Any reviews on Essay greatly appreciated.
[#permalink]
29 Oct 2016, 13:39
I'm planning on taking my GMAT this December and just wrote an essay based on prompt below in thirty minutes. Please let me know any positive or negatives of the essay and how it may be improved. Thanks!!
“When the Apogee Company had all its operations in one location, it was more profitable than it is today. Therefore,
the Apogee Company should close down its field offices and conduct all its operations from a single location. Such
centralization would improve profitability by cutting costs and helping the company maintain better supervision of all
employees.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and
the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions
underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can
also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would
make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
The argument above believes consolidating Apogee Company employees in a single location would improve profitability, reduce costs, and make supervision of all employees easier. This argument relies on the stated fact that Apogee was more profitable when all of its operations were in one location than it is today. However, the argument is clearly flawed as it does not mention the cost to move to one location nor highlight any potential flaws that would probably occur if they were to centralize their location.
First, Apogee may need offices or distribution plants in different locations where they are doing business. If Apogee were to shut these offices down then they could lose signigicant revenue and profit would actually decrease even more. Also, there must a be a large cost to change strategy and centralize offices in one location. The argument does not mention any of the costs to move their operations to one location. The company may have to paydown leases that have not yet expired and pay relocation expenses to employees, which could significantly increase costs and decrease profit. Furthermore, many of Apogee's employees may not be willing to move and they could lose some of their best talent. The argument would be strengthend by identifying why Apogee's profit would increase in the long term by explaining clearly the cost and benefit of centralizing their offices to one location.
Secondly, the argument only relies on the fact that Apogee Company was more profitable at some point in the past when its operations were in one location compared to today. However, the argument fails to mention the current macro economy or provide any relevant statistics for why profit may have declined in this particular year. Apogee may have increased profit for many consecutive years after expanding its offices in more locations. There could have been a global recession which caused profit to decrease for the current year and that would greatly weaken the argument that the company should centralize its location due to lower profit this year than at some point in the past.
The argument above is flawed due to the reasons mentioned above. There is not enough evidence to warrant centralizing the offices in one location will improve profitability and cut costs based on the evidence cited.