Argument117[jet小组]第九次作业

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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."


In this memo, the business manager of  the Valu-Mart stores advise that we should increase the stock of both home office machines and office supplies. However, the manager's suggestion is unpersuasive for he makes some flaws as follow:

First of all, the manager does not provide engough evidence to show that the suervey he used to support his conclusion is reliable. How many people attend the survery? If there are only a few people accept the survey, the result of it is undependable. For example, if only 100 people were surveied, therefore  the respondents are 70 far away from making us convice on the survey. How about the sample quality of the survey? It is possible that the respondents are almost from software companies which ofen admit their stuff to work in home since the stuff there can also programme with computers at home. If it is so, we cannot broaden this situation to embrace all companies. How about the content of the survey? If the survey asumes that how to develop one’s occupation is included in ones daily work in workplace, the trend work-at-home will be overestimated.

Secondly,  the manger fausely establishes a causal relationship between the survey and his suggestion without thinking carefully. First, though most respondents indicats that their require to take more work home than before, the manager does not tell us how much work are the respondents required before and how much these work increased. It may be the in the past the work needed to be done at home is little and the increasing of this work nearly can be ignored. As the result of it, it does not take people much time to work home. Consider the competitors of Valu-Mart stores will also appeal some consumers, it may not cause the sales’ growing as the manager predict. Second, we also do not know wether the people who are required to work home need both of the two kinds of the products the manager memtioned above. Maybe their bosses only need them to send their achievements via e-mail or they record their work just by using pens and paper.

Last but not the least, the manager fails to consider the expense when more palces are demanded to stock the commodities.What’s more, the printers, small copy machines, paper shredders, and fax machines are elctronic machimes which need strict environmet to store. Undoubtedly, it’s not a small cost if Valu-Mart stores take the manager’s advice. If the profit from the home office machines and office supplies cannot fill the cost gap made by stocking, Valu-Mart stores should refuse the manager’s recommandation.
Overall, the manager commit to several fallacies such as ignoring the justice of the survey, the real stituation they face besides the survey shows and failing to consider the increasing expense of stocking if his suggeation is taked by stores. Before final decision is made, Valu-Mart stores must pay attention to the possible alternatives we discussed above.


[ 本帖最后由 cascade 于 2008-2-20 19:50 编辑 ]