Harper and grant company

Harper & Grant Ltd.
Hector Grant, about 65 years old, is the Managing Director of Harper & Grant Ltd., a British company making office equipment. In the fifteen working days or lessons to come we'll follow him and his colleagues through the excitements and problems of export selling, dealing with employees, with theft, with complaints, introducing new technical developments, etc.
The languageof business is also the language of everyday life, and many “commercial terms” you meet are in everyday use. Business management is a rapidly developing science (some call it an art), and new techniques and words, very often of American origin, are used more and more in everyday business conversation. We shall be dealing with some of these words and expressions as the course goes along.
TheHistory of the Company
The company of Harper & Grant Ltd. was started fortytwo years ago by Ambrose Harper and Wingate Grant. Wingate Grant died many years ago, and his son Hector, who is in his sixties is the present Managing Director. Ambrose Harper is the Chairman. He is now an old man, semiretired, but he still comes in to the office occasionally to attend some board meetings and keep an eye onthe business.
The company started by making steel wastepaper bins for offices. With the increase in smoking, these were considered much safer than the old type of basket made of cane or straw, because there was less likelihood of fire (but, strangely, we still continue to use the expression “wastepaper basket”, as well as “bin”). Old Mr. Grant, the present Managing Director's father, put thebusiness on its feet when he captured a big contract to supply government offices with steel wastepaper bins. He always said that luck, or happy coincidence, turned a business into success or failure. He was rather like Napoleon, who always asked if an officer was lucky before giving him a higher command. Mr. Grant Senior used to tell the story that, in the week before he landed his contract, a canewastepaper basket had caught fire in a government department, the fire had spread rapidly and destroyed a number of irreplaceable documents.
From wastepaper bins, Harper & Grant began to manufacture other items of office equipment: desks, chairs, cupboards, filing cabinets and smaller objects, such as filing trays, stapling machines and so on, until now when there are fiftysix different itemslisted in their catalogue.
The factory consists of workshops where the actual making of a desk or filing cabinet is done. These are divided into the Tool Room, Works Stores, Press Shop, Machine Shops, Assembly Shop, Paint Shop, Inspection, Packing and Despatch Departments. There is also the Warehouse, where finished articles are stored pending.
The firm has a history of slow, steady growth. HectorGrant firmly believes that he knows the best way to run a business. However, Peter Wiles, who joined the company six years ago and is Production Manager, and John Martin, appointed two years ago to be Sales Manager, are much more adventurous. They want to treble Harper & Grant's business over the next few years and are certain that, with modern business techniques and increased exports, they canachieve this goal.
A small business cannot afford to have on its staff experts in every modern management technique. It usually hires expert advice from outside consultants. On the other hand, it is important that members of a firm's management are aware of the more sophisticated techniques they might call on to solve particular problems. Inevitably, while this changeover from the old way to thenew is taking place, there are often difficulties and conflict. But Harper & Grant Ltd., like their rivals, must get right up-to-date and enlarge their business, or they will be outpaced by a firm whose business organisation is better than their own.
 GLOSSARY:
Managing Director: the executive director in charge of the day-to-day running of a company (Director Gerente);
colleagues: co-workers,...