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Consulting Firm Cutting costs

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Consulting Firm Cutting costs

by faraz_jeddah » Thu Apr 18, 2013 10:51 am
In an attempt to cut costs a consulting firm is going to eliminate business travel for new business pitches. Instead, all communication with potential new business will be handled and pitched via email, document exchange and telephone calls.

Which of the following, if true, identifies a weakness of the new business model?

A)The firm has many local clients that do not require significant business travel
B)The average trip to pitch new business takes 2 full days when factoring in all travel and requires a 3 person team
C)Many employees of the consulting firm see travel for business pitches as a perk of the job
D)The company wins 65% of the business it pitches in person
E)Non-verbal communication plays an important role in guiding the presenters of a new business pitch to the areas they should focus most on during the presentation.

I chose D. Can someone please explain why it is wrong?

OA is E
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by srcc25anu » Thu Apr 18, 2013 11:53 am
Firm attempts to cut travel and instead to have all communication non-face-to-face via email / fax / document exchange etc. What will identify a weakness of this plan will suggest something to the effect that personal communication / meeting clients face to face is important in helping win clients.
Only E does that saying the non-verbal communication (read this as face-to face - verbal communication would be a phone call) plays an important role in helping win clients by guiding presenters to the needed area of focus.

Reasons for eliminating the others:
A. Many local clients who dont need business travel. Not supported by passage. we dont know the composition of firm clients.
B. Avg Trip takes 2 full days. This suggests there should IN FACT be no travel as it wastes a lot of time.
C. Many employees see travel as perk - OUt of Scope
D. company wins 65% pitches in person. Insufficient data to compare how telephone pitches do. maybe telephone pitches success rate is 90%. In that case, makes sense to cut business travel. But if telephone pitch success rate is just 10%, does not make sense to cut travel. we dont know sufficiently to determine this.

Hence E
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by GMATGuruNY » Thu Apr 18, 2013 12:22 pm
faraz_jeddah wrote:In an attempt to cut costs a consulting firm is going to eliminate business travel for new business pitches. Instead, all communication with potential new business will be handled and pitched via email, document exchange and telephone calls.

Which of the following, if true, identifies a weakness of the new business model?

A)The firm has many local clients that do not require significant business travel
B)The average trip to pitch new business takes 2 full days when factoring in all travel and requires a 3 person team
C)Many employees of the consulting firm see travel for business pitches as a perk of the job
D)The company wins 65% of the business it pitches in person
E)Non-verbal communication plays an important role in guiding the presenters of a new business pitch to the areas they should focus most on during the presentation.

I chose D. Can someone please explain why it is wrong?

OA is E
This CR makes an analogy between pitching IN PERSON and pitching AT A DISTANCE.
The assumption is that pitching IN PERSON and pitching AT A DISTANCE are THE SAME.
To weaken the analogy, the correct answer choice must show that pitching IN PERSON and pitching AT A DISTANCE are DIFFERENT.

Answer choice E: Non-verbal communication plays an important role in guiding the presenters of a new business pitch to the areas they should focus most on during the presentation.
This answer choice suggests a key difference between pitching IN PERSON and pitching AT A DISTANCE: unlike a face-to-face meeting, a discussion via email or phone does not allow for NON-VERBAL communication, which PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE in determining the areas on which a pitch should focus.

The correct answer is E.

Answer choice D: The company wins 65% of the business it pitches in person.
It is not stated how many pitches are conducted in person.
Thus, 65% of the business it pitches in person could be 65% of a very small number of pitches -- too small a sample to affect the conclusion.
Also. it is not stated that these pitches were won BECAUSE they were conducted in person.
It is entirely possible these same pitches could have been won via email.
Eliminate D.
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by hemant_rajput » Fri Apr 19, 2013 5:54 am
GMATGuruNY wrote:
faraz_jeddah wrote:In an attempt to cut costs a consulting firm is going to eliminate business travel for new business pitches. Instead, all communication with potential new business will be handled and pitched via email, document exchange and telephone calls.

Which of the following, if true, identifies a weakness of the new business model?

A)The firm has many local clients that do not require significant business travel
B)The average trip to pitch new business takes 2 full days when factoring in all travel and requires a 3 person team
C)Many employees of the consulting firm see travel for business pitches as a perk of the job
D)The company wins 65% of the business it pitches in person
E)Non-verbal communication plays an important role in guiding the presenters of a new business pitch to the areas they should focus most on during the presentation.

I chose D. Can someone please explain why it is wrong?

OA is E
This CR makes an analogy between pitching IN PERSON and pitching AT A DISTANCE.
The assumption is that pitching IN PERSON and pitching AT A DISTANCE are THE SAME.
To weaken the analogy, the correct answer choice must show that pitching IN PERSON and pitching AT A DISTANCE are DIFFERENT.

Answer choice E: Non-verbal communication plays an important role in guiding the presenters of a new business pitch to the areas they should focus most on during the presentation.
This answer choice suggests a key difference between pitching IN PERSON and pitching AT A DISTANCE: unlike a face-to-face meeting, a discussion via email or phone does not allow for NON-VERBAL communication, which PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE in determining the areas on which a pitch should focus.

The correct answer is E.

Answer choice D: The company wins 65% of the business it pitches in person.
It is not stated how many pitches are conducted in person.
Thus, 65% of the business it pitches in person could be 65% of a very small number of pitches -- too small a sample to affect the conclusion.
Also. it is not stated that these pitches were won BECAUSE they were conducted in person.
It is entirely possible these same pitches could have been won via email.
Eliminate D.
Hi Mitch,


I'm having hard time understanding the explanation. Can you please clarify few things?
1. what does "business Pitch" mean?
2. how come we are doing non-verbal communication in Face-to-Face meeting? I can understand that phone doesn't allow non-verbal communication but email not allowing non-verbal communication seems bizarre to me.

Can you please clarify above doubts?
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by GMATGuruNY » Fri Apr 19, 2013 7:57 am
hemant_rajput wrote: Hi Mitch,


I'm having hard time understanding the explanation. Can you please clarify few things?
1. what does "business Pitch" mean?
2. how come we are doing non-verbal communication in Face-to-Face meeting? I can understand that phone doesn't allow non-verbal communication but email not allowing non-verbal communication seems bizarre to me.

Can you please clarify above doubts?
A business pitch is a business proposal.

Non-verbal communication refers to the ways in which people communicate WITHOUT WORDS: by smiling, by crossing their arms, by leaning forward, by locking eyes, etc.
An email does not allow for such forms of communication.
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by hemant_rajput » Sat Apr 20, 2013 1:02 pm
GMATGuruNY wrote:
hemant_rajput wrote: Hi Mitch,


I'm having hard time understanding the explanation. Can you please clarify few things?
1. what does "business Pitch" mean?
2. how come we are doing non-verbal communication in Face-to-Face meeting? I can understand that phone doesn't allow non-verbal communication but email not allowing non-verbal communication seems bizarre to me.

Can you please clarify above doubts?
A business pitch is a business proposal.

Non-verbal communication refers to the ways in which people communicate WITHOUT WORDS: by smiling, by crossing their arms, by leaning forward, by locking eyes, etc.
An email does not allow for such forms of communication.
Thanks for clarifying the doubts
I'm no expert, just trying to work on my skills. If I've made any mistakes please bear with me.
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