So...do you think I can get a 6 with this essay?

[MattC642]

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 memorandum from the business department states that Apogee Company should centralize all its operations to increase its profit to past levels, when the company a single locations. This argument is likely to be flawed because it is based on weak assumptions.
The first identifiable weakness of the argument is that the business department tries to compare the Apogee’s business today with its past. The company growth and extension of its operations can be attributable to the incapability to sustain the growing business from a centralized location: for example it was hard to reach all the customers and keep them satisfied. The memorandum doesn’t mention in which type of business Apogee operates but example across different industries illustrates how centralizing, which often implies scaling back, operations would not help the company to increase its profitability. For example a food chain such as McDonalds might have had a high profit margin in its first location, let’s say 50%, however after some years and 100s of new restaurants in different locations the company profit margin could have decrease to 20%: in this case scaling back to one location would not make any sense since the company’s Total profits equals the sum of the profits from each location, which are likely to be greater than the profit of a single location.
Another wrong idea described in the memorandum is that by centralizing the business the company can maintain its current customer base. Most likely the company will do business only with local customers and far away customers will find another provider. This can decrease company’s scale and increase the costs to operate the business, lowering the overall profitability.
The third and less critical flawed argument is that by centralizing operations, the company will be able to better control its employees. While this assumption can be true for mom and shops business, it is not for corporations who have today many ways to maintain control over employees and even if they are far away. For example a growing majority of employees work remotely today. Furthermore in case the company still tries to keep its business with current customers, far from the central location, it will need to deploy occasionally employees and have them travel incurring additional costs.
To conclude, the argument that Apogee can solve its profitability issues by centralizing all its operations does not seem to represent a sound option for the management because of the flaws identified above. However, the business department could conduct more analysis to understand if only some locations are experiencing low profitability and try to identify the causes and remedies.


Thanks,
Matt

[thanghnvn]

following is mine writing. I write this in less than 30 minutes without reading the above essay. pls , comment so that both the commentor and the writers can improve. thank you

The argument concludes that the company should close all it field offices and conduct its business from a single location. The argument offer the evidence that the profit is higher when the company had its operrations in one location. I think the argument is not sound because it assume many important points.
First, the argument assumes that doing business in one place is the reason which causes the higher profit. This situation is not always correct. Two phenomina happen at the same time can not always have causal relation. It is possible that another factor causes the higher profit. It is possible that a good marketing operation can cause the higher profit. In my company, a good marketing operation was performed and the company moved to a new location when the profit was higher. The real cause whick made the profit higher is the marketing operation not the movement. The argument would be more convincing if it cite the evidence that doing business in one place causes the higher profit.
Second, the argument assumes that when cost is lowered and the supervision of employees is better, the profit is higher. This thinking is not sound. It is possible that when cost is lower, and the supervision is better, the profit is still low. The profit depends on both the revenue and the cost and the supervision of employee. If the revenue is lower when the cost is lower and the supervision is better, the profit can not be higher. You can see this case in many companies. Many companies can cut cost and supervise the employees better but they can not increase or maintain revenue and the profit can not be higher. The argument would be more sound if it shows the statistics that cost cutting and better supervision of the employees make higher profit.
In short, I see that the argument is not convincing because it assumes many important points. Without these assumptions, the argument fall apart. The argument would be better if it cites the evidence and the statistics I mention above