大学体验英语视听说2原文.docx

大学体验英语视听说2UNIT 1 McDonald's Business Model: The Three-legged StoolScriptMcDonald's Corporation (MCD) is one of the leading fast-food restaurant chains in the world, touching the lives of people every day. As the world's largest chain of restaurants, it primarily sells hamburgers, chicken, french fries, milkshakes, soft drinks, etc.The business began in 1940, with a restaurant opened by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald. Initially, they just owned a hotdog stand. But after establishing the restaurant they served around 25 items, which were mostly barbecued. It became a popular and profitable teen hangout.Their introduction of the “Speed Service System in 1948 established the principles of the modern fast-fbod restaurant. The present corporation dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc on April 15,1955.In effect, Kroc opened his first and the overall ninth restaurant in Chicago, Illinois, and gave birth to McDonald's Corporation. In 1958, the restaurant chain sold its 100 millionth hamburger. In 1960, Kroc renamed his company as “McDonald's Corporation”. In 1961, Kroc convinced the McDonald brothers to sell the business rights to him in the company. Thus he purchased the brothers' equity for a sum of $2.7million and led to its worldwide expansion.As McDonald's expands successfully into many international markets, the company became a symbol of globalization and the spread of the American way of life. Its prominence also made it a frequent subject of public debates about obesity, corporate ethics and consumer responsibility.ScriptTanya: It's the fast food chain with the iconic golden arches that have been spotted all over the world. Yes, we are talking about McDonald's. But did you know McDonald's, year after year, is voted one of the best places to work? We're looking today at this all-American company and what we can learn from its success. We're joined by Paul Facella, author of the book, Everything I Know About Business, I Learned At McDonald's: The Seven Leadership Principles That Drive Breakout Success. Paul was a former McDonald's executive who has the behind-the-scenes story on the world's most successful restaurant organization. Hi there, Paul. Thanks for joining us.Paul: Thank you, Tanya. Nice to be here.Tanya: Now, while you no longer work for McDonald's, I understand that the company has had a huge impact on your life. Tell us why you decided to write a book on business lessons that you learned from a fast food chain.Paul: Sure. Well, not only myself but literally hundreds of thousands of people that went to the McDonald9s system and were guided by a lot of the principles. When I left McDonald's, I went into consulting and, and one of the surprises I had was many of the organizations, both large and small, was the fact that some of the basic principles, some of the foundations that good organizations need to be successful, weren't there. And I was constantly being asked about,<fcWell, tell me how you did in McDonald's”. And my thinking was,“Gee, I'll write a book about it and help my client base and Fil be able to help them move forward with it." So that was the thinking behind it.Tanya: Well, we're gonna get into some of those secrets of success. I wanna start by asking you, you know, obviously a lot of people know McDonald's for their burgers and Big Macs. But, I'm sure a lot people will be surprised to know that it has one of the highest corporate employee retention rates of any company, I mean people assume, fast food chain, people just want to get in and get out. What makes McDonald's so successful? Paul: I think, I think there's a number of factors, but I think the retention piece is about McDonald's, when you work, there it's really about a meritocracy. It is about advancement that is based on achievement. And from the first crew person moving in all the way up to store manager, all the way up to the present CEO, Jim Skinner, who was a crew person 35 years ago and moved into, after 35 years, moved into the CEO ranks. So it's always been a progression of opportunity for people, and I think thafs one of the great things that keeps folks there. Every CEO has gone through the ranks.Tanya: Is there any crossover from those who work on the server side to the executive side, or you have to go back to school for that?Paul: Oh, no, all the time, I mean, I started as a 16-year-old crew person. Mike Quinlan, who's a CEO for 14 years started in the mail room, so there's plenty of crossover.ScriptSince setting up the first McDonald's in China, the Western restaurant chain has been expanding steadily and successfully. So far, other than the home market - the United States - China is the No.1 growth market for McDonald's, with over 1000 restaurants and over 60,000 employees.China also represents one third of all capital expenditures in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa region, where the fast-food giant is in 37 markets. According to Skinner, vice-chairman and CEO of this world's largest fast-food company,"We've been steadily growing with China for the past 20 years and are very excited for what the future holds,M he says.In 1990, McDonald's chose Shenzhen, a pioneer Special Economic Zone in Guangdong province bordering Hong Kong, to open its first 500-seat store in the developing market. McDonald's quickly won over the local consumers, due to its many attractions like its Ronald McDonald clown, Golden Arches or the yellow "M” logo, Big Mac, the smiling attendants and the quick service. The success of the Shenzhen outlet prompted McDonald's to expand its chain nationwide. And McDonald's has not stopped from aggressively increasing the number of its outlets in China. The mainland's fast-food market is growing at a rate of 16 percent per year.“We are going to continue our growth at a faster rate in China. China is a huge market with great opportunities for businesses around the world, and it's no different for McDonald's J Skinner adds.ScriptTanya: And in your book, you've broken down some of the keys, the fundamental keys of McDonald's success, in terms that can be applied to other companies. So, let's go through these one by one. The first you say is honesty and integrity, and this obviously comes at a time when so many people have lost trust in Wall Street. How can we apply this?Paul: Yeah, I think, it's, well, honesty and integrity started very early on with Ray Kroc who started the McDonald's system in 1955, and back then franchises were just starting to proliferate, and there were not a lot of laws about how they would conduct businesses. And one of the things was done, sadly, was that many of those franchisors would take commissions back from suppliers that supplied the franchisees product. From the beginning, that's now how we're gonna do businesses. We're gonna have integrity, we're gonna be honest with our franchisees, I wanna the franchisees to make the first dollar, Fil make the second dollar, and that kind of got into the DNA very early. And to this day, there is a wonderful relationship of integrity and honesty with our relationships with our operators, with our vendors.Tanya: And I would imagine that motivates everybody because you feel like if you do well, you will get rewarded.Paul: That's correct. Absolutely, no question about that. How important everybody working together as a team is!Tanya: Right, and another secret to