deceptive

[听力原文]
   
   Critics call Howard Stringer a failure. They are wrong. The share price has fallen by a quarter this year. The company has lost money for three years in a row. Hackers have breached its online service, exposing mountains of confidential customer data to potential mischief. Sony's boss, Sir Howard Stringer, looks like a total failure.
   But looks can be deceptive. Sir Howard took the reins in 2005 and plans to retire soon. During his time at the top, he has overhauled the Japanese consumer-electronics giant. He has outsourced operations, shifted production overseas, sold business units and developed new ones. The company still lags behind big rivals such as Apple and Samsung, but it is far healthier than it was six years ago.
   Sir Howard has suffered a string of bad luck. Before an earthquake walloped ten of Sony's Japanese factories, the firm was expected to report a net profit of ¥70 billion ($817m) for the year to March 31st 2011. But the quake will have cost it some ¥17 billion that year and ¥150 billion the next. The cyber attacks will also cost billions, says Sony. Its network was hacked again this week, affecting users in Greece, Canada and elsewhere. Analysts guess that the breaches could cost Sony ¥100 billion.
   Adding to the misery, Sony was forced to revalue the tax breaks (accumulated from previous losses) that it expects to deduct from future tax bills. The company reduced these "deferred-tax assets" by a hefty ¥362 billion. This does not affect its operating profit or cash flow, but it forced Sony on May 26th to report a net loss for 2010 of ¥259 billion.
   In 2005 Sir Howard inherited a company that was bloated and badly run and had missed the technology shift to flat-panel televisions. A Welshman with an American passport, he was hired on the assumption that a foreigner can make painful changes that a Japanese boss might feel culturally obliged to duck. (Carlos Ghosn, a French-Brazilian, has done something similar at Nissan, a Japanese carmaker.)
   Sir Howard spent the first few years shunting aside deadwood managers who sabotaged his reforms. He promoted talented young executives, such as Kazuo Hirai, who at the age of 50 heads Sony's gaming and network services, and is tipped as Sir Howard's Successor.
   Sony has been buffeted by the financial crisis, the strong yen and the earthquake, none of which was Sir Howard's fault. He bears responsibility for the data breach, because he is the boss, but there is scant evidence that Sony's defenses were worse than the rest of the industries.
   Sir Howard's changes have begun to pay off. At the end of last year, Sony's sales of televisions grew by 44% and those of its computers rose by 28%. Its gaming and mobile-phone activities turned profitable in 2010. The television business still suffers losses, but is on a firmer footing. Sir Howard shut superfluous factories—including one in Ichinomiya, which made the Trinitron televisions that were once a symbol of Sony's technical brilliance. Today more than half of Sony's TVs are assembled by outsourcers, up from a mere 20% in 2009.
   In recent months Sony has unveiled new smart phones, along with a clever strategy to persuade developers to produce video games for them. The firm has designed innovative tablet computers that could compete with Apple's iPad. Sony's Vaio notebook computers offer an alternative to Apple's laptops. The hardware is important because it is a gateway to online services, where Sony's future is thought to lie. That is one reason why the cyber attacks hurt the company so much.
   Many of the firm's employees are conservative foot-draggers, but Sir Howard has shaken them up. Perhaps he has made Sony safe once more for a Japanese boss.

