The following appeared in a memo to the board of directors of Bargain Brand Cereals.
"One year ago we introduced our first product, Bargain Brand breakfast cereal. Our very low prices quickly drew many customers away from the top-selling cereal companies. Although the companies producing the top brands have since tried to compete with us by lowering their prices and although several plan to introduce their own budget brands, not once have we needed to raise our prices to continue making a profit. Given our success in selling cereal, we recommend that Bargain Brand now expand its business and begin marketing other low-priced food products as quickly as possible."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The memo to the board of directors of Bargain Brand Cereals state that as their old low price cereal was successful in the market, consequently they can introduce other low-priced food products as well. While making this assertion, the memo incorporates many assumptions, three of which are stated below.
Firstly, if the low priced-cereal of Bargain Brand Cereals was successful, this does not mean that other food products launched at low-price would be successful as well. As the demand for food items depends on a lot of factors, the low-price model might not be applicable to them. Maybe for other food varieties, the customers demand quality over price, and thus, would avoid going for low-priced foods. Moreover, if Bargain Brand Cereals are producing low priced Cereals, this does not mean they would be able to produce variety of food products at low price. The procurement of raw materials, processing, packaging, transport are different for different products. Thus, it would require more analysis and evidence for this claim to hold water. Apart from this, maybe for other products the competitors are already maintaining a low price, and conclusively tough to sustain. Even after, these problems are solved, the brands already producing other foods products have an impact on customers, and a product which beats others to market turns out to be the market standard. Thus, a valid and meticulous market analysis is required for any of these assertions to be justified.
Secondly, even if Bargain Brand Cereals succeeds in creating a different low priced food product, there is surety that this would still be successful. Maybe the popularity of cereals was just a bubble created in the last one year, and might burst in future. Maybe the success of cereal in past one year was just an anomaly, and which might not continue in future. Using the data of just one year, and corroborating the expansion to new products based on it is too risky. Today's market is quiet volatile and customer demands change frequently, like in future customers might be attracted towards high-quality and high-priced cereals. Therefore, there is a need for more concrete dataset and customer analysis to undertake this business decision of expansion.
Thirdly, a having a low price might not be a good standard to judge a firm's success. Even if Bargain Brand Cereal is producing a lower priced product, which, in turn will create a lower size profit. Consequently, the whole weightage of revenue is dependent of the number of products sold. And, the firms having low sales with higher sized profits might be making more revenue compared to Bargain Brand Cereals. Thus, it is indispensable to take into account the revenues, as well as other factors to judge a product's success.
Conclusively, the memo comprises of many underlying assumptions which need to be substantiated with reports of market and customers analysis to the supporting the claim of expansion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 483 350
No. of Characters: 2409 1500
No. of Different Words: 217 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.688 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.988 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.655 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 168 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.421 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.609 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.306 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.499 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.072 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 248, Rule ID: IN_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean: 'in the future'?
Suggestion: in the future
...d in the last one year, and might burst in future. Maybe the success of cereal in past on...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 354, Rule ID: IN_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean: 'in the future'?
Suggestion: in the future
...n anomaly, and which might not continue in future. Using the data of just one year, and c...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 71, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'firms'' or 'firm's'?
Suggestion: firms'; firm's
...might not be a good standard to judge a firms success. Even if Bargain Brand Cereal i...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 509, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'products'' or 'product's'?
Suggestion: products'; product's
...es, as well as other factors to judge a products success. Conclusively, the memo comp...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 24, Rule ID: COMPRISES_OF[1]
Message: Did you mean 'comprises' or 'consists of'?
Suggestion: comprises; consists of
...ucts success. Conclusively, the memo comprises of many underlying assumptions which need ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
consequently, first, firstly, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, still, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, well, while, apart from, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 16.3942115768 18% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2481.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 483.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13664596273 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68799114503 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75306116713 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 229.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.474120082816 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 752.4 705.55239521 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 34.5223962264 57.8364921388 60% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 107.869565217 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.34782608696 5.70786347227 111% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.282640648078 0.218282227539 129% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0933188285181 0.0743258471296 126% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0908626893639 0.0701772020484 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.181742583708 0.128457276422 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0795471511024 0.0628817314937 127% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.53 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.8 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 126.0 98.500998004 128% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.