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[阅读小分队] 【Native Speaker每日综合训练—45系列】【45-19】经管

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发表于 2014-12-11 23:45:25 | 显示全部楼层 |阅读模式
内容:小蘑菇开始打怪   编辑:吐吐yeah

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Part I: Speaker

More Drinking, Less Buzz: Session Beers Gain Fans

Source: NPR
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/12/10/368038601/for-more-drinking-with-less-buzzing-session-beers-gain-fans

[Rephrase 1, 04:08]

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 楼主| 发表于 2014-12-11 23:45:27 | 显示全部楼层
Part II: Speed

The Lesson in American Airlines' Smart Pricing Plan for its Exclusive Club
BY GENE MARKS  DECEMBER 10, 2014

[Time 2]
After months of agonizing, I decided to join the American Airlines Admirals Club. It cost 400 bucks.

You see these clubs at the airport, and I’m sure, if you’re like me, you probably wonder what goes on behind those double closed doors. Topless dancers? Bubbling champagne? Celebrities and VIPs discussing billion-dollar deals over cocktails? Not quite.

Most of these clubs are just glorified offices, with higher speed Internet, cubicles, comfortable chairs, wide-screen TVs and free coffee. The Admirals Club (recently re-branded as part of the merger between American Airlines and US Airways) also offers free cocktails. Some even have their own, in-house restaurants with à la carte pricing.

But is it worth the $400 (or more depending on your status with the airline) annual membership fee? Since joining I can confirm that the club is great and I’m enjoying it. But that’s not the point. The point is what happens after you pay the fee. And the lesson is a great one for anyone running a small business, like me.

Pricing is psychological. There are two types of customers in this world, or at least in my world: the ones who can’t commit (pay as they go) and the ones who can commit (subscribers). Businesses hate the pay-as-you-go types and love the subscribers. Just look at the numbers.

I’ll probably visit the Admirals Club about 20 times this year because I travel about one to two times a month. So at the $400 membership fee I paid, that works out to $20 per visit. If I visit 30 times this year that’s $13.33 per visit. Even if the club offered me the ability to just pay $20 or $13.33 each time, do you think I’d visit as much? No way.
[290 words]

[Time 3]
Psychologically, if I had to fork over that amount each time, I’d be forced to consider whether it’s worth it to spend the money or to just suffer with the peasants in the waiting area with slow Internet and coffee in plastic cups instead of porcelain mugs. I’d rationalize that it’s still cheaper to get a $6 beer in the bar. I wouldn’t do it nearly as much.

That’s the brilliance of American’s pricing model for its Admirals Club. OK, not that brilliant. But smart. Smart enough to realize that the subscription model always makes more sense than a pay-as-you-go model. Sure, there’s probably the odd customer that consumes $50 of alcohol, coffee and the complimentary fruit left out each time he visits, but those guys are few and far between. The typical traveler, like me, costs very little to service. So once the club’s overhead is paid each new incremental subscription is pure profit.

This is why you and I are constantly asked to “sign up” for services that happily renew our subscriptions automatically with just a simple checkbox ticked off. This is why we have “minimum service fees,” “monthly premiums” and “annual subscriptions” for our TV, Internet, phone, insurance, music, movies, credit card, data backup, legal and accounting engagements.

Subscription services are the way to go. Smart companies know this. They’re not only benefiting from a recurring cash flow but they’re building a significant value in their companies -- one that can be sold someday to a buyer who will pay a premium or a multiple for that ongoing revenue.

In these days of annual agreements and ongoing services, shouldn’t we all revisit our revenue streams? What, if anything our businesses do, can be turned into an annual fee? A maintenance plan? A premium support agreement? A warranty or other service commitment that our customers will find of value?
[311 words]

[REST]
If you’re a roofer, how about a service plan for your guys to visit your customers once a year to inspect the roof and clean out the gutters? If you’re an auto mechanic how about a service plan that covers basic oil changes and delivery of a customer’s car to and from their home? If your company sells technology, like mine, is there not room for an ongoing service to update, fix and train for a flat annual fee?

