Business English 2009

Q24# Comments on the 3rd presentation

kasmersensei — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:35:10 +0000

Q23# Comments on the second presentation

kasmersensei — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 06:04:45 +0000

Please give us your opinions on the presentation on hiring new graduates.

Q22# Comments on the first presentation

kasmersensei — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:55:58 +0000

What was your impression of the ideas presented; comic books being sold in France, and urban mining in Tokyo?

Q21# Tracking your business

kasmersensei — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:36:06 +0000

When running a business, we often need to track various things such as profit and loss, etc.

What other things would you like to keep track of, and on what time basis (daily, weekly, etc.)?

Q 20# If you used a blog for your business, how would you use it?

kasmersensei — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:09:12 +0000

Simply put, if you had a business (I’ll let you give an example of type or types), how would you use a blog to promote it?

Q19# Customers

kasmersensei — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:02:22 +0000

Businesses like to get new customers, and keep the ones that they have. For a business like a coffee shop, which is more important, attracting new customers or keeping the ones you have?

Also, why do customers continue to stay with a certain business, such as a coffee shop?

What causes them to change to another one, and what can you do to try and keep your customers returning to your place of business?

Q18# New coffee drink

kasmersensei — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:28:29 +0000

You think the Japanese market is ready for another coffee drink. But you’re wondering, what is the best way to test your new drink?

Should you..

1) give out free drinks in your coffee shop?

2) give out free drinks at your carts?

3) charge for the drinks at a reduced price at both locations?

4) offer discount coupons for it?

5) ask cusomers to buy one regular drink and give them the new drink free?

6) try another approach?

Q 17# Promoting your new coffee carts

kasmersensei — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:29:28 +0000

We decided to hire a mix of employees, both experienced and university students. The university students are paid lower wages, but need more training. By pairing them with more experienced employees, we hope their training time can be shortened.

We decided on mobile locations, but not near our shop as we didn’t want to cut into the shop’s business, where we can also make coffee to go. We currently set up near a large office building in the morning, move to near a shopping center in the afternoon, and position ourselves near a street with popular restaurants at night.

How should we market this aspect of our business?

What is the best media or combination of media to use?

How best to not spend too much money on our marketing budget?

Q 16# What kinds of questions are customer killers?

kasmersensei — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:33:17 +0000

Sometimes people make the odd mistake in conversations with customers. If customers are offended, it might be okay after an apology. But what kinds of questions do you think should be avoided with;

Japanese customers?

North American customers?

UK customers?

Please also explain your reasoning behind your choices.

Q 15# Coffee to go

kasmersensei — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:44:50 +0000

You’ve decided to expand your little coffee business. Your shop near Hosei is doing well, and your 2 assistant managers are pretty independent. You don’t have the extra capital to open another shop, so instead you are going to add 2 mobile units that can supply coffee at different loacations.

http://www.tea-and-coffee.com/acatalog/swanhythe.jpg

Location

You haven’t decided yet whether you should;

1) move the carts to different locations depending on the time of day

2) have them remain in one location where hopefully you’ll get enough foot traffic all day

Schedule

Also, you are considering, should you

1) have the cart be open all day

2) have it open for morning and lunch time only

3) or some other schedule

You need to decide as you have already purchased the carts and they are being delivered next week.

Workers

In addition, who should you hire to work on the carts;

1) hire experienced workers away from another company (offer more money)

2) hire unveristy employees and train them

3) hire retired people and train them

4) hire your relatives who need a job and train them

5) move some of your in-store employees on the cart

6) hire whomever and train them

List your decsions and your reasons for them.