GMAT Essays (AWA)

3. Argument:
The following appeared in a memorandum from the business department of the Apogee Company:

"When the Apogee Company had all its operations in one location, it was more profitable than it is today.
Therefore, the Apogee Company should close down its field offices and conduct all its operations from a single location. Such centralization would improve profitability by cutting costs and helping the company maintain better supervision of all employees."

Analysis:

Many companies have their offices in several locations. Some companies feel that having a centralized office is better others feel that individual offices are better, some say this can lead to increase in cost others feel the opposite and say that its better for managing things. In the preceding statement, the author claims that "when Apogee Company had all its operations in one location, it was more profitable than it is today". Though this claim may well have merit, the author presents a poorly reasoned argument, based on several questionable premises and assumptions, and based solely on the evidence the author offers; we cannot accept his argument as valid.

The primary issue in authors reasoning lies in his unsubstantiated premises. According to the author, when Apogee Company had all its operations in one location there was better profitability, but it is not necessary that the profitability has decreased because of having offices in various locations, there can be other reasons for eg: the market is not stable and due to which there had been a decrease in sales of the company's product or the no. of competitors may have increased as compared to before etc. The authors premises, the basis for his argument, lack any legitimate evidentiary support and render his conclusion unacceptable.

In addition, the author makes several assumptions that remain unproven. The closing down of field offices and conducting all the companies operation from one location will increase the profits like before, which is not necessary to happen as the scenario may have changed. Centralization may lead to decrease in profitability then before, but it is not definite to happen, the company may increase its costs by centralization as accumulating all in one place can lead to some expenses, for eg: new offices, similar facilities, etc. Also, supervision of all employees may become difficult as all would be accumulated at one place and there can be problem in coordination between the people working together before. The author weakens his argument by failing to provide explication of the links between centralization and profitability he assumes exists.

While the author does have some key issue's in his premises and assumptions that is not to say that the entire argument is without base. The author can provide more examples to support his argument, he can concentrate on increasing sales rather than on centralization and even if he thinks centralization can improve profitability then he should mention the reason for the same for eg: he can state that since the market is not supporting currently and business is reducing simultaneously and because of which we need to merge offices etc. Though there are several issues with the authors reasoning at present, with research and clarification he could improve his argument significantly.

In sum, the author's illogical argument is based on unsupported premises and unsubstantiated assumptions that render his conclusion invalid. If the author truly hopes to change his readers' mind on the issue, he would have to largely restructure his argument, fix the flaws in his logic, clearly explicate his assumptions, and provide evidentiary support. Without these things, his poorly reasoned argument will likely convince few people.