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09 May 2016, 18:12
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Prompt:
“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.”
The argument that Apogee would increase profitability by closing down it’s field office and centralizing all of the operations in a single location is flawed for a number of reasons.
One of the arguments in favor of the centralization plans was the fact that the company was more profitable before the field office was opened. This is a typical causality error, one would be mistaken to assume that the centralized operations location was responsible for the company’s profits to be greater before the move was made. While these two events are indeed correlated, this does not mean that the opening the field office was responsible for the decrease in profits. There could be an unknown variable that was altered after the company opened the field office that caused the drop in Apogee’s profit. Another error in the memorandum was the use of ambiguous language in the argument. More specifically, when the author(s) stated that centralizing the operations would increase company profits. There is no estimate as to how much profits would increase, may they go up by 10% or .01%? This specific detail is important because a minor increase in Apogee’s profits may not warrant the effort and time needed to shut down the field office, and centralize operations.
The author(s) of the memorandum could have improved their argument in favor of the move by giving more specific details to the claim that shutting down the field office will increase profits by cutting costs. Figures detailing the estimated capital saved would go a long way to better make their case for the centralization of operations.
Due to the lack of evidence of specific detail of how much profits would increase, and the inability to correctly demonstrate that building a field office decreased profits, the author(s) claim should be dismissed.
“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.”
The argument that Apogee would increase profitability by closing down it’s field office and centralizing all of the operations in a single location is flawed for a number of reasons.
One of the arguments in favor of the centralization plans was the fact that the company was more profitable before the field office was opened. This is a typical causality error, one would be mistaken to assume that the centralized operations location was responsible for the company’s profits to be greater before the move was made. While these two events are indeed correlated, this does not mean that the opening the field office was responsible for the decrease in profits. There could be an unknown variable that was altered after the company opened the field office that caused the drop in Apogee’s profit. Another error in the memorandum was the use of ambiguous language in the argument. More specifically, when the author(s) stated that centralizing the operations would increase company profits. There is no estimate as to how much profits would increase, may they go up by 10% or .01%? This specific detail is important because a minor increase in Apogee’s profits may not warrant the effort and time needed to shut down the field office, and centralize operations.
The author(s) of the memorandum could have improved their argument in favor of the move by giving more specific details to the claim that shutting down the field office will increase profits by cutting costs. Figures detailing the estimated capital saved would go a long way to better make their case for the centralization of operations.
Due to the lack of evidence of specific detail of how much profits would increase, and the inability to correctly demonstrate that building a field office decreased profits, the author(s) claim should be dismissed.
13 May 2016, 03:29
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I would give the essay a 4 out of 6 but that is just my opinion.
You gave 2 great arguments (correlation issue and the missing numbers for 'increase in profit) but you combined them all into one paragraph. I would have broken those into two different paragraphs. I would also have included a way to improve the correlation vs causation error.
I think if you want to score a 5+ you would need to include a third argument. A possible third error is to notice that the argument assumes that if the company makes these changes then it will again have higher profits in the future. However, we don't know if the future will be anything like the past. Perhaps the market size has shrunk over the years and we may never be able to obtain the same level of profits again.
You gave 2 great arguments (correlation issue and the missing numbers for 'increase in profit) but you combined them all into one paragraph. I would have broken those into two different paragraphs. I would also have included a way to improve the correlation vs causation error.
I think if you want to score a 5+ you would need to include a third argument. A possible third error is to notice that the argument assumes that if the company makes these changes then it will again have higher profits in the future. However, we don't know if the future will be anything like the past. Perhaps the market size has shrunk over the years and we may never be able to obtain the same level of profits again.
Moderator:
