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1. 🔊 What industry do you work in and what is your role?
2. 🔊 What are your responses in your role / position?
3. 🔊 Can you describe to the function of your workplace / company?
4. 🔊 How many departments, how many offices. National or International?
5. 🔊 What are the minimum requirements for employment ie Education or Experience?
6. 🔊 How many opportunities are there to ‘move up the ladder’?
7. 🔊 What is the process for changing job roles ie Interview? Test?

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🔊 General discussion about your workweek:

1. 🔊 Current projects? Deadlines? Opportunities?
2. 🔊 Anything of interest happening?

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Script

1. 🔊 Political flare-ups in Asia are putting the brakes on Fast Retailing Co.’s overseas momentum, as the Uniqlo operator reported the worst decline in its quarterly revenue in a decade for its international segment.

2. 🔊 Asia’s largest retailer has long counted on overseas expansion to power growth in the face of a weak Japanese market. Now that strategy has come up against the political protests in Hong Kong as well as the trade dispute between Japan and South Korea.

3. 🔊 Fast Retailing on Thursday reported a 3.6 percent drop in first-quarter sales for Uniqlo’s international segment, citing “significant declines” in those two trouble spots. Except for a minuscule decrease of 0.2 percent in 2017, it’s the first quarterly drop for the segment in 10 years, according to Bloomberg data. Operating profit for the international business fell 28 percent, for the first quarterly earnings decline since 2016.

4.🔊 Fast Retailing, which also suffered from weak sales in Japan during the quarter, lowered its full-year outlook for operating profit by 11 percent. For the guidance change, it pointed to the unrest overseas as well as depreciation in the yuan.

5.🔊 The monthslong pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, which have at times turned violent, have left the area’s economy on the verge of its first annual contraction in a decade and caused retail sales to plunge 24 percent in November. The unrest has rattled international brands from Levi Strauss & Co. to Tiffany & Co.

6.🔊 While the situation in Hong Kong has had a broad impact on retailers, the damage Uniqlo is seeing from a trade dispute between Tokyo and Seoul has been more unique. Fast Retailing has become one of the biggest targets of a South Korean consumer boycott of Japanese products that began in July.

7.🔊 “The Korean business has continued to decline and there has been a bigger impact on sales,” said Chief Financial Officer Takeshi Okazaki at a briefing in Tokyo on Thursday. “Korea is a very important segment for us, and it’s not clear how long this situation will continue.”The country has the second-largest number of Uniqlo stores overseas after China.

8.🔊 Other overseas markets are holding up. Mainland China — a key driver of growth in the past — performed well, as did Southeast Asia, the company said. Billionaire Chairman Tadashi Yanai has focused expansion on Uniqlo’s overseas locations as an aging population in Japan provides fewer opportunities for fast growth. In the last year, the company expanded to new markets including India, Vietnam and Italy.

Discussion

1.🔊 Give me a few comparisons between Uniqlo, Zala and H&M?

2.🔊 What is your opinion on what is happening in Hong Kong?

3.🔊 Do you think that Japan’s aging population will have an impact on the way Japanese businesses operate in the future?

Keywords

1. 🔊 Flare-ups = a sudden outburst of something, especially violence or hostility.
2. 🔊 Brakes = a device for slowing or stopping a moving vehicle, typically by applying pressure to the wheels.”He slammed on his brakes”[/responsivevoice
3. [responsivevoice voice = "US English Female" buttontext = ""]Momentum = the quantity of motion of a moving body, measured as a product of its mass and velocity. the impetus gained by a moving object. “the vehicle gained momentum as the road dipped
4. [responsivevoice voice = "US English Female" buttontext = ""]Dispute = a disagreement or argument, argue about (something), compete for; strive to win
5. 🔊 Citing =refer to (a passage, book, or author) as evidence for or justification of an argument or statement, especially in a scholarly work.
6. 🔊 Minuscule = extremely small; tiny, of or in lower-case letters, as distinct from capitals or uncials.
7. 🔊 Unrest =a state of dissatisfaction, disturbance, and agitation, typically involving public demonstrations or disorder. 
8. 🔊 Depreciation = a reduction in the value of an asset over time, due in particular to wear and tear.
9.  🔊 Verge = an edge or border, an extreme limit beyond which something specified will happen.  
10. 🔊 Plunge = jump or dive quickly and energetically. push or thrust quickly. 
11. 🔊 Boycott = withdraw from commercial or social relations with (a country, organization, or person) as a punishment or protest.