rivals

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talented young executives

financial crisis

44%

20%

An alternative to

ask a question, hear the answer

[听力原文]
   I think leadership is about three things: capability, collaboration, and character. Let me talk briefly about those three, and then I'm going to take your questions. Capability. Of course, when we think about capability, we think about skills, we think about experiences, all of those things are important. But sometimes, the most important capability you can have is the capability to ask a question and hear the answer. Every time you go into a new situation, you have to ask questions to understand what's there. I tell people all the time that the single best leading indicator of whether a business is doing well or a business is doing poorly is customer satisfaction. Customers always know what's wrong. They can't always tell you what they want, but they can always tell you what's wrong. And every time they tell you something that's wrong, it's an opportunity. So I think income statements and balance sheets are lagging indicators, very important. But an income statement or a balance sheet is a representation of decisions already made. Somebody's bought a product, that's revenue you post. A manager's made a decision, that's an expense you post. Lagging indicator. Real important, but you're looking in the rear-view mirror. They're things that tell you where a business is going. Asking the right questions of customers turns out to be really important. Customer satisfaction is a vital leading indicator for businesses. And if you doubt me, way back in 2002, we were going through the proxy battle and the merger, and I made the incredibly outrageous comment that Hewlett-Packard would become the leading technology company in the world, and would beat both IBM and Dell. Everyone thought I was nuts. By the way, it has since happened. But what was interesting, people said, "How do you know you can beat them?" I said, "Well, because we can replicate their cost structure, we can replicate their distribution model, and because if you'll observe, our customer sat is going up, and theirs is going down." The truth is, Dell's problems were all foreseeable. All you had to do was look at the fact that they had quit innovating, they had stopped taking risks, they were relying on the same competitive model for too long, and their customer sat was straight down. It was only a matter of time. Which is why rate of innovation, the ability to take risks, the ability to celebrate new ideas is also a leading indicator of a business. So capability: you've got to ask the right questions. Capability: you have to celebrate new ideas, take risks all the time, try new things. Because however good the answers you have had are, every person, every organization eventually reaches a time when the old answers aren't good enough anymore. And then the only thing that works is creativity and new ideas and risk-taking and innovation. The other important part about capability, I think, is to keep learning, to learn something every day. I'm older than most of you, so I can say this with some certainty. But you know, you see people who are in their 40s and 50s, and some people at that age, or 60s, or 70s, or 80s, and some people in that age group are vibrant. And some people aren't. And a big part of that difference is, the people who keep learning, who keep trying new things are vibrant. And the people who stop learning and stop trying new things are old before their time. It is why, or maybe it's another application of something Charles Darwin said. Charles Darwin said, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but those most adaptive to change."

Income statements and balance sheets.

Customer satisfaction.

take risks, celebrate new ideas

The capability to keep learning.

C

[听力原文]
   [The Chief Executive of the Guardian Media Group, Carolyn McCall, talks to Sky's Joel Hills about the challenges faced by her media businesses as the economic climate worsens.]
   H: We're heading into the downturn, um, how is this affecting your group and the way it does business?
   M: Well, I think that actually there has been so much structural change in media that we've actually been grappling with change, for quite a long time. Er, I think what was happening now, is that we got a very severe downturn and I think it's gonna get worse next year. And so on top of the structural change we are dealing with kind of very negative economic conditions. So I think all media is being affected by this. I think what's interesting about this is that audiences aren't affected. In fact, audiences are growing, so the issue is how you capitalize on that, how you continue to grow your businesses and your quality audiences while ad revenue is going to be severely affected. I think also there are different affects depending on what business you are in. So, if your are consumer-oriented in terms of the display advertising, that's been hit very badly. I think if your are in business-to-business, you are much more resilient. And you are dependent on different revenue streams. So, actually as a group, certainly, the Guardian Media Group is in better shape as result of diversifying in portfolio of having business-business in e-map, having trade media group which is predominant in digital business. Um, and certainly, our consumer businesses are all being affected more.
   H: One part of the businesses that has traditionally lost money and continually lose money are the titles Observer and Guardian. Last year, I think, 25 million pounds have been lost. How sustainable is that over the long term, presumably cost to lose money at paramount level indefinitely?
   M: Well, all quality newspapers, I don't think there is any one quality newspaper that actually makes money, and all the others lose a lot of money. Times loses money, Independent Group loses money, and we are no exceptions to them. So I think you have to ask yourself why is that. That is partly because quality journalism is extremely expensive. If you are going to put your own reporters into Iraq, if you are gonna and you're gonna cover the world as you want to cover it. Independent accurate reporting, you are going to have to pay for it, and I think what's happening is that we are also sustaining digital businesses, which are, have been in growth. So we are having to develop and capitalize those businesses. So you've got two different media businesses actually, which are now beginning to integrate. And I think we are gonna have to look at the economics so far, integrated businesses, as we go forward, are kinda be very responsible at how we size those businesses, if you see what I mean. I'm fortunate and our group is fortunate, because our entire purpose is about the sustained ability of the Guardian, the long term sustained ability.
   H: All you have said is how you see exactly what you are enjoying. You exist to provide the money to keep those titles.
   M: We exist, in order to keep the independence of the Guardian both financial and editorial independence. That is our reason for being. So all our activity, our profitable regional papers, the radio stations, e-map, trade media is all about profit maximization in order to sustain the future of Guardian. So we have a very different model to a lot of other publishers, or media groups. And it's a very healthy model, I think, to have especially in the downturn, because we are able to take long-term decisions. Why not success about quality reporting? Of course we have to be granular, of course, we have to perform, but we can take long term decisions, which I think it very difference to other media groups.

