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LVMH reports strong salesBy Jo Johnson and Martin Arnold in PairsLVMH (Louis Vuitton, Moet Hennessey) manufactures and sells luxury goods, such as designer clothes, fashion accessories, watches and luggage. There are several companies in the group. LVMH has 60 famous brands, such as Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Kenzo, Christian Dior and Donna Karan. It has 1,500 stures worldwide and is expanding its network. It employs 56,000 people. Its head office is in France, but 63% of its staff work outside France.Sales at its Louis Vuitton division rose 22% to ￡1.175bn($1.26bn) in the fourth quarter. Total sales at the LVMH group rose 4% to ￡12.7bn last year. Bernard goods division of LVMH made ‘excellent progress’.LVMH had excellent sales because of its strong brands, store opening and successful new product launches. One of its new products, the Tambour watch, did not have huge sales but it brought customers into the stores.Sales in the US, France and Japan were good. Fewer Japanese tourists travelled last year, but they bought more goods in their home market. Recently, LVMH opened a large store in Japan, which is doing well.LVMH is a creative and innovative group. It aims to impress its customers with its high quality and long-lasting products. Its new products----particularly in cosmetics---depend a lot on research and development .LVMH controls every detail of the brands’image.Making money from the InternetHow can companies make money from Internet? Many companies have tried and failed. Even big companies like AOL and Yahoo! Are doing less well these days. People did not buy enough to keep the retailers in business, and advertising did not make enough money for them.Martin Child, UK Managing Director of the internet company Overture, says you have to make it easy for customers to find you. Overture began as in 1997. Advertisers pay to get their products at the top of the list when surfers enter keywords into search engines on the Internet. This is called paid-for placement searches and it seems to work. Overture had revenues of $142.8m in the first quarter of this year, and a profit of $29.3m. Sixty thousand advertisers use its services worldwide.The world’s biggest search engine is Google. It first offered paid-for placement searches to advertisers in January 2000. Now clients can buy keywords so that customers see their sites on the right-hand side of the screen. Google now has AOL and Earthlink in the US and Lycos in Canada as its biggest clients.There is strong competition, and paid-for placement companies must offer services which seem to be different from their competitors. Staffan Engdegard, Senior Analyst at Jupiter Research, says, ‘There isn’t much difference between them. SO the market will be very competitive.’If advertisers see little difference in service, the main competition will be on price. Google, says Engdegard, may stay in first place, but it too will have to keep prices low.SUBW AY…GOING DOWN?BY MARK ROBINSONSubway, the American sandwich franchise, has 14,000 outlets. It is American’s biggest fast-food chain–bigger than McDonald’s. Subway Japan set up 195 franchise stores between 1992 and 2001. One hundred and twelve failed. Why? Masahiro Kabayashi of the Japan franchisee’s Association says this was because the American company did not adapt to Japan. As an example he explains that the size of the subway bread roll is too big for Japanese women to eat comfortably. Many customers visited a Subway store once and did not come back.Another problem may be that Subway’s image is too ‘healthy’for Japan. To suit Japanese tastes, hamburgers need a lot of mayonnaise, and the buns need a lot of extra sugar.Some people blame the failures on poor management. When Tetsuzo Ono became a franchisee, he asked the company for advice. He said they told him, “Remember to greet your customers”and “Keep the store clean.”“That was it. They never suggested anything else”Ono said.According to Ono, Subway promised to run advertisements but this did not happen. He says, “They failed to promote the brand. People who did not know Subway sandwiches never saw any commercials or heard from other people about the stores. Ono shut down his store. In just over two years he lost over 35 million yen. He and his wife never had a day off. He now works as a taxi driver.Yoshimasa Kawabata, Marketing Manager of Subway Japan, does not agree that Subway has bad management. He says, “We are just a franchise of Subway in America, but we are still the biggest sandwich chain in Japan.They like using the Internet. They have lots of money to spend. And they spend a higher proportion of it online than the rest of us. Teenagers are just the sort of people an Internet retailer wants to sell to, and the things they want to buy-games, CDs and clothing-are easily sold on the Web. But paying online is a tricky business for consumers who are too young to own credit cards. Most have to use a parent’s card. ‘Kids are frustrated with the Web,’says Phil Bettison, European Managing Director of WorldPay, an Internet payments company. ‘they want a facility that allows them to spend money.’That may come sooner than they think: new ways to take pocket money into cyberspace are springing up on both sides of the Atlantic, if successful, these products could provide an important stimulus to online sales. In general, teenagers spend enormous amounts: Visa calculates it totalled $153bn in the US last year, while the UK market is estimated at 20bn pounds ($24.9bn) annually by NOP, the market research group. Most teenagers have access to the Internet at home or at school -88 percent in the US, 69 percent in the UK. One in eight of those with Internet access has bought something online –mainly CDs and music. In the US, 12- to 17-year-olds spend an average of six hours a month online, according to Jupiter Research. One in six buys things over the Internet, with CDs, books, games, videos and clothing the most popular items. In most cases, parents pay for these purchases with credit cards, an arrangement that is often unsatisfactory for them and their children:’Pressing parents to spend online is less productive than pressing on the high street. A child who sees a pair of shoes in a shop can usually persuade he parent to by them. They’re more likely to ask “why?”if you ask to spend some money online,’says Mike Young of Mondex, the electronic payments company. One way to help them convert notes and coins into cybercash is through prepaid cards such as InternetCash in the US and Smart cards in the UK. Similar to those for pay-as-you-go mobile telephones, they are sold in amounts such as 20 pounds or $50 with a concealed. 