Shreya00 wrote:
GMATNinja MartyTargetTestPrep AndrewNCould you please help on this one? I am unable to understand why C is the correct answer.
The stimulus says that the established companies defend what they have, choose not to innovate, and tend to undermine the innovations of others. Option A satisfies all these three characteristics.
The fountain pen companies kept losing market share (traditional market) to the newcomers and did not come up with a new product. Eventually they just kept what they had and were left with a smaller market
This satisfies all the conditions and should've been the answer, as against option C where we have the following flaws.
The slide ruler company felt the threat with the electronic calculators and decided to take action (by building better versions of their slide rulers). They did not simply defend their then products by underestimating the competition unlike the fountain pen company which did nothing whatsoever.
How is C the correct answer?
Hello,
Shreya00. I would like to start prefacing my responses to questions with proof, whenever possible, of my own result so that my words might carry more weight. Right or wrong, I would like everyone to be able to see where I am coming from.
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The problem I see with answer choice (A) is that there is not really any evidence that fountain pen companies ever
{concentrated} on defending what they already {had} once ballpoint pens and soft-tip markers began to gain ground in the pen market. In fact, there is no evidence that the fountain pen companies did anything at all except think of a way to market fountain pens after the tide had already turned. We cannot read into the lack of information to deduce that
{doing} nothing whatsoever, to use your own words, is akin to a defensive strategy that entails
{underestimating} the effects of the innovations of others.
Answer choice (C) is fitting because it tells us that the
once-successful slide rule manufacturers
reacted to a competing product as soon as that product was introduced. How did they react? By manufacturing the same product, demonstrating a lack of innovation, and presumably banking on people choosing to purchase an established but
better or improved product over one that was more innovative. If such a strategy was intended to be a solution for the slide rule manufacturers, then yes, we can say that they underestimated the competition, because
once-successful implies
no longer successful. The losing
strategy is what we were missing in (A).
You may feel free to disagree. I look forward to seeing what other responses you receive. Thank you for asking for my input.
- Andrew