Hello Eunhye!

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1. 
I was wondering what 'it' refers to in the sentence below,

The retailers overcame bad economic periods (recessions) because managers led it to success with management innovation

I understand 'it' here means 'business' but why don't we use the word 'business'?


-> I don’t think there is a logical reason why the pronoun “it” is used. Perhaps, just the fact that you read the sentence and you were able to guess that “it” meant “business” shows there is no particular reason for someone to write the word “business” out explicitly.



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2.
It is highly likely that the economic boom will affect our profits positively

Here, can we replace the word 'boom' with 'upswing' ?


-> Yes, that would be perfectly fine in my opinion!

I hope this helps :)

Best regards,

Mason U, CMI-Korean
Business Interpretation and Translation in Korean (BIT-K) Instructor