AWA Question: The following appeared in a memorandum from the business department of the Apogee Company: “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 maintains 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. Essay: The argument claimed by business department of the Apogee Company in a memorandum that centralization of the company and closing down its field offices is necessary to maximize the company’s profits and minimize the costs. They have wrongly used the centralization concept. Can a company that has expanded through a wide network of field offices can suddenly shut down just because it has failed to raise profits. Even though their claim may well have a merit, the business department presents a poorly and weak reasoned argument, based on several questionable premises and assumptions, and based solely on the evidence that it offers, we cannot accept their argument as valid. The primary issue with the business department’s reasoning lies in their unsubstantiated premises. Some field offices may be profitable and some may be in loss making. The ones which are profitable cannot be shut down. Also instead of closing down the offices, it is better to analyze the problems with respect to internal and external. Internal problems such as corrupt or rigid management, inefficient workers, large attrition rate or sudden hiring rate, difficult working conditions. External problems such as any force majeure incidents such as flood, drought, earthquake, etc, poor customer’s response or competitor’s good hold on the market. Depending on the quantum of problem, it is better to list down the effective strategy with a set target date for the particular loss making office. The secondary issue in the argument lies in the cost-benefit analysis. The business department has failed to explicitly mention that whether proper pros and cons were considered in the cost sheet. Initially, the cost benefit may seem to be high. Local field offices would have been much effective in handling local customers and vendors. If centralization of the company is adopted, then the employers have to travel for longer distances for business meetings, for providing services to the customers or for inspection at manufacturer’s works .Certainly, the cost will be higher and thus minimizing the profits as expected initially. The business development’s premises, the basis for their argument, lack any legitimate evidentiary support and render their conclusion as unacceptable. The tertiary issue in the argument is high probability of getting a bad publicity. Simply closing the field offices for the process of cost-cutting will garner negative publicity in the market. The benefit will go to its competitors. Hence, the company will fall into a more vicious circle of reduced profit and bad reputation in the market. Hence, the business development weaken their argument by making assumptions and failing to provide explication of the links between increasing profits and closing down the field offices for centralization, that the department assume to be exists. While the business department has several key issues in its argument’s premises and assumptions, that is not to say the entire argument is without base. The departments’ main objective was to identify the main area of loss in the company. If centralization was the only solution, the business department could have given more statistical data. It could have explained that centralized management would take the ultimatum decisions and could have provided an efficient business strategy. They could have suggested ways to handle the public attention for the closure of local field offices. In sum, the business development’s illogical argument is based on unsupported premises and unsubstantiated assumptions that render their conclusion as invalid. They have overlooked the above addressed points. If the business development truly hopes to change its readers’ mind on the issue, they would have to largely restructure their argument, fix the flaws in their logic, clearly explicate their assumptions, and provide evidentiary support. Without, all these things, their poorly reasoned argument will likely convince few people.

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When the Apogee Company had all its operations in one location, it was

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Sajjad1994

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15 Oct 2022, 00:12

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Hello Member

Welcome to GMAT Club!

Make proper paragraphs and repost your essay, without proper paragraphing of the essay you might be unable to get a 6 out of 6 score.

Ariannagmat

Hi,

could someone please give some feedback on mine? What could I improve? What should I continue?

The argument claims that by closing its operation in several locations and instead concentrating them in a single location Apogee Company will improve profitability, cut costs and maintain better supervision. Stated in this way the argument fails to recognise several key factors and reveals examples of poor reasoning.

Firstly, the argument fails to consider analyzing the reasons why profits may have declined. This may depend on a variety of other not considered factors.
The overall cost of sales may have increased. Especially with inflation the production costs are likely to have increased resulting in a decrease in profit.
Additionally, profits may have declined due to changes in shopping behavior. External factors such as trends in digitalisation resulting in an increase in e-commerce movement will affect business. If Apogee Company has failed to recognise this and adapt to the current climate, this may have implications on their profit. Furthermore, consumer trends overall may have changed too, in terms of what products consumers are interested in. Apogee Company needs to consider staying up to date with trends with their product line. The overall economic climate is also a factor that Apogee company fails to mention as one of the factors that affects the overall economy as well as businesses as Apogee Company.

Another relevant factor could be the management of the company. Depending on the skills and capabilities of senior management the company will experience fluctuations in profit and business confidence.

Secondly, while closing down locations may cut some costs it needs to be considered that the initial investment into these locations will be lost. Furthermore, analysis will have to be carried out, acquiring knowledge about the financial differences between locations. It could be the case that it would be beneficial for Apogee Company to close some of the less profitable branches but keep open those that do well financially. Therefore, it is key to gain further information on the difference in locations in order for the company to make a financially viable decision.

Finally, it is unlikely for the company’s employees to move to the new location for their job if it is located far away from their current job. Therefore, the company would lose valuable employees and would have to consider costs for new talent acquisition and training.

