Argument117 weixch的，拍吧

weixchUID: 2104033

The following is a memo from the business manager of Valu-Mart stores.

"Over 70 percent of the respondents to a recent survey reported that they are required to take more work home with them from the workplace than they were in the past. Since Valu-Mart has not seen impressive sales in its office-supply departments in the past, we should take advantage of this work-at-home trend by increasing at all Valu-Mart stores the stock of home office machines such as printers, small copy machines, paper shredders, and fax machines. We will also increase stock of office supplies such as paper, pens, and staplers. With these changes, our office-supply departments will become the most profitable component of our stores."
家用办公设备的需求在增加，但是没有这方面的资料。虽然人们现在比以前更多地需要在家里工作，但并不表示他们需要新添置设备
调查的范围是多少，有多少人接受了访问，如果范围很小，调查就没有代表性。
提高商品储存不一定就会提高利润，商品的质量、商品的种类都会影响到它的销售。

In the memo shown above, the business manager claims that Valu-Mart should increase stock of home office machines and office supplies to meet the requirement of work-at-home indicated in the recent survey for more profits. However, the manager’s reasoning suffers for several critical flaws.

Firstly, there is no where in the memo mentioned the relationship between the work-at-home trend and the requirement of home office machines. The survey in the memo just tells us that work-at-home is growing more common in our society, whereas, the result from the 70 percent of the respondents did not mean a growing requirement to home office machines. We cannot rule out the possibility that most of the people have already brought copy machines, paper shredders and so on to home; perhaps the market for home office machines is already saturated. If that is the case, more stock of home office gadgets would probably make the performance in sales even worse.

Secondly, we cannot get further information about the confine of the survey. Due to that reason, we cannot make sure whether the trend mentioned in memo is a local one or not. If most of the respondents come from a small region, the survey would lose its representation statistically. Moreover, provided that the respondents need to buy new home office machines, their reorganizations to brand of Valu-Mart are sill in question not concerned in the memo. Without further evidence to prove the statistical validity of the survey and relate the survey to the requirement of home office equipment from Valu-Mart, the business strategy of the manager may be a little arbitrary.

Finally, even if the requirement shown above exists and consumers are willing to buy the office supplies in Valu-Mart, it may be still rootless to draw a conclusion that increasing the stock of those goods would surely make profits. As we knew in common sense, the profit in commerce depends on not only the sales volume but also the cost of management, products, salary and so on.
Consider the cost of products. The sales of home office gadgets would probably reduce the profit of Valu-Mart in case that the primitive cost of home office supplies is too high for Valu-Mart to get a considerable gain.

From the critical flaws analyzed previously, we can see that the argument of the manager may be unconvincing as it stands. To strengthen the deduction, the manager should clear in the memo the relationship between the work-at-home trend and the requirement of home office machines. Also, further information about the confine of the survey can better support the viewpoint asserted in the memo. However, to make the conclusion more creditable, it is still necessary to investigate consumer’s recognition to brand of Valu-Mart and assure the cost from other aspects would not decrease the anticipant profit.