Every business provides services and everyone is looking for more convenience in their lives. Not everyone will pay, of course. But some will. I did for my Admirals Club membership, which means I’m locked into spending more money with American than I would probably do otherwise.
OK, maybe it’s not completely genius. But it’s smart.
[134 words]

Source: Entrepreneur
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240585



McDonald's close to smaller menu, but investors don't care
By Chris Nichols

[Time 4]
McDonald's (MCD) again stressed on Wednesday that locally influenced and simplified menus will be key changes arriving in its stores, while saying a number of items will be going away in weeks as the world's largest publicly traded restaurant chain attempts to reinvent itself.

During a two-hour investor call centered largely on domestic operations, CEO Don Thompson and U.S. president Mike Andres dealt with themes McDonald's has discussed for some time, those being a menu that makes sense in terms of regional preferences and one that's quicker to grasp for patrons, while incorporating new levels of customization with a plan called "Create Your Taste." The idea is to get guest counts, which have been falling, growing again.

In January, the current 16 Extra Value Meals will decline to 11, and eight menu items will be removed. Andres didn't provide specifics, but Reuters later reported changes would include the menu featuring one Quarter Pounder with Cheese, down from four, while certain premium chicken sandwiches and snack wraps would be dropped. "We don't need to have a big menu board to offer variety," he said.

The menu regularly has been cited as having gotten to where it slows service and confuses customers -- Andres said over 100 items have been added in the last 10 years.

The remarks took place two days after weak November sales results helped send the Oak Brook, Ill., company's stock to its worst day of the year. In the U.S., home to more than 14,000 of McDonald's 35,000 restaurants, comparable sales had their most depressing month in years, down 4.6%.

Investors weren't especially impressed with the presentation, at least initially, as shares of McDonald's lost 1.3% to $90.22. It may have been the hope that, after the bad news Monday, corporate leadership would unveil they're embarking on some enlightened new path. Of course, in addition to being short-sighted, that would have been unrealistic.
[316 words]

[Time 5]
Inflation and ingredients

Regardless, the shares were retreating as Thompson and Andres primarily discussed what's already known broadly: Local markets are going to have more say in the menu, customization is important to the company's next phase and technology and service options, including kiosks, mobile payments and table delivery, will be the future.

"We tend to be very risk-averse," Andres said when discussing new products and the pace of McDonald's response to evolving tastes. "We have, I think, the ability to greatly increase speed to market."

Pricing also entered the discussion, and here Andres, a company veteran who left before recently returning, said it was likely McDonald's had too much of a disparity between its entry-level core items and the premium products. Core items such as burgers may have seen too much price inflation, a factor that could have dented perceptions of quality, he said, while Thompson noted it was necessary to have a clear pricing structure that ensured customers believed they were getting good value for their dollars. Stores such as Chipotle (CMG), which McDonald's used to control, have been able to charge higher prices and still boost traffic by convincing diners the overall experience is a better one.

Healthfulness, as is often the case when McDonald's is involved, had time, as well. Thompson and Andres said that while their company and competing fast-food operators regularly are viewed as having few healthy options, they're looking for ways to eliminate certain preservatives and other ingredients in favor of natural alternatives. McDonald's, they said, is helped by the fact that inventory in the stores is turned over quickly -- even as traffic has dropped, these restaurants remain what most would consider busy.
[278 words]

[Time 6]
McDonald's already has implemented considerable change, though it hasn't been helped noticeably, considering American stores have seen monthly same-store sales drop in 12 of the last 13 months. It's reworking kitchen operations, remodeling locations and more recently it's brought out a question-and-answer video series on social media to talk up its food.

Still, even with its setbacks, which this year has included a supplier investigation in China that damaged its Asia-Pacific sales, McDonald's remains a company with $90 billion in system sales, high profits, billions of dollars of real estate, a powerful franchise-based revenue stream and a dividend that climbs annually. Investors got accustomed to wins, as its shares went from around $12 in the early 2000s to over $100 a decade later.