In conclusion, the argument as it stands is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. The argument fails to give enough details of factors relevant to make such decisions. In order to assess the merits of the situation further information on the economic climate, consumer behaviour, management and product would have to be presented.

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18 Oct 2022, 21:25

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kindly evaluate my answer
The given argument is based on the premises that the Apogee Company should centralize its operations because it would minimize the costs and increase the profitability. The writer has also provided the background information about the importance of conducting all the operations in one location to strengthen its argument. There are certain things that can weaken the argument. The reasoning behind the argument is flawed. These flaws are described in the subsequent paragraphs.

Firstly, the memorandum begins by stating that earlier the company was more profitable because it performed all its operations in one location. Here the writer fails to provide sufficient evidence that the company profited merely due to centralization. If neglects other factors that are also responsible for the success of any company.

Secondly, the report reaches the conclusion that the company should close all of its field offices and conduct all operations from a single location. It is clear that more research is required to conclude whether other offices should be closed or not. The writer has hastily jumped to the conclusion without doing adequate research into it.

Thirdly, the premises states that the centralization would improve profitability by cutting costs. Here again the report fails to provide evidence that how would the costs decrease just by having all the operations carried out from a single location. There are other factors also which should be considered while deciding the location of a company. For example, the availability of raw materials cannot be ensured at all the places. Moreover, availability of cheap labour and the closeness to the market are also crucial factors for deciding a particular location to carry out different operations. Owing to this, it would be more profitable to have offices at different locations as per the availability of different factors.

In conclusion, more research is required to strengthen the given argument. Centralisation is profitable only when all the factors such as availability of cheap labor, power supply, closeness to the market, etcetra are available at a single location. As the memorandum fails to provide such information about the location, it is difficult to ascertain the profitability of the decision. The argument can be strengthened by proving that all requirements of the Apogee Company can be fulfilled at a single location.

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19 Oct 2022, 02:57

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AWA Score: 5 - 5.5 out of 6

Coherence and connectivity: 5/5
This rating corresponds to the flow of ideas and expressions from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analyzed. This is deemed as one of the most important parameters.

Paragraph structure and formation: 3/5
The structure and division of the attempt into appropriate paragraphs are evaluated. To score well on this parameter, it is important to organize the attempt into paragraphs. Preferable to follow the convention of leaving a line blank at the end of each paragraph, to make the software aware of the structure of the essay.

Vocabulary and word expression: 4/5
This parameter rates the submitted essay on the range of relevant vocabulary possessed by the candidate basis the word and expression usage. There are no extra- points for bombastic word usage. Simple is the best form of suave!

Good Luck

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19 Oct 2022, 10:31

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Hi,
Please evaluate my answer.

Prompt- The following appeared in a memorandum from the business department of the Apogee Company:
“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 . . . etc.

The argument claims that the Apogee Company should close down its field offices and conduct all its business from a single location. The support that the argument uses is that profits for the Apogee Company have gone down from when the company was operating from a single place. Stated this way, the argument clearly shows examples of poor reasoning and a huge leap of faith. It also conveniently fails to mention several key factors on the basis of which it could be fairly evaluated. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence, hence the argument is a weak and unconvincing one at the very least.

First of all, the argument readily assumes that just expanding out its offices is the reason for the decrease in profits for the Apogee Company and that closing down these offices would lead to deduction in costs. This statement is a stretch in that it provides no evidence of how these extra field offices are driving the costs up for the entire company. For example, it could very well be the case that out of the total no of offices, only one might be in loss leading to a decrease in profits. In such a case , the entire argument for closing down all the offices falls flat.

Second, the argument also claims that closing down all offices and keeping just one would lead to better supervision of all employees. This is again an unsubstantiated claim as nowhere in the argument, the reader is told about the nature of business of Apogee Company. What if Apogee is a technology selling company and all of its employees work remotely? In such a case , closing down all offices but one would have no impact on the supervision of employees. The argument also provides no evidence of the correlation between the supervision of employees and a company having no other offices.

Finally, the argument does not ever dive into any other reason for the decrease in profits. What if the Apogee Company has been beaten by the competition whose products are better than Apogee's? Or what if the industry in which Apogee Company functions, is on a downward trend? Or what if there is a global phenomenon that is affecting all its competitors and Apogee alike? Without convincing answers to these questions, one is left with the impression that claim is more of wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It has major gaps in the reasoning provided and leaves the reader without the complete facts and knowledge required to soundly assess the merits and demerits of this argument. Without all of this information, the argument is open to debate.

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20 Oct 2022, 03:15

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AWA Score: 5.5 - 6 out of 6

Coherence and connectivity: 5/5
This rating corresponds to the flow of ideas and expressions from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analyzed. This is deemed as one of the most important parameters.

Paragraph structure and formation: 4.5/5
The structure and division of the attempt into appropriate paragraphs are evaluated. To score well on this parameter, it is important to organize the attempt into paragraphs. Preferable to follow the convention of leaving a line blank at the end of each paragraph, to make the software aware of the structure of the essay.