McDonalds9 success, I understand, is relationships, and the company apparently promotes the idea that relationships are sort of the secret sauce, as, if you will, and everyone who works for the company is a part of an extended family, is that right?Paul: The Mcfamily!Tanya: Yeah.Paul: It*s a great safe way from honesty and integrity. If you start with the foundation of honesty and integrity, it goes right into relationships. And Fred Turner, who is still to this day,54 years later, is active, was actually the one that coined the phrase “the three-legged stool". What it really meant was, that there were three legs in our relationship: the franchisees, the suppliers and the company people. And all of us pulling together, and working together as a team and the synergy of that team, is how it will be successful. And if you think about that, you know how important that is, that you really don't want to let your team members down and you want them to be successful.Tanya: Sure, and every leg of the stool is only as strong as the other leg, right?Paul: Absolutely.Tanya: And another secret is the idea of standards. One of the McDonalds' mottos, apparently, is never be satisfied?Yes. Tell us about the company's no excuses working environment.Paul: Yeah, well, standards are very important and you know is - in order to have a standard, you have that measurement, and if it's worth doing, it's worth measuring. And every time you measure something, performance improves because people have a guideline - they know where they're going, and that, that's actually part of even the people side of that. The meritocracy wasn't based on anything, but clear metrics on how you advance through the ranks on that. But it was never satisfied, we always felt we could do it harder, quicker, faster. And that stayed one step ahead of the competition and kept our franchisees the best in the system.Home ListeningInternational business is a term used to collectively describe all commercial transactions (private and governmental, sales, investments, logistics, and transportation) that take place between two or more nations. Usually, private companies 1) undertake such transactions for profit; governments for profit and for political reasons. It refers to all business activities which involve cross 2) border transactions of goods, services and resources between two or more nations. Transaction of economic resources include capital, skills, people, etc. for international production of physical goods, and services such as finance, banking,3) insurance construction, etc.The increase in international business and in foreign 4) investment has created a need for executives with knowledge of foreign languages and skills in cross-cultural communication. Americans, however, have not been well trained in either area and, consequently, have not enjoyed the same level of success in 5) negotiation in an international arena as their foreign counterparts. Negotiating is the process of communicating back and forth for the purpose of reaching an agreement. It involves persuasion and compromise, but in order to 6) participate in either one, the negotiators must understand the ways in which people are persuaded and how compromise is reached within the culture of the negotiation.Home ListeningIn studies of American negotiators abroad, several traits have been 7identified that undermine the negotiator's position, two of which, in particular, are directness and 8) impatience.Furthermore, American negotiators often insist on realizing short-term goals. Foreign negotiators, on the other hand, may value the relationship established between negotiators and may be willing to invest time in it for long-term benefits.9) In order to solidify the relationship, they may choose indirect interactionsClearly, perceptions and differences in values affect the outcomes of negotiations and the success of negotiators.10) without regard for the time involved in getting to know the other negotiator. For Americans to play a more effective role in international business negotiations, they must put forth more effort to improve cross-cultural understanding.222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222UNIT 2 Made in ChinaScriptWhy buy products made in China? One of the most important reasons is that buying goods from China saves Americans over $10() billion annually. This is mostly due to the fact that Chinese workers are paid substantially less than comparable American employees, as the cost of living is much higher in the U.S. American buyers (small companies, major corporations, as well as every size in between) team up with Chinese suppliers to establish a genuine win-win situation for all involved parties, as well as both countries. The Chinese suppliers make money because they are selling their “Made in China“ products, and the American buyers are happy because they are purchasing fine quality, inexpensive products for their business, therefore reducing their overall costs. If such an American buyer is in the retail industry, the low prices are passed on to the consumer, all while paying an American worker to unpackage, monitor, maintain and sell the item.As you can see, the trade market with China has more benefits than it's given credit for by the advocates for homegrown goods. There is much more to helping the economy of our country than insisting that we only purchase products that have been “Made in the USA.” Keeping the world economy spinning while simultaneously supporting corporate America and the small businesses that make this country great is what will keep this country strong in the future.Script“Here we go."For Sara Bongiorni, it began with a simple question: Could she and her family live normal lives for one year if they decided not to buy anything made in China?“It's nothing against China; ifs more like an experiment to measure how far China's pushed into our lives.”The simple answer: It was everywhere in their lives, from her kitchen .“Our coffeemaker broke last year and we didn't replace it in time. All coffee makers come from China unless you're gonna shell out for an expensive Italian espresso maker.” to Kevin's workroom. Pegboard hangers for his tools only come from China.'Tve gone all year long with basically my tools just laying around.M . to shoes for fast growing Wes. A non-China pair cost them 65 bucks, and when Kevin's 20 dollar Chinese sunglasses broke, Sara bought him some new ones made in the USA.“I believe they were about a hundred and fifty dollars, so that would not be normally in thebudget.And don't even get her started on finding toys for the kids.“That one's from China, huh?MThe products the Bongiornis became so dependent on came from factories just like this one here in China, and because of these factories, Americans get a bargain every time they go shopping and these people get a chance at a better life.China's economy, at one time run by the state, is now all about private enterprise.15 years ago, private industry contributed 5.3 billion dollars to the economy. Now the number is more like 288 billion, an increase of more than 5 thousand percent and still climbing because of factories like this one. These young women earn all of a hundred dollars a month. For Li Xiaoyu that's three times what her parents make as peasant farmers.“You forget sometimes, you just see these things on a store shelf, but individual people make these items that are all over