Please rate my first essay: Apogee Company

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Please rate my first essay: Apogee Company

by sd2611 » Fri Mar 30, 2018 12:33 am
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."
Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.


My Essay:
The argument claims that the Apogee Company could improve profitability by cutting down costs and by maintaining better supervision of all its employees, if it closes down all its field offices and operate from a single centralized location. The conclusion of this argument relies on the assumption that since such a step was successful in the past, it would apply to the present as well. Stated in this way, the argument fails to consider several key factors on which it can be evaluated. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is unconvincing and has several flaws.
First, the argument assumes that the past strategy of the company to operate from a single location and maintain profitability can be extended into the present and the future as well. The statement is a stretch because it provides no clear evidence on what all other factors should be taken into account to apply this strategy today. For example, in the past there might have been availability of raw material, skilled labours and a market for all its products in a single location. In recent times, the company may have extended to other places due to shortage of all these factors in a single location. Clearly, the argument does not provide any clear evidence on the past and present conditions and how these factors can impact the profitability. The argument could have been much clearer if it explicitly stated that all factors that were available in past in a single location to maintain profitability applies today as well.
Second, the argument claims that closing all field offices and conducting all operations from a single location would improve profitability. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any relation between profitability and the cost of closing present offices and opening new ones. For instance, it could be the case that the cost of closing offices and opening new ones costs one billion dollars and the profitably increase after such a step is only 0.1%, which is around some thousand dollars. Clearly, this step will be unjustified and this could take the company several years to recover the costs of shifting its offices. If the argument had provided evidence that the cost of shifting office is substantially low and can outweighed by the amount of profit it will make as a result of this step, the argument would be a lot more convincing.
Finally, there is no clear answer to the question if cost cutting and better supervision the only way to improve profitability. There may be other factors that play an important role in profitability such as market availability, quality of product, cost of manufacture and selling price of products, trust of the buyers in the products of the company and competition from other companies. Without convincing statistics to these factors, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking than substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentions all relevant facts and statistics to compare the present situation to the past situations, the cost and feasibly involved in shifting offices and the other factors that govern profitability. Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.

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by Jake@ThePrincetonReview » Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:26 pm
I thought this essay was very good, at least worth a 5 and quite possibly a 6. You perfectly described the disconnect between premises and conclusion. You include info that would strengthen the argument. Your writing style is very good, aside from a colloquialism or two ("a stretch" may be too casual for formal writing. "on what all" is not grammatical (are you from the South?)), and a typo or two . Intro and concluding paragraphs are very well done. Length is appropriate. Well done.

-Jake Schiff
GMAT Instructor and Master Trainer

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Jake Schiff
GMAT Instructor and Master Trainer
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