Vocabulary and word expression: 4/5
This parameter rates the submitted essay on the range of relevant vocabulary possessed by the candidate basis the word and expression usage. There are no extra- points for bombastic word usage. Simple is the best form of suave!

Good Luck

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23 Jan 2023, 23:22

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Sajjad1994 please evaluate my argument and give score

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.Yes,I agree with decisions of centralization.
While running any company multiple factors plays role in success like manpower,machinary,location,technology,budget,political changes,local disputes,government guidelines and regulations.So ,It is madatory for company to look all factors and come to final conclusion.Even final conclusion might have pros and cons ,but best possible conclusive option must be choosen.
In case of Apogee company,when all of its operations were in one loaction,it was more profitable than its today.This might be due to decentralization of manpower,equipment and departments which might led to over consumption of monetory budget.Centralization of all department reduce the monetary budget at large extent as all facilities are provided under same roof.Also as all departments are at same locations,communicating between different department is easy and affordable.Centralization will improve profitability by cutting costs and helping the company maintain better supervision of all employees.
It is also important before taking such important decision to know about other factors which might play in decentralization and reducing profitability.Sometimes external factors like government rules and regulations ,pandamic situation ,local disputes etc may also impact the profitability.So it is very important to take such factors in account before concluding decentralization is the main issue.
I strongle agree with the point centralization will improve profitability by cutting costs and helping the company maintain better supervision of all employees.Hence,Apogee company can go for centralization to improve the profitability.

Sajjad1994

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24 Jan 2023, 00:49

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AWA Score: 4 out of 6

Coherence and connectivity: 2/5
This rating corresponds to the flow of ideas and expressions from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analyzed. This is deemed as one of the most important parameters.

Paragraph structure and formation: 3.5/5
The structure and division of the attempt into appropriate paragraphs are evaluated. To score well on this parameter, it is important to organize the attempt into paragraphs. Preferable to follow the convention of leaving a line blank at the end of each paragraph, to make the software aware of the structure of the essay.

Vocabulary and word expression: 4.5/5
This parameter rates the submitted essay on the range of relevant vocabulary possessed by the candidate basis the word and expression usage. There are no extra- points for bombastic word usage. Simple is the best form of suave!

I suggest you read the following AWA threads thoroughly and then write an essay again you will see the difference.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-gmatclub ... 36251.html

https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-get-6 ... 64327.html

Good Luck

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26 Jan 2023, 23:32

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Sajjad1994 Please rate my AWA.

Thanks!

The main conclusion of the above argument is “Centralization of operations would improve profitability by cutting costs and helping company maintain better supervision on employees.”. The conclusion is based on the fact that Apogee Company was more profitable earlier, when the company had its operation in one location, than it is today. The conclusion is based on partial analysis of the fact that something that has worked well in the past will work in the same manner this time around. Before we can draw such conclusion, we should investigate the below points –

1. What was the reason to set up different operation facilities if the company was already profitable? If there was a reason to set up different field offices in the past, can that be fulfilled by relocating to one location? If the company is a service provider, it might be necessary to stay close to its customer base for quick and easy resolution.

2. Did the company meet its objectives after setting up its field offices? Was the company trying to increase its customer base by relocating to more opportunity-based locations such as close to industrial hubs or manufacturing locations, so that they can attract more client base for its services?

3. Was there any change in the business objectives of Apogee Company? After its initial success, there is high chance that companies will try to venture into other areas to increase its services base and value.

4. Does the Apogee Company has to function with other entities closely which helps in its day-to-day operations, such as vendors, suppliers etc.? This provides a strong reason to believe that Apogee Company had to set up various field offices to work more closely with their vendors or suppliers. There might be a disadvantage in moving their offices to a central location where coordination with various parties might be an issue.

Due to lack of vital information regarding the company, it cannot be verified weather the given reasoning is correct. A thorough analysis of the company’s day-to-day analysis is required before commenting on this scenario.

Sajjad1994

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27 Jan 2023, 00:49

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AWA Score: 3.5 out of 6

Coherence and connectivity: 2/5
This rating corresponds to the flow of ideas and expressions from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analyzed. This is deemed as one of the most important parameters.

Paragraph structure and formation: 3/5
The structure and division of the attempt into appropriate paragraphs are evaluated. To score well on this parameter, it is important to organize the attempt into paragraphs. Preferable to follow the convention of leaving a line blank at the end of each paragraph, to make the software aware of the structure of the essay.

Vocabulary and word expression: 4.5/5
This parameter rates the submitted essay on the range of relevant vocabulary possessed by the candidate basis the word and expression usage. There are no extra- points for bombastic word usage. Simple is the best form of suave!

Hello GMATking94

Do not number the paragraphs, also read the threads in the below link I hope you will get a 6!

https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-gmatclub ... 36251.html

https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-get-6 ... 64327.html

Good Luck

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