Sajjad1994May I request for evaluation of the Essay on basis of the undermentioned prompt :-
QUESTION
The following appeared in a corporate memorandum of a beverage manufacturer:
“Our promotional price reductions on energy drinks have been highly successful, as we have seen a dramatic increase in unit sales. Further, surveys of our consumers indicate that this promotion was favorably received by the majority of our customers. Therefore, to improve our company’s profitability and enhance its perception in the eyes of consumers, similar price reductions should be offered on all drinks produced by our firm.”Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.ESSAYThe argument under reference, an extract of the corporate memorandum of a beverage manufactures, argues in favor of price reductions on all drinks produced by the manufacturer based on the sole evidence of improvement in company's profitability and consumer satisfaction exhibited consequent to reduction in prices of 'energy' drinks. While the argument, at an initial glance, seems well justified; however, on a deeper analysis, it comes to the fore that the argument suffers from doubtful lack of enough supporting evidence, as also is based on certain doubtful assumptions. Besides the aforementioned deficiencies, the argument's reasoning has several critical flaws, which have been enumerated in the succeeding paragraphs.
Firstly, the author has extended the futuristic perception regarding increase in profitability to all categories of energy drinks. Such assumption may clearly be unwarranted. Prior to such extension of the argument based on such doubtful assumption, the author has not provided the current trends regarding sales figures of such categories of drinks. If the sales based on existing prices of such drinks are generating enough demand, the price reductions may lead to significant decreases in profits.
Secondly, the argument also lacks supporting evidence pertaining to the nature of customers for different types of drinks produced by the manufacturer. If the drinks are preferred by such category of drinkers, who purchase drinks on basis of exclusivity, say high prices, such customers may get weaned away consequent to price reductions.
Thirdly, the argument also doesn't offer supporting evidence in terms of sale prices and expenditure incurred on various categories of drinks. To this end, the author needs to present comparative matrices and relevant calculations to highlight whether there is a scope for calibrating the prices of a particular category.
Lastly, the author has also not included the futuristic trends in respect of inflation, raw material and wages of employees to be catered. The proposed price reductions in all types of drinks have to be analyzed considering all such factors as the supporting evidence.
Towards improving the logical consistency in the argument, the author needs to include significant supporting evidence in terms of analyses, population surveys and calculation summaries related to the costs incurred in the existing scenario. The author also needs to provide special focus on the futuristic trends on the underlying factors related to pricing of drinks to increase the logical soundness in the argument.
In essence, the argument in its existing state seems void and logically inconsistent owing to lack of supporting evidence and inclusion of doubtful assumption regarding similar trends for all categories of drinks. The author needs to include supporting evidence in the form of cost analyses, comparisons regarding sale prices vis-a-vis costs incurred for individual drink categories and calculation summaries to boost his recommendation to reduce the prices of complete inventory for improving company's profitability as well as popular perception of the company's drink offerings.