MBA商务英语教材.doc

PAGE PAGE 8 Business English Through Cases A Course Specially Designed for MBA candidates at School of Business, Soochow By Dr. Xu Jian ( jack_xj@263.net) March 2, 2005 1. Foundations and challenges of business Facing Business Challenges at Gateway 2000 From Farm Boy to Billionaire Computers. The odds are slim you will survive, much less thrive, in this industry. You have to guess what customers will want more than a year in advance, even though technology is changing at an incredibly fast pace. It’s hardly a business for cowboys—unless you’re Ted Waitt. Son of a fourth-generation cattle broker, Waitt (currently 34 and worth an estimated $1.7 billion) rides herd over Gateway 2000. They tell stories about Waitt, and not just in Sioux City, South Dakota—Gateway’s homeland. They talk about how he built a fortune by trusting his instincts and making gutsy calls that led the industry. How he borrowed $10,000 from his grandmother to start a mail-order computer business, and how he turned a two-man, farmhouse operation into a global giant It all began while Waitt was working for a local computer store; he was amazed by how easy it was to sell computer equipment to acknowledgeable computer users over the phone. So in 1985 Waitt (the marketer) teamed up with his buddy Mike Hammond (the technical whiz), and the two started a small mail-order computer business of their own. Waitt and Hammond worked long hours—from their upstairs office in Waitt’s family farmhouse. Their big break came in 1987, when Texas Instruments (TI) decided to stop manufacturing its own computers and instead sell only industry-standard IBM-compatible personal computers (PCs). Of course, owners of TI computers could trade in their equipment for newer IBM-compatible computers, but first they would have to cough up $3,500. Waitt and Hammond knew they could provide the same computer equipment TI was offering—and at a much cheaper price ($1,955). They did this by finding the best deals on cutting