Assignment 1: business English communication Eva Ruiz Hernandez

1: Assuming the role of assistant to Rick DeMuro, director of material, planning and logistics for Asia Pacific Africa (APA), you are to draft a letter to Fords APA dealers informing them of the situation in Ford. Information on the planned expansion in e.g. India and China and information on the development of the ordertodelivery system, Vista 2, must be included in your letter. Rick DeMuro Ford Company 08940 Shanghai China 3th of October 2012 APA Dealers Ford Company 39480 Berlin Germany

Dear Sir or Madam We are pleased to inform about the positive situation of the company Ford. Even though the economical crisis, Ford is growing and achieving its goal year by year. It is important to point out that Ford is the only auto move enterprise that is not in bankruptcy. The order-to-delivery system being used since the beginning of the company is implemented in the new expansion countries allowing us to manufacture our products without stocks. Ford is using a system based totally on the demand, only producing what customers order, and it is succeeding in the Asian countries. With these two new branches the company is minimizing costs and having a specialized production. Our employees are receiving constantly education in order to adapt themselves to the necessities of the companies and moving toward the achieving of our goals. Having analysed our different rates, we could conclude that the expansion of the company is being a success. These two developing countries, which have a high growth rate, bring the company the chance of increasing the production. We have

over 300 more employees continuing using the same philosophy and manner of working. With these two news expansions Ford is present over the six continents, being one of the first auto move companies with a high and spread production. Do not hesitate to contact me to this telephone 60901569 or by this mail, ford@mail.com if some doubts or questions. Yours Faithfully Rick DeMuro Director of material, planning and logistics for Asia Pacific Africa (APA)

2: As a management secretary in Ford Motor Co., you have been asked to write a 500word short report, suitable for use as a briefing document on the use of digital and social media at Ford to the board of directors. The report is to provide the board with information, updating them on Fords multicultural advertising strategy and social media activities. To this end you have been furnished with the article Moving On (included below), but you are encouraged to find more literature on the web or avail yourself of other relevant literature available.

Over the last three years, Ford has turned into one of the auto move companies with the higher image perception toward their customers. Social media has much to do with that changes. Ford has increased its presence in social media and also provides a more open-minded view including an intercultural advertising strategy. Firstly, It is important to see how new media has grown in the last decade. Some years ago television was the most important mass media and most of the companies put on their adverts there, due to the large audience and the multimedia platform. Nowadays, almost the 90% of the enterprises have some presence in new media because it let companies more freedom of formats, is cheaper and interactive. For these reasons, we consider that Ford presence in new media has been essential in order to change customers and potential customers perception about our brand. So, it is a fact that communication below the line is the future and we should not loose this opportunity. Ford concepts are green, durability, a high quality product and also a German product. It is important for the company to keep the same concepts through the different strategies and different cultures. Ford has succeeded in that, because in Q1 2010 according to J.D Powers Auto Intelligence Monitor, which measure social media activities of the enterprises, Ford has the most positive consumer perception. This means, that because of social media and also the intercultural strategy Ford have achieve the goal of creating a good consumer perception and new media strategies has helped in that. So, it is most possible to have in mind and

buy a product that you thing has a good reputation than another one that not, for this reason the incomes of Ford has increased. For instance, one of the most important social media activities of Ford was with the release of the new Ford Fiesta in 2009. Ford brings 100 Ford Fiesta around Europe and asks people to explain their experience. The commercial of this activity appears on one of the most famous TV shows called American Idol. This result in a great succeed of Ford, with more than 6.2 YouTube views and more than 4 millions Tweets and 750,000 Flickr views. This was the action that introduces Ford in the social media world. As we can notice, it is an intercultural communication strategy since it has to fit with all European citizens, because Ford wants to imply as much people as possible. So it is really important to choose something suitable for all kinds of people. All in all, invest on new media is really important and it is the future view. But Ford does not have to forget the old media as for instance television. As we can see in the example of the Ford Fiesta, it implied social media but also television. American Idol is used in order to spread to a maximum population the activity about explaining your experience driving a Ford. So it is a fact that reputation of Ford has increased due to mass media but we do not have to forget to combine different media in order to have more success.