argument117 有拍必回拍！

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345 words   35 minutes
445 words 20 minutes r1 2005-7-29
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.'


The author of this argument claims that Valu-Mart stores should increase stock of home office machines and supplies and this measure will make their office-supply department most profitable component of their stores. To support his assertion the author cites certain statistics that a high rate of the respondents to a recent survey were required to work at home from the workplace. To support his suggestion. The author also cites the fact that in the past Valu-Mart has no impressive sales in its office-supply departments Close scrutiny of this evidence reveals that is lends little credible support for the author's assertion.
    The threshold problem is that the statistics is not convincing enough to represent a market need of home office supplies. From the survey quoted in the argument, we find no sign of such procedure for randomly sampling , and have good reason to doubt if the sample is representative enough to reflect the general all its latent customer as a whole. Who participates in the survey? And how many of them respond to it? What is the characteristic, such as age, salary of these respondents. This is great possibility that these respondents are those whose job is office work, and more accidentally they are on a vacation at home with some work task.
    Moreover, lack of investigate of the market weakens the reliability of the judgment there will be many customers for their office machines and supplies. There is also other possibilities that these who work at home may be their customers in that it is fallacious to equate working at home and needing office apparatus. And moreover, even though they really need the office machines, how long this market will last? A near-sighted investment will result in failure.
    Thirdly, the arguer omits many other factors may cast impacts on the profits of their department. A series of questions arise, such as whether there are competitors in the same area, whether is the cost too high for an investment, and whether the stores’ operating situation allows this investment? If there exist many competitive adversaries, which  may greatly reduce the rate of their products' in the market, or the the investment is even unaffordable, or the stores are in a poor economical situation, or their operation direction disagrees with the author’s suggestion, the profits will be dubious, let alone the department will be most profitable in their stores.
    As it stands, the argument is not well reasoned. To make it logically acceptable, the arguers would have to demonstrate that there is much market of home office machines and supplies. Additionally, the arguer must provide evidence that the investment is feasible for the stores to bring about.

[ Last edited by staralways on 2005-7-30 at 00:02 ]