The last couple of years have been more challenging for them. The stock reached a record high above $103 earlier this year, but it fell below $90 in October, then got back to even for 2014 at $97 before falling off again. It has issues that have to get resolved. But its believers aren't giving up yet. Although they might still want to see more.
[188 words]

Source: Yahoo Finance
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/mcdonald-s-close-to-smaller-menu--but-investors-aren-t-impressed-191320203.html

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 楼主| 发表于 2014-12-11 23:45:26 | 显示全部楼层
Part III: Obstacle



Macron's gambi
Dec 10th 2014 | PARIS | Europe

[Paraphrase 7]

TODAY, after months of consultation, the cabinet of France’s Socialist government is set to approve a flagship bill designed to liberalise the economy and boost growth. Known as the loi Macron, after Emmanuel Macron (pictured), the young economy minister, it is supposed to be the government’s answer both to slow growth and to sceptics who think that France is not ready to shake up its over-regulated economy. It will be as scrutinised in Brussels and Berlin as it will be at home.

The draft law is the brainchild of Mr Macron and Manuel Valls, the centre-left prime minister. Both want to steer the Socialist government towards more business-friendly policies. The bill, which will go to parliament in late January, is a mixed bag of measures. They include loosening Sunday-trading rules; selling between €5 billion and €10 billion of state shareholdings; liberalising the country’s inter-city coach industry to boost competition with trains; and deregulating certain professions, such as notaries.

Some of these plans may appear anodyne. It scarcely seems revolutionary, for instance, to allow shops in certain tourist areas to open on Sunday once a month, up from five times a year under current rules. The planned deregulation of some professions has already been diluted due to lobbying; pharmacies, for instance, will keep their monopoly over the sale of non-prescription drugs such as paracetamol. And the bill is expected to say nothing at all about the 35-hour working week, despite Mr Macron’s regular criticisms of its constraint on French business.

Yet they add up to a useful reformist package, and have been welcomed by Medef, the French employers’ federation, as a “real step in the right direction”. One measure of the boldness of the draft law is that it has upset both conservatives on the political right and members of President François Hollande’s own Socialist Party on the left. Before the bill was unveiled, notaries and pharmacists took to the streets to protest, and some of the more left-wing Socialist deputies laid into it. The latter have little time for Mr Macron, an unelected former investment banker, and even less for anything that smacks of liberalism.

Left-wing deputies consider the bill a betrayal of the concept of social progress, and an embrace of the commercial thinking more typical of Nicolas Sarkozy, Mr Hollande’s centre-right predecessor. The draft law “calls into question all the historic battles of the left,” charged Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, a Socialist deputy, this week, referring to working on Sundays. “My objective,” said Pascal Cherki, another Socialist member of parliament, “is not to vote for all the measures that Sarkozy did not manage to pass and which we fought against in opposition.”

The bill will test how far the government is prepared to go in matching its market-friendly talk with concrete measures. It will also test Mr Valls’s political determination. A few Socialist deputies, who have abstained recently over the budget, have even threatened to vote against the Macron law, an act of outright rebellion. If his restless deputies make it too risky for Mr Valls to try to push the law through parliament, he will need to decide whether he is ready to force the changes through by decree.

The French government insists that the law is aimed purely at reviving the economy, which is in its third year of near-zero growth. But it is also an important negotiating point with Brussels. The European Commission recently granted France an extra three months before deciding whether to sanction its breach of budget-deficit rules. In theory, this judgment is independent of structural reform. But the unspoken deal is that the commission will give France the nod if France does more to loosen its over-regulated economy. Before this week’s draft law, Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, upped the stakes, saying in a newspaper interview that “what is currently on the table is not yet enough.” Mr Valls and Mr Macron need to persuade Berlin and Brussels that the new law is liberalising enough—and their own colleagues that it is not liberal at all.
[671 words]

Source: Economist
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21635835-economy-minister-must-convince-brussels-his-reforms-are-liberal-and-paris-they-are-not-macrons

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发表于 2014-12-12 08:55:44 | 显示全部楼层
thanks for sharing! 文章超赞的!难度适中!
最近跟小分队做阅读  感觉读了世界新闻 哈哈 开眼看世界了
speed
1'58
2'15
2'22
1'59
1'09
obstacle
4'12
France leader is going to propose a law to revivied their eco
But this is too risk
some people do not approve it.
发表于 2014-12-12 10:34:51 | 显示全部楼层
THANKS 小蘑菇 & 吐吐!!!

