                         as a consequence                  but also

however                        not only                        since                    which                            with whom

Dear Mr Narayan,

I am writing to remind you that payment on our invoice no. 472/f for the amount of 3,760GBP is still outstanding. 1. According to my notes on our telephone conversation threee weeks ago, you explained to me that your company was itself suffering from cashflow problems and awaiting payments from some of your suppliers. 2 ______________________, you assured me that you expected payment shortly. 3 _____________________________ would mean that you would be in a position to settle your account with Prudhomme Ltd. by the end of the month at the latest. Unfortunately, that deadline has now passed, and your failure to pay is beginning to cause our company serious problems 4 ___________________________________. I indicated during our telephone conversation, the costs to us of your non-payment have included taking out an overdraft, with the resulting bank charges and interest 5 _________________________________. I have no choice but to inform you that 6 _________________________ do we expect prompt payment of the invoice. 7 ________________________________ you will have to pay interest of 3% per month on all unpaid debts with our company until the invoice is paid.

I deeply regret having to write in this way, 8 __________________________________, until now, you have always been a valued customer 9 ___________________________ we enjoyed a mutually profitable working relationship. I sincerely hope that this temporary unpleasantness can be resolved __________________________ 10 we can return to normal business dealings shortly. Until such time, I regret to inform you that we are unable to supply you with any further goods.

Yours sincerely,

Astrid Kloof 

 Exercise 15: Read this email to a business friend. Choose the more informal option for each pair of phrases in italics.

Dear Bob,

1 I wonder if you recall / Do you remember a certain customer, Lockes and Hart Ltd., 2 I put you onto / recommended to you 3 two years ago / a couple of years back? I ask because we are 4 at present / now 5 having / experiencing difficulty 6 getting them to pay / in extracting payment, and I was wondering 7 if / whether you were 8 having / undergoing similar problems. In fact, we have an invoice for paper products we sent them which is now nine months overdue 9 for / to the tune of 38 000 GBP. 10 We’ve told / we have notified them that 11 we’re not going to / we were unwilling to supply them with 12 any further goods / anything else and 13 we are / we’re now beginning to 14 think of / consider 15 taking them to court / legal action.

16 In addition, it is proving difficult to make contact with them / Even talking to them is hard because 17 sometimes / on occasions they 18 don’t / fail to answer the phone, and even when they do, they 19 inform us that / say the person in accounts whose 20 responsibility / job it is to pay invoices 21 isn’t available / is unavailable, 22 with the result that / so 23 the whole thing / the situation is 24 getting pretty frustrating / giving rise to a certain amount of frustration.

I ask partly beacause you may be in similar situation and you might know something about their circumstances which we 25 are unaware of / don’t know and also to warn you if 26 you’re still selling to them / you are doing business with them. Also, because 27 we don’t have much / we lack experience of this 28 type of situation / sort of thing, I was wondering if you could recommend a lawyer or debt-recovery agency which could 29 handle / deal with this 30 for us / on our behalf.

Please, let me know any information you have on them.

Best wishes,

Angela

WRITING EXERCISES:

HR

(1) Write an e-mail to your manager (who is on an extended business trip).

• informing him / her that you wish to apply for a post in another department of the company
• explaining the reason(s) why you are applying
• asking him/ her to recommend you for the post.

Operations management

(2) Your company employs a maintenance company to look after the computer system. However, their service has been unsatisfactory and your boss has asked you to write to the maintenance company to express your dissatisfaction.

Write the letter to the maintenance company, including the following:

• explaining why you are not satisfied
• saying what you expect the maintenance company to do
• informing them what will happen if nothing changes.

Company strategy

(3) An important foreign associate has written suggesting a visit to your company in the near future with a view of discussing a new business project which your companies could undertake together. Your manager has asked you to write a letter to him / her:

• welcoming the visit and expressing interest in the project
• summarizing your company’s activities and its performance
• suggesting how your companies could cooperate on the project
• proposing a convenient time for the visit.

Marketing

(4) You are unhappy with your company’s current website. You have decided to write a memo to your Managing Director about your ideas for setting up a new website.

Write a memo to the Managing Director.

Write about:

• the problems with the current website;
• the kind of information a new website should contain;
• who should be involved in setting it up
• and any other points which you think are important.

Write about 180-200 words.

Marketing

(5) A number of visitors who recently visited your department complained about the quality of the hotel accommodation your company booked for them. You have decided to write a memo to the Managing Director about this.

Write a memo to the Managing Director.

Write about:

• the types of complaints visitors made;
• why it is important to use a good hotel for company visitors;
• which hotel your company should use instead
• and any other points which you think are important.

Write about 180-200 words.

 

Sales

(6) Your company has a new product / service which is doing well in your existing markets. You are now planning to launch it in a new market and will have a stand at a trade fair for this purpose. Your manager has asked you to write a letter to prospective customers:

• giving them details of the new product / service
• describing its success in existing markets
• explaining your future plans for it
• inviting them to visit the stand and meet the marketing manager.

Finance

(7) You work for a company which produces ready-prepared food for restaurants. On several occasions recently, one of your main customers has been late in settling their account. This has caused your company cashlow and other problems. Write a letter to the customer:

• complaining about late payment
• explaining the consequences for your business
• saying what you will do if payment is not made.