GMAT Essays (AWA)

The following appeared in a memorandum from the president of Aurora, a company that sells organic milk(milk produced without the use of chemical additives):

"Sales of organic food products in this country have tripled over the past 5 years. If Aurora is to profit from this continuing trend, we must diversify and start selling products such as organic orange juice and organic eggs in addition to our regular product line. With the recent increase of articles in health magazines questioning the safety of milk and other food products, customers are even more likely to buy our line of organic products. And to help ensure our successful expansion, we should hire the founder of a chain of health-food stores to serve as our vice president of marketing"


Essay:

The memorandum here talks about multiple aspects of the marketing strategy and business promotion. There are numerous assumptions made here which needs to be addressed. Furthermore there are no statistical analysis on how many people actually buy organic food based on the articles on health magazines.

First the memorandum is not very clear in explaining sales on what kind of organic products have been increasing over the past 5 years. For example it might be the sales of only organic milk that has been increased in the past 5 years and Aurora already makes organic milk. So basing of this statement and jumping into conclusion would not be appropriate.

Second the memorandum talks about diversification by selling organic orange juice and organic eggs. again there are no facts provided as to why these products were chosen. For example today in the market there are eggs available which are branded as "Vegetarian fed eggs" there are no clear distinction in the eyes of public if there is a difference between this and organic eggs. People might buy this instead of organic eggs due to its cost. Furthermore the milk company "Dean" now makes milk which does not have any additives added. This might be an another area where people might tend to buy this milk instead of organic milk.

Third the memorandum talks about hiring a founder of a chain of food-stores into the VP role. There are no facts and statistics provided as to how this person is going to help expand the business of organic products for Aurora. Since the food chain business owners or founders specialize in multiple areas and not just organic food they might not be a perfect fit for this role.

Aurora needs to address the above mentioned areas to make this argument plausible and agreed.