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CEO's

by gmat_for_life » Wed May 04, 2016 8:43 am
Most CEO's have either sales or marketing experience prior to becoming the CEO. Data shows that, over the past decade, 30% of CEO's who have prior sales experience have successfully transformed the strategy of a company and taken a company into a completely new direction whereas only 20% of CEO's with prior Marketing experience have done the same. Therefore, it can be argued that CEO's with prior sales experience are more successful in transforming the strategy of company than those with Marketing experience.

In evaluating the argument, it would be most useful to determine which of the following?

1. Whether there have been more CEO's with sales experience than marketing experience in the past decade.
2. What skills does a prior Sales experience impart to a CEO that a marketing job does not.
3. Whether a greater percentage of CEO's with Sales experience were required to transform the strategy of a company than the percentage of marketing CEO's.
4. Whether the shareholder returns provided by the CEO's with Sales experience were greater than those provided by CEO's with marketing experience.
5. Whether CEO's with Sales experience cost the organization more than CEO's with marketing experience.
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by OptimusPrep » Wed May 04, 2016 8:11 pm
gmat_for_life wrote:Most CEO's have either sales or marketing experience prior to becoming the CEO. Data shows that, over the past decade, 30% of CEO's who have prior sales experience have successfully transformed the strategy of a company and taken a company into a completely new direction whereas only 20% of CEO's with prior Marketing experience have done the same. Therefore, it can be argued that CEO's with prior sales experience are more successful in transforming the strategy of company than those with Marketing experience.

In evaluating the argument, it would be most useful to determine which of the following?

1. Whether there have been more CEO's with sales experience than marketing experience in the past decade.
2. What skills does a prior Sales experience impart to a CEO that a marketing job does not.
3. Whether a greater percentage of CEO's with Sales experience were required to transform the strategy of a company than the percentage of marketing CEO's.
4. Whether the shareholder returns provided by the CEO's with Sales experience were greater than those provided by CEO's with marketing experience.
5. Whether CEO's with Sales experience cost the organization more than CEO's with marketing experience.
Premise: 30% of CEO's with prior sales experience have transformed the strategy of a company whereas only 20% of CEO's with prior Marketing experience have done the same
Argument: CEO's with prior sales experience are more successful in transforming the strategy of company than those with Marketing experience

On the first glance, only options A and C are worth keeping back.

Option A talks about the numbers, but we are not concerned about the numbers. We are talking about percentages
Hence Incorrect
Option C says that the sales CEOs were required to change the strategy of the company, whereas Marketing CEOs were not required to do so. So, if it was not the job of the Marketing CEOs, they would not do it.
Hence we need to establish this fact first.

Correct Option: C
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by gmat_for_life » Sun May 08, 2016 7:29 am
Thank you Ankur!

My only question is that if we are able to prove with the aid of numbers that there were more sales CEO's in comparison with the the number of marketing CEO's, we would be able to expose a classic number percentage flaw in the above analysis. Its quite possible that despite a higher percentage value, the number of Sales CEO's were fewer in comparison with the number of marketing CEO's.

Could you please let me know why option A is invalid or out of scope for this question?

Regards,
Amit
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by MartyMurray » Sun May 08, 2016 6:31 pm
gmat_for_life wrote:Thank you Ankur!

My only question is that if we are able to prove with the aid of numbers that there were more sales CEO's in comparison with the the number of marketing CEO's, we would be able to expose a classic number percentage flaw in the above analysis. Its quite possible that despite a higher percentage value, the number of Sales CEO's were fewer in comparison with the number of marketing CEO's.

Could you please let me know why option A is invalid or out of scope for this question?

Regards,
Amit
The premise of the argument is not about absolute numbers. The premise is about the percentage of each category who were successful in a certain way.

To make this crystal clear, consider the following scenario.

Method A For Solving A Certain Health Problem - Used 100 Times - 75% Success - 75 Successes

Method B for Solving A Certain Health Problem - Used 2000 Times - 5% Success - 100 Successes

Method B is associated with more successes in absolute terms, but Method A seems much more effective.

A similar thing is going on in this CR question. We don't care about the absolute numbers. We only care about the success rates of each type of CEO.

You got sucked into trap answer choice A by thinking that the argument is about something that it is not about. To get CR questions right, you have to be clear about what the arguments are about and what the conclusions are. Generally everything else you do when handling the questions builds on the clarity.
Marty Murray
Perfect Scoring Tutor With Over a Decade of Experience
MartyMurrayCoaching.com
Contact me at [email protected] for a free consultation.
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