An upper intermediate speech for interpreting note-taking and simultaneous interpretation training. This one focuses on economics and allows you to practice terminology, lists and numbers and figures. Note: The Speech starts STRAIGHT AWAY!
Topic(s): Economics, Microeconomics
Terms: multinationals, conglomerates, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, blue chip companies, Microsoft, Investopedia, GDP, market cap, A&P Grocery Chain, The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, grocer industry, suburbanisation, economy of scale
- ‘Basic Economics‘, by Thomas Sowell | BUY it here (UK 🇬🇧) or here (US 🇺🇸)
Also check these books to learn and practice interpreting.
Good For Practicing:
- Interpreting note-taking
- South African accent
- Lists / itemisation
- Numbers and figures
Also available on Speechpool.
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*Please check the script only after you’ve done the note-taking exercise, otherwise that’s cheating! 🙂
There are certain multinational companies and conglomerates that became so big in the 21st century, it’s hard for us to even image a world without them.
I’m thinking of massive companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and etc. Some even found a way into the dictionary of the English language.
Remember when we used to research or look for something up on an encyclopaedia? Nowadays we simply ‘Google’ it. That’s how much of an impact Google has had on our lives.
But of course, it’s not only in name that these famous ‘blue chip’ companies are huge. The main reason why they seem to be pretty much everywhere is their astonishing market value.
For example: Apple’s total market capitalisation is currently valued at more than 2 trillion dollars. Microsoft and Amazon have surpassed the 1.5 trillion dollars mark, and Alphabet – Google’s parent company – has an estimated value of around 1.2 trillion.
To give you a sense of perspective, Investopedia estimates that Apple is bigger than the economies of most countries in the world. In fact, only 7 countries have annual GDP figures greater than Apple’s market cap. Those are:
- The United States of America
- United Kingdom
- And France
‘With such a high estimated market valuation, it’s almost impossible to even imagine the disappearance of a company like Apple. How could such a tech giant – one that is more valuable than most national economies – ever go bankrupt? Is that even possible?
There’s no way to predict that, and for the foreseeable future, businesses like Apple are here to stay.
However, history has showed us that perhaps no company is big enough to last forever. One notable example is A&P Grocery Chain, a company that once was the largest chain in any field, anywhere in the world, but no longer exists today.
So let’s have a very brief look at the history of A&P and see how it went from being one of the greatest to full extinction.
A&P – which is short for The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company – was by far the largest leading grocery chain in America, with 15,000 stores around the country by 1929. It was renowned for its high quality and low prices, and its annual rate of profit on investment was always above 20% – about double of the national average.
This company would absolutely dominate the market for decades to come. It was, in a sense, the Amazon of its Era, or ‘a Walmart before Walmart’. When people needed to buy something, they’d go to an A&P grocery shop.
However, this began to change in the 1970s, when A&P lost 50 million dollars in a 52-week period. A few years later the losses rose to $157 million per year, and thousands of A&P stores were forced to close. That marked the beginning of the end.
The company’s steep decline continued for a couple more decades, until its final demise in 2015.
So what happened? How could the world’s largest retail chain suffer such a tragic fate?
The answer is in 2 closely-related elements: competition and lack of ability to adapt to social changes.
A&P dominated the market up until the 1950s, and it did so by charging lower prices than competing grocery stores. This was possible essentially because A&P was more efficient than its competitors.
After the 50s, however, new players in the market started to outperform A&P in terms of efficiency, becoming capable of charging even lower prices in the process.
This happened in part due to an important social change: the number of people who owned a car and a fridge freezer rose drastically in the prosperous years that followed the Second World War.
These 2 factors combined changed the economics of the grocer industry in 3 major ways.
First, it made suburbanisation possible. People started moving out of the cities and into the suburbs, as they could now rely on their cars to come to work every day, even if they lived far away from the city.
Second, greater economies of scale became possible. It made financial sense for customers to buy larger quantities in one go, as perishable goods could now be safely stored in a fridge or freezer.
And third, grocers could now open huge supermarkets in the suburbs, where rents and land were cheaper, and carry out a larger volume of sales at a given location. Not only could they buy their produce in bigger quantities, which lowered the cost, they could sell in bigger quantities to customers, who now owned cars and fridges.
A&P did not adapt well to the new circumstances. Their stores were mostly located in the central cities, where they had higher rents to pay and less space for storage, which prevented them from embracing an economy of scale. As a result, they couldn’t lower prices the same way the new wave of supermarkets did, so they kept on losing customers.
In conclusion, this is a lesson for every major company out there. It doesn’t matter how big you are: if you don’t adapt to change, your competitors will force you out of the market.
But realistically speaking, could this ever happen to Amazon? It surely seems impossible, but the same could be said of A&P back in the day.
Only time will tell. We can’t predict what social changes are yet to take place and how today’s businesses are going to react to them, so perhaps, just in case, it’s better to ask that question again in 30 years’ time.’