part: forecasts and results Business Benchmark helps students get ahead fast with their Business English vocabulary and skills and gives them grammar practice in business contexts. It also helps students prepare for an internationally recognised Cambridge ESOL Business English exam, using real exam papers from Cambridge ESOL. Teachers can choose from the BEC edition or the BULATS edition at the right level for their students. | Forecasts and results Getting started Discuss these questions in small groups. 1 How can each of these help companies to make sales forecasts 1 computer projections 2 predictions about interest rates 3 reports from sales teams 4 intuition 5 the political situation 6 the success of competitors products 7 past experience 8 the marketing budget 2 Which factors in addition to the sales forecast will help the finance team produce a profit forecast Gloomy sales forecast mirrors the weather Forecasting sales Listening You will hear five different people talk about how they contribute to their companies sales forecasts and why the forecasts turned out to be inaccurate 22 1 Listen and look at the elements listed in Getting started above. Which of them does each person contribute to the sales forecast Complete the first column of the table. Contribution Reason for inaccuracy Olivia Jaime Gary Sylvie Nesreen 22 2 Look at the events in the Reason for inaccuracy box. Listen again. Which reason does each person mention as to why the forecast was inaccurate Complete the second column of the table. Reason for inaccuracy a There was a shift in fashion. b We were affected by a press report. c There was an unexpected disaster. d There was a lapse in quality control. e Our advertising was poor. f Our publicity was more effective than we expected. g There was a change in government policy. h We experienced a shortage of qualified staff. 64 Forecasts and results Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on to remove this watermark. Vocabulary 1 Match these phrasal verbs and expressions 1 7 from the listening exercise with their definitions a-g . If necessary look at the transcript for track 22. 1 catchon a 2 up-and-coming b 3 fall short of c 4 talk someone into d 5 pay off e 6 go about f 7 turn down g approach a task problem be successful profitable become fashionable popular fail to reach a target persuade someone refuse reject successful likely to be successful Talking point .
