Read article on p.35. Prepare answers to the following questions.


1.      Who is Gary Reiner?

2.      What makes him a good speaker?

3.      What is America’s GE known for?

4.      What is the company’s most important initiative? What does that involve?

5.      What is the aim of setting up the information system?

6.      What is the “digital dashboard” and what principle does it work on?

7.      Is Mr Reiner the only person in the company who has the dashboard at the disposal?

8.      How much money can the company save using the new system?

9.      What is the principle of “real-time” enterprise?

10.  To what benefit can the latest information, obtained through the system, be used?

11.  How will companies ensure that information overload is avoided?

12.  What caused the stock market crash in 1987?


      Read article on p.35. Read statements 1-13 and correct them.


1.  Gary Reiner works as a chief financial Officer for GE.

2.  When asked a question, he likes giving a lengthy answer.

3.  America‘s GE is known for being perfect.

4.  The digitizing and computerizing initiative mainly involves connecting to other companies.

5.  The digital dashboard controls the status of programs and in case there is a problem, it makes
a phone call  automatically to alert the person in charge.

6.  Mr  Reiner is the only person who has the dashboard.

7.  The dashboard compares how certain measurements perform their goals.

8.  GE has a history of stable business management.

9.  Few companies in the future will use IT to become a real-time enterprise.

10. The only benefit of real-time enterprise is speeding up information flow.

11. The increase in the number of data collected is likely to contribute to information overload.

12. IT is likely to make economies more stable.

13. The stock market crash of 1997 was largely caused by automated program trading.