ARGUMENT94 [Victors小组]7月6日作业 by jennetrj

jennetrjUID: 2275453

ARGUMENT94 - The following appeared in a memo from the president of Bower Builders, a company that constructs new homes.

"A nationwide survey reveals that the two most desired home features are a bathroom with a whirlpool tub and a large kitchen. Homes in a nearby development built by our competitor, Domus Construction, have whirlpool tubs and have sold much faster and at significantly higher prices than the average. To increase our sales and profits, we should include whirlpool tubs and larger kitchens as standard features in all our new homes. Since our recent buyers have voiced no complaints about small yards, we can also increase profits by decreasing the size of our yards."
WORDS: 679          TIME: 00:30:00         

In this memo, the author recommends the company, Bower Builders, to include whirlpool tubs and larger kitchens into the new built homes and decrease the yard size so as to increase the company profits. To justify this recommendation, the author cites a nationwide survey indicating that people prefer to have home with upper two characteristics and the study among recent buyers revealing no complaints about small yards. Moreover, the author points out that the competitor which builds homes in nearby development area got the advantages of providing these features for the home. However, close scrutiny reveals several flaws in it.

To begin with, the author unfairly assumes that potential clients for Bower Builders are the typical of the general population nationwide. However, no evidences provided in the passage support it. It is totally possible that those people have the more pragmatic tastes to the homes which have average standard of showers and medium-sized kitchen. Or perhaps Bower Builders mainly aims at the market of single people who care less about tubs and kitchen in the house. Either scenario, if true, would undermine author's assumption that homes with those features would be welcomed in the market.

If it is true people would like to buy houses with those features and the company builds homes in nearby development got great success, no warrant could be made that such strategy would promise more profits in this area. The author overlooks the disparity between the two places, which might much overweigh the superficial similarity. Commonsense informs us the sales of the house or any products relates to the demand and amount of productivity. It is totally possible that in nearby area there were lots of new immigrants who needed to buy new homes and Domus Construction was the only constructive firm there. While for Bower Builders, most resident in the city had already had houses and the demand in the market is low. Or perhaps the average income here is much lower than that of the nearby area so that such high level houses would be difficult to sell. Until the author completes the analysis, the author's recommendation could not be taken seriously.

Moreover, although no complaints about smaller yards came back among the recent buyers, no promise that the potential clients have the same opinion. First, no complaints came back doesn’t mean those people really didn’t care about it. Perhaps no access was available for those people to inform their real concerns about the houses. Or maybe not until they moved in the house with the smaller yards would they feel the inconveniency of such small yards. There's also the possibility that new buyers are the ones that completely hold different sense, so that decreasing the yard size would be critical for the sales of homes in the future. Until the author provide sufficient evidence to show that new buyers would like to have larger kitchen and whirlpool tubs instead of large yards, the author could not convince be to accept the recommendation.

Finally, if such strategy is feasible, the author fails to prove the necessity for the firm to decrease the size of the yards in order to get more profits. Maybe other choices were available for the company to decrease the cost of construction, like the appliance of cheaper raw materials, shortening the construction period or skip the sales agent. Author's failure to consider such possibilities renders the recommendation based on it highly suspect.

In sum, the argument is groundless as it stands. To consolidate it, the author should provide more evidences--maybe by polls among the residents live in the community that the company builds the homes--to show that decreasing size of yards so as to provide large kitchen and whirlpools tubs would be welcomed. In addition, the author should complete the analysis to show the balance among the real estates to assure us that such strategy would provide more profits to the company. To better assess the argument, we need to know whether there are other choices other than decreasing the yard size to accomplish the strategy.