argument117 【加州阳光】第四次作业 留链互拍！

riverwUID: 2199459

117. 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."


1. 无效调查：样本选择(randomly, size)，回复比例
2. 无理假设：即使work-at-home的趋势真的存在，销售未必会改善
3. 无理假设：即使新的市场策略真的起作用，也不一定是利润最高的部门


In this argument the arguer recommends that Valu-Mart stores should increase the stocks of home office machines and office supplies to improve the sales of its office-supply departments. The manager also concludes that with these changes the office-supply department will become the most profitable component of their stores. This argument seems plausible at the first glance, however, a careful examination would reveal that it indeed suffers from several critical flaws.

In the first place, the effectiveness of the survey result is quite questionable since the survey lacks critical information in three aspects. First, the manager fails to explain whether the sample of the survey is randomly selected. If the survey was made to some specific industry while in various other careers the employees should not have to take work home, the survey result will be too narrow to represent common people's situations. The survey might also be made only in one city so that the potential customers' request for office equipment in other cities where Valu-Mart has chain stores remains unclear. Second, the manager provides no information about how many people got involved in the survey hence we have reasons to doubt whether the sample size is large enough. The survey result will be obviously inefficient if the store only surveyed 10 persons. Thirdly, the validity of the survey is also weakened by the absence of information about what percentage of all the participants responded to the survey. It is possible that only a small proportion of participants succeeded in responding to the survey while the most others failed due to their respective reasons. The respondents therefore might not be representative of all the participants. In general, before the three aspects mentioned above are presented clearly, it's too early to conclude that there will be a work-at-home trend.

In the second place, even if the work-at-home trend does exist, it will not necessarily lead to sales increase in home office machines and office supplies. The arguer provides no information about the types of those works that need to be done at home, so the requirement of home office machines and additional office supplies remains unclear. Perhaps people can finish their works at home simply with their daily briefcases, or home computers which has internet services. Furthermore, both companies and employees might not be willing to afford the cost of home office machines so that the works taken home might be deliberately arranged to avoid such investments. In this case, the office-supply departments will not obtain sales increase which is expected by the arguer.

Last but not least, the arguer unreasonably predicts that the office-supply department will stand out to be the most profitable component of Valu-Mart stores. The office products might be facing crucial competition in the market and each kind of office machine or common office supplies can only bring very limited profit to distributors. In addition, we know that each store has many other commodities. It is entirely possible that there might be some other high-tech products, especially those electronic products such as digital camera, handset, and portable computers, which have more profits and request volume than office machines and supplies. Departments selling these high profit products might easily earn more money than office-supply department even if the latter can see improvement in its sales after the recommended changes are adopted. Only when the commodity types and total sales volume are compared carefully, can the arguer reach the conclusion which department will be the most profitable one.

In conclusion, the argument is completely unconvincing as it stands. To strengthen it the arguer would have to provide more information to validate the survey to prove the existence of the work-at-home trend, and analyze the requirement for home office machines and office supplies. The arguer would also have to compare the sales volume and profit points of office-supply department and other departments of the stores to explain why the former will be the most profitable component of Valu-Mart stores.

[ 本帖最后由 riverw 于 2006-7-1 15:31 编辑 ]