Argument Topic is:
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
Analysis:
The Apogee Company wants to centralize its field offices. They found that
the profit of the company was more than today. The company feels that by
doing so , the cost can be reduced along with that the employees can be
supervised in a better way. The argument is flawed and, hence, not
persuasive.
Firstly, the turnover or the number of employees working in the Apogee
company is not given. It is very important factor to decide the number of
field offices to be mentioned. If there are thousands of employees at one
location then it is good idea to have field offices at different locations.
This will help in a better way to manage the employees locally at each
office location. Also by doing so, the local clients at each field office
location can be serviced in a better way by these employees.
However,for example, if there are only some 10 employees working at each
location then it is not good idea to maintain such field offices, as this
will involve frequent travelling of manager to supervise employees, also
co-coordinating with the management staff at every location will involve
bottleneck in the decisions of the organization as whole.
Secondly, it is not given how the work at different location is
interdependent. If the work at one location requires approval or subpart
from other location to proceed their work then the geographical barrier may
serve as obstacle to the delivery of product on time, because of reasons
like, distance between the locations or the time zone difference, work
culture difference etc. However if the final product is not interdependent
on the different field location, and, can be manufactured at one location to
be sold to clients then in that case it is good idea to have different field
locations as by doing so the product can be manufactured and delivered to
the local/nearby clients soon without involving huge transport cost too.
Thirdly, how the location of field offices was chosen is not given in the
argument. If the field offices are at manageable distance from the main
office and also has plenty of clients located nearby then it is good idea to
have such offices. This will help to serve the clients more efficiently as
will not involve geographical barrier.
Fourthly, it is not given how all field offices were coordinated. This is
very deciding factor to the profit of company. If each office has its own
management levels to manage their office then the monthly or quarterly or
yearly report can be monitored for the revenue made at each location by main
office, and, all responsibility can be handed over to local management at
each location. This will reduce the bottleneck of monitoring the employees
at different locations.
Fifthly, how the work distribution among the offices was done is also not
given in the argument. If the work is distributed to very distant offices
then that may affect the profit of the company, as it involves the culture
difference, time zone difference and hence the quality and time line of the
product. Whether to centralize or distribute work also partially depend on
product of the company too. For example in case of IT company the product is
in electronic format which can be delivered via Internet too. So it is good
to have centralized office too.
In sum, it cannot be decided whether all the field offices should be closed
and the company should be made centralized unless the factors like turnover,
number of employees at each field location, the criteria for the field
office locations, work co-ordination are analyzed.
Posted at: Thu Jan 10 19:13:19 2008 (GMT)
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