Speaker
Having more than one session beer, a beer with low alchohol, will not make one feel quietly drunk.

Time2   1'57
One person spent $400 to join an Airline club to enjoy the better services. Then he or she figured whether the money was worth? There are two types of customers: pay as they go, which businesses hate, and subscribers, which businesses love. If the business split the whole expense into every time expenses, customers will not pay for the club.

Time3  1'40
Complimenting how smart the businesses are.
发表于 2014-12-12 10:40:44 | 显示全部楼层
掌管 7        00:06:42.35        00:24:08.00
掌管 6        00:01:36.17        00:17:25.64
掌管 5        00:02:40.47        00:15:49.47
掌管 4        00:04:02.64        00:13:08.99
掌管 3        00:00:54.77        00:09:06.35
掌管 2        00:05:16.88        00:08:11.58
掌管 1        00:02:54.69        00:02:54.69
发表于 2014-12-12 13:39:16 | 显示全部楼层
time2 2:03 The author join the ariport club and pay 400 bucks. He think it's not a big cost because he travels by planes many times a month and the service is quite good.
time3 2:00 There are two model of consumption. The sub... is better because it provides constant revenue.
time4 2:12 Mcdonald will reduce the kinds of food and won't provide small menu to increase revenue.
time5 1:46 The Mcdonald need to make a profit.
time6 1:23 Mcdonal has made a series of change in managing company.
time7 6:24 There is a new bill in France to revive the economy. There are many opposite voice about the law in France, and whether the bill will succeed is unknown. It needs time. The Europe commission is waiting the effect of the new bill and Germany and Brussels think it's now enough, more measures should be done.
发表于 2014-12-12 16:17:20 | 显示全部楼层
obstacle        00:05:45.62        00:15:59.18
time5        00:01:38.86        00:10:13.56
time4        00:02:40.50        00:08:34.70
time3        00:03:06.20        00:05:54.19
time2        00:02:47.98        00:02:47.98
发表于 2014-12-12 17:50:54 | 显示全部楼层
掌管 6        00:04:06.07        00:15:22.25
掌管 5        00:01:16.92        00:11:16.17
掌管 4        00:02:08.07        00:09:59.25
掌管 3        00:03:23.62        00:07:51.17
掌管 2        00:02:11.79        00:04:27.54
掌管 1        00:02:15.75        00:02:15.75
发表于 2014-12-12 18:20:06 | 显示全部楼层
Speaker:
Some beer brewing professionals raise the trend of session beer, which has low APV but good flavor. The session beer helps those people who’d like to drink all day but not to drunk. The session beers are well respected and well recognized by both the professionals and costumers

Time 2: 1’53
The author paid to join the AAA Club, and shares his option about the paying membership of this kind of clubs. The reason behind that price is that costumers prefer to subscribe than pay-as-they-go.

Time 3: 2’28
The subscription price model avoids letting costumers to consider whether it’s worth every time, and builds a significant value in the companies. We should also consider to transfer our businesses to annual agreements and ongoing services.

Rest: 36’’

Time 4: 2’33
MCD announced to simplify menus and reinvent itself, and the sales dropped to the year’s low. But the investors were not been impressed, and still hold the hope that the company will unveil that they’re embarking on some enlightened new path.

Time 5: 2’01
Management emphasized the importance of local market, costumers, technology and services potions. They also discussed their plan of clear price structure and healthfulness.

Time 6: 1’18
MCD has implemented considerable change, but it hasn’t been helped noticeably, and also impacted by its setbacks.

Time 7: 4’09
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