Company A provides a business software for which companies pay an annu

Question

Company A provides a business software for which companies pay an annual subscription fee, which includes help support provided by Company A's team of account managers. To reduce the cost of providing help support to half of last year's cost, Company A has redesigned its product offering to include two variants. To achieve this, Company A plans this year to move enough of its clients into a cheaper subscription that includes no access to help support to reduce the number of account managers to half of last year's number.

Which of the following is required for the redesigned product offering to achieve its aim?

A. The majority of clients who are willing to switch to the cheaper subscription will move to that product.

B. Moving customers to the new product will be achieved at a net cost of zero.

C. No more than half of new subscribers to Company A's products this year should subscribe to the option that includes customer service.

D. Customer service this year will cost no more per account manager than it did last year.

E. The total number of client accounts this year should be no more than fifty percent greater than last year's number.

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dhwanit2412 · Answer

Please explain as actually what is required for the new design to work will have to include the clients as without sufficient people switching to cheaper model how can the model work?

Pragya9s · Answer

Between Option C or D , more clarification needed

1) Option C - No more than half of new subscribers to Company A's products this year should subscribe to the option that includes customer service.
 
While there is no rule that can regulate the number of subscribers that choose either of the variants. But For Company A to be able to reduce the number of support manager's to half of Last years. This can be a possible requirement amongst all other options.

2) Option D - Customer service this year will cost no more per account manager than it did last year.

The question asked is ' Which of the following is required for the redesigned product offering to achieve its aim?' 
Now, this option clearly does not state a requirement rather a conclusion to the Argument.

Can you please explain how Option D is suitable?

ASal · Answer

Company A provides a business software for which companies pay an annual subscription fee, which includes help support provided by Company A's team of account managers.  To reduce the cost of providing help support to half of last year's cost,  Company A has redesigned its product offering to include two variants. To achieve this, Company A plans this year to move enough of its clients into a cheaper subscription that includes no access to help support  to reduce the number of account managers to half of last year's number.

----- So Company A wants to reduce cost of providing help support to half of last years cost,  by  reducing the number of account managers to half of last year's number.

Which of the following is   required   for the redesigned product offering to achieve its aim?

A. The majority of clients who are willing to switch to the cheaper subscription will move to that product. 
 Not req. -We don ́t know the % of clients willing to switch or % of clients needed to switch to lower the cost of providing help support to 1/2 of last year's.

B. Moving customers to the new product will be achieved at a net cost of zero.
 Not req. - Company A wants to reduce cost of providing help support specifically, there is no mention of wanting to reduce the costs of doing this switch itself.

C. No more than half of new subscribers to Company A's products this year should subscribe to the option that includes customer service.
 Not req. - There is no mention of how much each client affects the cost of providing help support, so we don ́t know the percentage mix of customers in each product variant needed to reduce costs of providing help support to half of last year ́s cost. We know that the cost itself should be 1/2 of last year ́s, but we don ́t know that that translates into the need that 1/2 the clients are subscribed in the new "no support" variant, i.e. we don ́t know that the relationship between number of clients and cost of providing help and support is 1:1 . Additionally, we don ́t know what % of total clients new subscribers represent, or what % of "old" subscribers Company A switched to the new "no support" variant, it could very well be that enough "old" "support" subscribers were moved to the "no support" variant to compensate for the new subscribers that do subscribe to the old "support" variant.

D. Customer service this year will cost no more per account manager than it did last year.
  Required . - The way Company A is trying to reduce costs of providing help support by 1/2 is  through  reducing the number of account managers by 1/2, if accounts managers cost more than last year, then the company would either: not reduce said cost by 1/2 or have to reduce the number of account managers by more than 1/2.

E. The total number of client accounts this year should be no more than fifty percent greater than last year's number.
 Not req. - Same as C, we don ́t know the relationship of number of client accounts to cost of providing help and support.

Thanks, 
A.

Bunuel · Answer

Official Explanation

Reading the question: the prompt presents a plan, which is to create a new cheaper product and move customers into it. The "aim" referred to by the question stem is to reduce cost. Actually, it's more specific: it's to reduce the cost of providing help support to half of last year's cost. The stem already uses logically strong terms, for once: the word "required." So we can move straight to the answer choices and use the negation test.

Logical proof: If (A) were false, might the plan achieve its aim? It still might; for example, maybe all customers are willing to switch, so only half need to be migrated. (A) is out. We negate (B). The plan isn't impacted, because we are trying simply to reduce help support cost, as the plan's aim; total costs are out of scope of this plan. We negate (C). More than half of new customers go for the service option. We had 100 clients, say, and we moved 50 to the non-service option to establish 50-50. But now 20 new clients come in and go for service, and we are at 70-50. But does that mean the unit cost is now 70 relative to 100 last year? Not necessarily; we don't know that each subscriber requires the same level of service. The negation does not decisively break the plan, so the non-negated statement is not required for the plan. In this regard, (E) is equivalent to (C). But we have been told about these account managers. They provide the customer service, and that last, odd-sounding phrase of the argument becomes important. The account managers are reduced to half; the cost is to be reduced to half; so (D) must be true. If, for example, the average account manager compensation went up, the cost would be higher than half and the plan would fail.

The correct answer is (D).

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