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[听力原文]
   So what are the best qualities of successful entrepreneurs? The most important quality that I've seen is a belief that you can make a difference. Now, that may sound obvious in some sense but you'd be surprised most people don't think they really make a difference. It's not important, folks. It's not important to try. Actually, most people in this room, probably not in that group, you have to try hard to get to sit where you are. I have to wait 20 years for them to build it up. But you have to believe that you really can make a difference in the world, and that you're going to try to make a difference. And that's one of the most common characteristics I've seen of successful entrepreneurs. The second is, what I might call an action-wise, a passion for going and making things happen. Now, I was at Stanford. I was at the University of Pennsylvania, probably few other places that I've logged onto my memory after years of therapy, but maybe the people that I met in those places really just sat around and knew things. And I found that I've grown to a point where I don't really respect known things. Being smart is not a good thing. It's doing things that matters. So I don't care how many degrees you have; I don't care how many courses you've taken; it's almost worse if you get that education or know things and you don't take action and put that to work and try to do something valuable with that information. And the entrepreneurs are the ones who say, "I'm going to go put on a play. I'm going to make it happen." That is the second most important characteristic. They just don't like sitting around and discussing. They like getting out and doing. I've often thought of myself as, self-described myself as an industrial pyromaniac. I like to burn up businesses, burn up markets with new ideas and different ideas that change the world. Sometimes you just wind up with a pile of debris but it sure is fun trying. Also in this category is a subtle concept that I would call urgent patience. And it sort of brings to mind the story of a fellow who was a gardener at a large estate in England many, many decades ago. And the owner of the estate came over and said, "I thought you were going to plant an apple tree over here." And he said, "What's your rush? It's going to take a hundred years for that tree to grow." And he said, "Well then, you'd better get started right now." That's the attitude that I think is important for entrepreneurs to have, that action-wise. The third is unjustifiable optimism. You have to believe that you can succeed at what you're doing in the face of large evidence to the contrary, and lots of people telling you, "That's ridiculous! Don't even try." If I had listened to all the people that told me, "You're going to do auctions in the Internet? What does that mean? That's crazy!" I never would have gone to business. In fact, the guy who is speaking on, was it Saturday? Friday? Jeff's coming? Jeff is a very interesting guy. He was a man for the times in one very interesting respect. Jeff had the advantage of having no business experience whatsoever. So he had no fear at all. He would just leap and jump to things he was doing back in 1997 when I started onsale, he started Amazon, and some other people are starting companies. I mean, we would look at him and go, "This guy is nuts!" You know, you'd have to be just kamikaze to do some of the things that, he would make deals on the assumption that he would raise money to pay for it later. Now, unfortunately, those of us who had business experience were hampered by that experience because he was exactly the right guy at the right time. And it was precisely that recklessness that was the key element of Jeff's success along with his intelligence and his understanding of the market and his drive, and other little things like that. The fourth characteristic that you need is a tolerance for uncertainty. Now, the thing about starting a company is that there's always too many variables to control. There's never enough information, never enough time to look into the things that you need to do. And you'd be surprised it's very stressful for most people to live in circumstances of total uncertainty. Are you going to have a test tomorrow? Are you going to sign for this class? Are you going to get into the school you want to go to? Whatever it is, any kind of uncertainty, sometimes you'd feel better just knowing the answer even if it's "No." Well, a good entrepreneur tolerates uncertainty very well. And it's just a personality trait and a skill when you go to bed at night not knowing how things are going to turn out in the morning, and you feel fine about it. The fifth and last of the qualities that I've seen in successful entrepreneurs is a genuine concern for other people. What this creates is a reserve of goodwill among the people around you so that they're willing to work hard and give a little extra because they know that you care about them and what they're doing. The best entrepreneurs genuinely care about the people who work in their companies and about their customers. And you can't fake that kind of thing. That's one of the best characteristics that I've seen in successful entrepreneurs.

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B

Lower prices.

Cutting/Reducing prices.

Low prices/pricing strategy and (technical) innovations.

To boost sales of Amazon's cloud-based/on-line content.

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