argument117 【微观状态】 第七次作业 求拍!

为了忘却的纪念UID: 2263082

Argument117
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."

Based on a recent survey about the work-at-home trend, the arguer concludes that by increasing the stock of home office machines and office supplies at all Valu-Mart stores, the office-supply departments will become the most profitable component of the stores. This argument sounds reasonable at the first glanch, but further investigation will show that it is questionable in both evidence and assumption, thus is unconvinced.

To begin with, the survey that the arguer cites is questionable in several aspects, thus provide little support to the conclusion. First, the arguer fails to give out whether the area where the survey is conducted is wide enough to cover all the Valu-Mart stores. If the survey only covers some specific areas, the conclusion could not be hastily extended to all the Valu-Mart stores. Secondly, the survey reports that there is a trend of increasing in the number of work be done at home than the past, but does not mention how much is the increase. If there is no significantly increase, blindly adding the stock will definitely cause some problems in both the cash circulation and storage cost of the store. Furthermore, the arguer needs to give out the basic statistical information of the responders, like gender, occupation, and the survey is better to be done over a certain period of time so that the trend is not just because of some temporary projects in the markets.

Even if we accept the arguer’s survey that more and more work are considered to be finished at home, there is no causal relationship between this trend and the increasing demand of work-at-home equipments. It is entirely possible that just because some works do not need the equipments like printers, small copy machines, paper shredders, the employees choose to finish them at home. For example, some software develop work could be done on the computer and using internet to transfer data base and work results through home and office. There is another possibility that though the work includes the use of some equipment, the employees will choose to finish the part that does not use the equipments at home, and leave the other part to the office. To make the argument more convincing, the arguer needs to give out further investigation on among the work be done at home, how many of them will need the work-at-home equipments.

Furthermore, even if there is a increasing in the market of the work-at-home equipments, we could not draw out the arguer’s conclusion from that. First of all, besides Valu-Mart store, there maybe a lot of other stores that are selling office equipments, it might be the case that people will go to other stores to buy the equipments. Furthermore, only the increase of stock will be no way to guarantee the profit. The profit relies on the revenue, which is largely upon the number of equipments been sold, and the cost. Even if we assume because of the increase trend of work at home, the quantity of equipments sold out also increased, since the cost also increased because of we need more places to store the added equipments, if the arguer could not give out the detailed estimation of the possible revenue and cost, it will take great risk to take the arguer’s suggestion. Te profit also related to the other factors like quality and category of products. Without the information on all of that, it is hard to accept the arguer’s conclusion.

Last but not least, assuming the store could make profit by the arguer’s suggestion, without detailed information of the profit report of office-supply department and other departments, it will be groundless to get to the conclusion that the office-supply department will be the most profit department of all stores. It is entirely possible that other departments are making very good profits and even if increased, the profit of office-supply department is less than others. Only ruling out the possibility, could we accept the arguer’s assumption.

To sum up, to analyze whether or not the store could make profits based on the arguer’s suggestion, we should consider carefully about the trend of work-at-home, based on the market share of Valu-Mart store, the future picture of increase of number of equipment could be sold out, to decide whether or not the storage should be enlarged. Also, to decide whether or not the office-supply department will be the most profit department of all the stores, depends not only on the profit of office-supply department, but also on the profit of other departments.

[ 本帖最后由 为了忘却的纪念 于 2007-2-4 15:47 编辑 ]