【翻译-段落翻译练习】
每一个成功的工商企业都是建立在一些卓越的意识之上的，即懂得审时度势，抓住机遇，承担责任，并不乏幽默感。但这一切都没有比对市场了解的能力更为重要。高级管理人员的一个非常重要的本事是能很自然地设身处地的为客户着想，并从他们那里获得真知灼见。他们利用这种能力来指导技术、产品和售后服务，乃至公司战略计划的各个方面。比尔·盖茨之类的成功者就曾把这种本事带进他们各自创立的企业中。没有这种能力，他们的事业或许只是昙花一现，至少没有像今天这样成功。但是许多高层经理，特别是工业公司的高层经理，把与顾客接触看成是销售和市场营销人员的事。即便他们确实也认为市场是公司的重心，但随着公司的发展，他们中多数人也只与消费者保持十分有限的接触而已。他们判断和把握市场，依赖于下属送来的报告，即二手、三手的材料。

【翻译参考译文】
(1) Every successful business is built on superior senses—of timing, opportunity, responsibility and not infrequently humor. (2) None however is more critical than the ability to sense the market. (3) A senior executive’s instinctive capacity to empathize with and gain insights from customers is the single most important skill he or she can use to direct technologies, product and after-sales services, and even all elements of a company’s strategic plan. (4) People like Bill Gates brought this ability to the enterprises they founded. (5) Without it their ventures might have been short-lived or at least far less successful. (6) But many top-level managers, particularly those at industrial companies, consider customer contact the work of sales and marketing staff. (7) And even if they do believe that market focus is a priority, most of them retain only limited contact with consumers as their organizations grow, relying instead on subordinates’ reports—second- or third-hand information—to define and sense the market for them.