The following appeared in a memo from the president of Bower Builders, a company that constructs new homes."A nationwide survey reveals that the two most-desired home features are a large family room and a large, well-appointed kitchen. A number of homes

The author of the statement above believes that to augment the sales and profits of selling homes, they should build the homes with a different architecture in which the family room is bigger and the kitchen is well- appointed. A national survey is referred as a support to this conclusion that people prefer bigger family rooms and modern kitchens. Moreover, the author’s conclusion is based on a comparison between this company and its competitor, Domus Construction. The latter seems to be more successful with making bigger family rooms and kitchens. The author has made several assumptions with each being potentially unwarranted, the statement is rendered untenable.

First, the author has taken for granted that the national survey can be generalized to the local costumers Bower Builders will meet in the future. The national survey might have been conducted among the societies in which people have several family members or they regularly invite many guests. For the people who live with an individual life style, having a big family room may not be sound. Furthermore, even the survey is thorough in the national scale, it might be different in the neighborhood where the pertaining company sells the houses. There might be many individuals who seek homes with the smaller space as they might not afford the bigger one.

Secondly, the author hastily assumes that the rival company’s “success” is exclusively because of the architecture it uses in the houses. The compared competitive company might use other strategies to boost its sells. It might have used a good advertisement to attract more customers. It might sell the houses with facilities that makes the homes easier to sell. Or the houses might be sold with the more options like automatic curtains, a good skylight and so on.

Thirdly, assuming that the rival company’s strategy is what the author assumes, still their higher price does not mean that they gain more profit, as the author wrongly assumed. Profit is the difference between selling price and the construction cost. Building such a house with bigger family room and a state-of-the-art kitchen exact a high price on the construction companies which may not be compensated easily.

Finally, the author overgeneralizes the indifference of the recent buyers whether to have a dining room. The contemporary buyers might not always have the same taste, or other kinds of buyers might become the majority who prefer buying homes having a separated dining room. In some cultures, the separate dining room is considered a respect for the guests and is seen necessary, by eliminating the separated dining room the company would cut off those who prefer having separated dining room.

In short, as discussed above, the author’s conclusion in making bigger family rooms and modern kitchens in the expense of not making a separate dining room is not persuasive. Several assumptions has led to the conclusion, with each potentially being wrong, the statement is too weak to be convincing.