GMAT Essays (AWA)

The following appeared as part of an annual report sent to stockholders by Olympic Foods, a processor of frozen foods:
"Over time, the costs of processing go down because as organizations learn how to do things better, they become more efficient. In color film processing, for example, the cost of a 3-by-5-inch print fell from 50 cents for five-day service in 1970 to 20 cents for one-day service in 1984. The same principle applies to the processing of food. And since Olympic Foods will soon celebrate its 25th birthday, we can expect that our long experience will enable us to minimize costs and thus maximize profits."

My Essay:

The argument above claims that over time organizations learn to work more efficiently than what they are now. So, their cost of processing also reduces as a result. It also gives an example of a printing industry wherein the cost of print has gone down significantly over a certain period of time. Eventually the author of the argument expects that as Olympic food will soon celebrate its 25th birthday and has gained lots of experience, its processing cost would reduce so as to increase its profitability. But the argument depends on a many unsupported assumptions and, therefore, fails to be persuasive.

Firstly, the time and cost of food processing will depend on the quantity of food products Olympic is producing now as compared to what it was doing a few years back. As for example, since last 25 years the population has grown significantly resulting in the need of large quantity of food. This, in turn will require more workers to be employed in order to reduce the time of frozen food processing so as to meet the increasing needs. As the number of employees will increase, this, in turn will result is increasing the amount of money that Olympic has been spending to pay wages to its employees. This certainly weakens the claim this argument makes as the employee wages is an important factor that is included while determining the cost of processing.

Secondly, the argument makes an irrelevant comparison between two entirely different types of industries, one being the food processing and the other one is printing industry. As the technology is advancing and the world is more concerned about the "Go Green" factor to be environment friendly, it makes perfect sense that printing industry, will be affected in near future. This does not mean that they are earning more profit as their processing time is going down. Time may come when people would rather avoid usage of paper, thus reducing the profit margin. Whereas, with increase in the population, the need of food is significantly going up, thus increasing the processing cost, in turn. As for example, the number of people who used to have lunch at Subway ten years before has of course increased a lot now-a-days. Subway, thus definitely has increased its manpower to cater to the increasing supply of its lunch subs, keeping in mind the quality of food and time required to serve.

Moreover, the argument also mentions as Olympic food will be completing 25 years now, it has gained a lot of experience in processing food and expectedly its processing cost will be reduced to gain profitability. The expectation is understandable, but the underlying rationale is flawed as it considers long experience as the only factor in determining the reduction of processing cost, whereas there are other important factors like advanced machinery, employee competence, workplace environment etc. that should be considered while predicting the processing cost.

To make the argument persuasive, the author must take care of the points mentioned above. Additionally, Information such as the exact data of processing time and cost could also help making the argument convincing. Thus, without such information, this argument fails to persuade its readers.

Hi Experts,

Could anyone please review it.. ?