【正文】 ulders products, which now enjoy a significant market share in various countries.On the other hand, panies also use R amp。 D to improve the products they already produce. Again, Procter and Gamble has improved the technology of Tide detergent more than seventy times. And not surprisingly, Tide is now the leading detergent in North America. What’s more, R amp。 D can allow one firm a huge petitive advantage and therefore improve revenue streams dramatically. For example, Pfizer, one of the pharmaceutical titans, has successfully obtained patents for such best selling drugs as Benadryl, Listerine and Viagra. In other words, Pfizer now has the monopoly in these lucrative drugs. This ‘license to print money’ es directly from Pfizer’s R amp。 D activities. In short, firms that spend money on R amp。 D have found to their delight that the benefits almost always exceed the expenses.M. III130. Health and Safety: the importance of a safe working environment for maintaining staff morale Firms that create a safe working environment not only prevent injuries but improve the morale of their employees as well. I feel strongly that this is something indispensable for any pany. First of all, a safe working environment offers peace of mind to staff members and therefore can significantly motivate staff to enhance a firm’s productivity. As a result, many leading firms, such as Intel and GE, now identify workplace safety as one of their main goals. Not surprisingly, these are some of the best performing firms anywhere in the world.What’s more, a safe environment can reduce the occurrence of workplace accidents, which are usually a source of staff dissatisfaction and low trust in the management. Taking safety measures can enhance staff loyalty and, in turn, moral. For instance, Levi Strauss and Co. imposes safety guidelines not only in its US facilities but also in Asian factories where some of its clothes are made. Starbucks, meanwhile, has developed a code of conduct in an attempt to improve the quality of life in coffeeproducing countries, in an effort to buck against sweatshoplike working conditions. These two panies have been rated highly by their employees.In short, if you want to boost morale among your staff, or to put it in plain words, if you want to see enthusiasm, confidence, or loyalty in your workforce, then safety should have your prior attention.N. III137. International Business: the importance of a global presence for a panyWith more mergers and acquisitions than ever before, I think it’s being quite clear that a pany in the future will need to have a global presence in order to pete in tomorrow’s market place. This presence can give a pany many petitive advantages. To begin with, say, it can give access to local market knowledge, which can help avoid some very, very expensive mistakes on account of cultural conflicts. The Matsushita Firm of Japan learned this at a price, when they, without knowing the negative connotations of the word in the US, first launched their products under the brand name of “National’. Only when they switched to ‘Panasonic’ did the flat sale bee brisk. On top of that, a global presence can spread the risk of doing business. As the saying goes: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. If a pany sells to more than one market, it can survive a downturn in any one of those markets, that’s something for sure. And if a pany bees truly global, the size of the pany means it can realize economies of scale, say, in advertising or distribution or shipping. It can also move its production from country to country and take advantage of the best conditions at any given time. So I think, all in all, when these things are taken into consideration, it’s quite clear that any pany not looking to establish a global presence in the future may not have a future at all.O. III138. Business Ethics: how to encourage ethical behaviour from employeesFigures show that more and more panies are now reporting their ethical performance and it’s clear, I think, that panies now have to address the issue of ensuring ethical behaviour amongst their staff. The question is of course – how?To begin with, awareness is key. And in order to promote awareness for ethics, the pany needs to put ethics high on the training and staff development agenda. The HR department, say, can sponsor some workshops or seminars on business ethics, or even invite some external experts for this purpose. Once these procedures are in place, the pany then needs to spell out an official code of ethical practice and ensure that all employees have access to it and can understand it easily. The pany then needs to implement an effective and anonymous system of reporting any breaches of this code. Some panies even benchmark their ethical practices against those of industry leaders and see how they’re doing.I suppose it’s also vital that panies ensure that their senior managers set a good example, ‘walk and talk’ so to speak. If they don’t behave ethically why should staff?All in all, whatever measures a pany adopts, it needs to make staff understand why ethics is important not just to the pany but also to themselves as well.* * * * BEC II Part 2 questions:Career 職業(yè)題1. What is important when looking for a new job? Location, Salary, Good colleagues See C, FLast but not least, good colleagues are not a minor consideration either. As we all know, good colleagues provide a supportive work environment, and therefore can also foster teamwork and cooperation in your job. On the other hand, not so helpful colleagues will cause frustration and reduce productivity. 2. What is important when preparing for a job interview? Studying the job advertisement, Finding out about the panyTo begin with, studying the job ad is a crucial first step. Only by doing so can you fully understand the employer’s requirements on qualification, experience, skills and so on. In this