14-digit number that can be used to load the cash into an online account.Unit1 ONE *More than 1400 readers of Cosmopolitan have applied to become a London Tube train driver. London Underground described the response to its single advert in this month`s issue as “exceptional”.Successful applicants with have to get out of bed for regular 4.45 a.m. starts,but the $27650 salary and up to eight weeks` holiday may prove sufficient compensation. Lorraine Candy, editor od Cosmo, said the interest her readers had shown demonstrated that young women were not bound by traditional career patterns. “It`s always been a classic thing for boys to want to be train drivers. Now we`re seeing that girls can do it too,” she said. “I don‟t think the job is boring and I am sure the passengers could not care less whether the train is being driver by a man or a woman as long as it is on time. The ability to break bad news to travelers more sympathetically is one reason London Underground is keen to increase its number of female drivers from 100- just three percent of driving staff.Unit 5A BANK manager has given up his £30,000-a-year job with NatWest to realise his childhood ambition of becoming a bus drive.Despite the £11000 salary and anti social hours, John Burgin, 48, has never been happier.‘Banking was a career but in the end it became just a job,’he said.‘Once I knew I was leaving, I used to go outside at lunchtime and watch as the buses drove up and down.The time had come.’His passion was awakened as a boy growing up in Sheffield, where he collected bus maps and time tables.But Mr Burgin, from Nailsea, near Bristol, went on to spend nearly 30 years working his way up through NatWest.‘The levels of stress are totally different,’he said.‘At the bank, things were very political.I worked hard all day then took work home, and it never really finished.There is stress in driving a bus around Brisrol, but it‟s a different kind and I don‟t take it home.’Unit 10ANegotiations are demanding and may become emotional. You may find your Russian negotiator banging his or her fist on the table or leaving the room. Accept such tactics with patience and calmness. They are designed to make it difficult for you to concentrate.Russian negotiating teams are often made up of experienced managers whose style can be like a game of chess, with moves planned in advance. Wanting to make compromises may be seen as a sign of weakness.Distinguish between your behaviour inside and outside the negotiations. Impatience, toughness and emotion during the negotiations should be met with calmness, patience and consistency. Outside the negotiating process you can show affection and personal sympathy.BAs well as being formal, negotiations are direct. German managers speak their mind. They place great weight on the clarity of the subject matter and get to the point quickly.Excessive enthusiasm or compliments are rare in German business. You should give a thorough and detailed presentation, with an emphasis on objective information, such as your company‟s history, rather than on clever visuals or marketing tricks. Prepare thoroughly before the negotiation and be sure to make your position clear during the opening stage of the talks, as well as during their exploratory phases. Avoid interrupting, unless you have an urgent question about the presentation.CCommunicating is a natural talent of Americans. When negotiating partners meet, the emphasis is on small talk and smiling. There is liberal use of a sense of humour that is more direct than it is in the UK. Informality is the rule. Business partners do not use their academic titles on their business cards. Sandwiches and drinks in plastic or boxes are served during conferences.This pleasant attitude continues in the negotiation itself. US negotiators usually attach little importance to status, title, formalities and protocol. They communicate in an informal and direct manner on a first-name basis. Their manner is relaxed and casual.The attitude …time is money‟ has more influence on business communication in the US than it does anywhere else. Developing a personal relationship with the business partner is not as important as getting results.DAt the start of the negotiations you might want to decide whether you need interpreters. You should have documentation available in Spanish. Business cardsshould carry details in Spanish and English.During the negotiations your counterparts may interrupt each other, or even you. It is quite common in Spain for this to happen in the middle of a sentence. For several people to talk at the same time is accepted in Latin cultures, but is considered rather unusual in Northern Europe.The discussion is likely to be lively. In negotiations, Spanish business people rely on quick thinking and spontaneous ideas rather than careful preparation. It may appear that everybody is trying to put his or her point across at once. That can make negotiations in Spain intense and lengthy, but also enjoyably creative.。