Zhang: And I think they often neglect the ordering of priorities. I mean certain tasks need our prior attention. But in our company every task is treated on an equal basis, even if it is a very urgent task.

　　Wang: That's the point. So time should be planned according to the importance of the tasks we need to deal with.

　　Zhang: So what do you think we can do so that time is managed effectively here in our company?

　　Wang: You mean what procedures we can adopt?

　　Zhang: Sure. That's what our boss is asking us to do. Right?

　　Wang: Right. I think we've got a lot to do. First, we should make all the staff members realize how important effective time management is to our company.

　　Zhang: Yes, I think we can give them instruction in time management, especially those in supervisory positions.

　　Wang: Right, perhaps we can run a few training programs for them. If need, we may invite some experts from outside to help us.

　　Zhang: Another thing we can do is to make all the managers, or even every staff member, come up with a job description of their own. In this way, they can be pretty sure about what they are responsible for and what they are not.

　　Wang: Yes, that's a good idea. And I think, the top managers of our company should come up with a set of rules as to what kind of jobs should be given priority to. In this way, we can make sure that important tasks are dealt with first.

　　Zhang: Good idea. So to sum up, our company should run a few training programs, and every staff member should write a job description of their own.

　　Wang: And rules should be made as to what kind of job should be given priority to.

　　Responding to Competition

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　　Zhang: You know our sales have fallen a lot during the past quarter.

　　Wang: Yes, one of our competitors is charging a lot less than us.

　　Zhang: I know. It is a new company in this line of business. We really need to do something about it.

　　Wang: What do you think we can do?

　　Zhang: I think we can launch an advertising campaign to promote our product.

　　Wang: Yes, it's a good idea. But that will surely add to our cost and therefore push up our price.

　　Zhang: I know what you mean. Price is a major consideration when a customer decides on a purchase. But there are certainly many other considerations on their part, for example, quality and after-sales service.

　　Wang: That makes sense. Ours is a high quality product and our after-sales service is good enough, I think. That's why we are charging a higher price than our competitors. So we should emphasize our quality and after-sales service in our ad so that...

　　Zhang: So that people will know the high quality of our product and after-sales service and more people will buy our products.

　　Wang: But I am still worried about the price. You know customers always like low prices.

　　Zhang: Yes, indeed. In fact, we can cut down a bit on our price. You know when sales increase after our advertising, we are likely to increase our profit even if we cut down our price a little bit.