Argument117【0706G－CRUSADE小组】第7次作业

rose_07UID: 2276843

TOPIC: 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."
WORDS: 466          TIME: 0:30:00          DATE: 2007-3-2

The author's recommendation begs the questions in that what the author cites and assumes is dubious in some aspects. A detailed analysis is as follows.

To begin with, the survey that the author cites to support his recommendation is unconvincing and suffers from some critical flaws. The author fails to point out the accurate number of respondents and workers, which makes the 70 percent amount to nothing if respondents are a small proportion of all the workers.  It is entirely possible that there are 10,000 workers while only 100 participated in the survey, which means the percentage is not representative of all the workers’ attitude at all. Therefore, since the critical element of the survey is missing, its result lends no strong support to what the author recommends.

Even if the 70 percent of the respondents are representative, the fact that they are required to work home may not lead to the needs for home office machines. Without direct information about what kind of work they are required to do at home, we can not rule out the possibility that their work has nothing to do with those office machines, such as making a poll among the neighbourhood, doing a survey in a community market or else places. If so, the needs of office machines will not increase at all. Since the evidence that they can not work effectively without home office machines is unavailable, the author's assumption is unconvincing.

Even if they need office machines to work at home, the author does not rule out the existence of other competitors. Perhaps, there are some companies specializing in selling home office machines, who are more competent than the Valu-Mart stores with lower prices and better service. If that is the case, the sales of Valu-Mart may decline, let along any increase. Without considering other similar companies, it is unwise to assume that Valu-Mart stores' product is the only choice for all the buyers. Therefore, the correlation between the increase demands of office machines and the increase sales of Valu-Mart is unacceptable unless the author provides further evidence that the buyers prefer Valu-Mart's product to his competitors'.

Given that the sales of Valu-Mart's home office machines increase, the prediction that the office-supply departments will become the most profitable component of the stores is unconvincing. No data is provided that how much profit other components of the stores make every day. Therefore, it is unfair to predict that the office-supply departments will exceed other ones without specific comparison. Meanwhile, the increase stock of home office machines may also bring in risks, which may increase its cost so that they can not even ensure its profit.

In sum, the author cites a dubious survey and unfairly makes some assumption to support his recommendation, which we find hard to accept.