The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of a large, highly diversified company."Ten years ago our company had two new office buildings constructed as regional headquarters for two different regions. The buildings were erected by two differe

In this argument the vice president of a certain company implies that they should use construction company Alpha rather than Zeta for their new building project. Although the premises upon which this argument is based sounds reasonable the recommendation ignores certain crucial assumptions.

First of all, the argument claims that 10 years ago, when building new headquarters, the Alpha company managed to construct the building with the same floor plan for 30% less of the cost. Although the simple costs might have been different the author does not clarify what specifically caused the difference in building expenses. It is however mentioned that the two buildings were constructed in different regions. Therefore we can imply that the cost of building might be influenced by local tax differences or environmental, climate or geological differences. The soil upon which the building stands might have needed a different foundation or severe weather could have caused the construction to take longer than expected. Thus there could be several reasons not mentioned why Zeta’s building costs were higher than Alpha’s.

Secondly, the author states that maintenance and energy costs of Zeta’s building were higher than Alpha’s. This conclusion is unsubstantiated if the author ignores the possible causes . Like mentioned higher, it could be that Zeta’s building is located in a region where it’s colder and therefore the building uses more energy in form of heating as well as maintenance of heating systems. Furthermore it could also be the fault of lazy employees that the energy bill is higher if they don’t turn lights and heat of when going home in the evening. Further investigation on the cause of things should be conducted before drawing conclusions.

Finally, the author’s claim that the Alpha company has a more stable workforce is fallacious. There is no reason to assume that Zeta performs inferior than Alpha due to more employee turnover. The author does not mention actual reasons for this turnover. It might be that Zeta had some older employees that retired the last few years or that the company is a teaching facility and therefore works with a lot of interns. The author’s conclusion that Zeta is less productive is therefore unsubstantiated.

To sum up, there could be many reasons why Zeta’s building and maintenance costs have been higher than Alpha’s. Differences in environment, climate and local tax fees could be the cause of this. Further so, there is no valid reason to assume that Zeta’s performance is inferior due to more employee turnover. More investigations should be conducted for the argument to make a cogent case and thus to make the decision of hiring Alpha construction company instead of Zeta.