雅思阅读第030套1-The Sweet Scent of Success
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1below.
The Sweet Scent of Success
A Innovation and entrepreneurship, inthe right mix, can bring spectacular results and propel a business ahead of thepack. Across a diverse range of commercial successes, from the Hills Hoistclothes line to the Cochlear ear implant, it is hardto generalize beyond sayingthe creators tapped into something consumers could not wait to get their handson. However, most ideas never make it to the market. Some ideas that innovatorsare spruiking to potential investors include new water-saving shower heads, akeyless locking system, ping-pong balls that keep pollution out of rainwatertanks, making teeth grow from stemcells inserted in the gum, and technology tostop LPG tanks from exploding. Grant Kearney, chief executive of the InnovationXchange, which connects businesses to innovation networks, says he hears ofgreat business ideas that he knows will never get on the market. “Ideas bythemselves are absolutely useless,”he says. “An idea only becomes innovationwhen it is connected to the right resources and capabilities".
B One of Australia’s latest innovationsuccesses stems from a lemon-scented bath-room cleaner called Shower Power, theformula for which was concocted in afactory in Yatala, Queensland. In 1995, TomQuinn and John Heron bought a struggling cleaning products business, OzKleen,for 250,000. It was selling 100 different kinds of cleaning products, mainly inbulk. The business was in bad shape, the cleaning formulas were ineffective andenvironmentally harsh, and there were few regular clients. Now Shower Power isclaimed to be the top-selling bathroom cleaning product in the country. In thepast 12 months ,almost four million bottles of OzKleen’s Power products havebeen sold and the company forecasts 2004 sales of 10 million bottles. Thecompany’s, sales in2003 reached $11 million, with 700k of business beingexports. In particular, Shower Power is making big inroads on the Britishmarket.
C OzKleen’s turnaround began whenQuinn and Heron hired an industrial chemist to revitalize the product line.Market research showed that people werelooking for a better cleaner for thebathroom, universally regarded as the hardest room in the home to clean. Thecompany also wanted to make the product formulas more environmentally friendlyOne of Tom Quinn’s sons, Peter, aged 24 at the time, began working with thechemist on the formulas, looking at the potential for citrus-based cleaningproducts. He detested all the chlorine-based cleaning products that dominatedthe market. “We didn’t want to use chlorine, simple as that,”he says. “Itoffers bad working conditions and there’s no money in it.”Peter looked atcitrus ingredients, such as orange peel, to replace the petroleum by-productsin cleaners. He is credited with finding the Shower Power formula. “Thehead,”he says. The company is the recipe is in a vault somewhere and in my soleowner of the intellectual property.
D To begin with, Shower Power was soldonly in commercial quantities but Tom Quinn decided to sell it in 750ml bottlesafter the constant “raves”from customers at their retail store at Beenleigh,near Brisbane. Customers were travel- ling long distances to buy supplies.Others began writing to OzKleen to say how good Shower Power was. “We did adummy label and went to see Woolworths,”Tom Quinn says. The Woolworths buyertook a bottle home and was able to remove a stain from her basin that had beenimpossible to shift. From that point on, she championed the product and OzKleenhad its first super- market order, for a palette of Shower Power worth $3000.“We were over the moon,”says OzKleen’s financial controller, Belinda McDonnell.
E Shower Power was released inAustralian supermarkets in 1997 and became the top-selling product in itscategory within six months. It was all hands on deck cat the factory, labelingand bottling Shower Power to keep up with demand. OzKleen ditched all otherproducts and rebuilt the business around Shower Power. This stage, recallsMcDonnell, was very tough. “It was hand-to-mouth, cashflow was very difficult,”she says. OzKleen had to pay new-line fees to supermarket chains, which alsosqueezed margins.
F OzKleen’s next big break came whenthe daughter of a Coles Myer executive used the product while on holidays inQueensland and convinced her father that Shower Power should be in Colessupermarkets. Despite the product success, Peter Quinn says the company waswary of how long the sales would last and hesitated to spend money on upgradingthe manufacturing process. As a result, he remembers long periods of workinground the clock to keep up with orders. Small tanks were still being used, sobatches were small and bottles were labelled and filled manually. The privatelyowned OzKleen relied on cash flow to expand. “The equipment could not keep upwith demand,” Peter Quinn says. Eventually a new bottling machine was boughtfor $50,000 in the hope of streamlining production, but he says: “We got rippedoff.” Since then, he has been developing a new automated bottling machine thatcan control the amount of foam produced in the liquid, so that bottles can befilled more effectively - “I love coming up with new ideas.” The machine isbeing patented.
G Peter Quinn says OzKleen’s approachto research and development is open slather. “If I need it, I get it. It isabout doing something simple that no one else is doing. Most of these thingsare just sitting in front of people ... it’s just seeing the opportunities.”With a tried and tested product, OzKleen is expanding overseas and developingmore Power-brand household products. Tom Quinn, who previously ran a realestate agency, says: “We are competing with the same market all over the world,the cleaning products are sold everywhere.” Shower Power, known as Bath Powerin Britain, was launched four years ago with the help of an export developmentgrant from the Federal Government. “We wanted to do it straight away because werealised we had the same opportunities worldwide.” OzKleen is already numberthree in the British market, and the next stop is France. The Power rangeincludes cleaning products for carpets, kitchens and pre-wash stain removal.The Quinn and Heron families are still involved. OzKleen has been approachedwith offers to buy the company, but Tom Quinn says he is happy with things asthey are. “We’re having too much fun.”
SECTION 1: QUESTIONS 1-13
Questions 1-7
Reading Passage 1 has sixparagraphs, A-G.
Which paragraph contains thefollowing information?
Write the correct letter A-G,in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use anyletter more than once.
1 _____________ Description ofone family member persuading another of selling cleaning products
2 _____________ An account of thecooperation of all factory staff to cope with sales increase
3 _____________ An account of thecreation of the formula of Shower Power
4 _____________ An account ofbuying the original OzKleen company
5 _____________ Description ofShower Power’s international expansion
6 _____________ The reason of changingthe packaging size of Shower Power
7 _____________ An example ofsome innovative ideas
Questions 8-11
Look at the following peopleand list of statements below.
Match each person with thecorrect statement.
Write the correct letter A-E inboxes 8-11 on your answer sheet
List of Statement
A
Described his story of selling his product to a chain store
B
Explained there was a shortage of money when sales suddenly increased
C
Believe innovations need support to succeed
D
Believes new products like Shower Power may incur risks
E
Says business won’t succeed with innovations
8 _____________ Grant Kearney
9 _____________ Tom Quinn
10 _____________ Peter Quinn
11 _____________ Belinda McDonnell
Questions 12-13
Choose the correct letter A,B, C or D.
Write your answers inboxes 12-13 on your answer sheet.
12Tom Quinn changed the bottle size to 750mlto make Shower Power
AEasier to package.
BAppealing to individual customers.
CPopular in foreign markets.
DAttractive to supermarkets.
13Why did Tom Quinn decide not to sellOzKleen?
ANo one wanted to buy OzKleen.
BNew products were being developed inOzKleen.
CHe couldn’t make an agreement on the pricewith the buyer.
DHe wanted to keep things unchanged.
答案
雅思阅读第030套P1-The Sweet Scent of Successhttp://www.tuonindefu.com/?p=2270雅思阅读第030套P1:The Sweet Scent of Success
