The following appeared in a memo from the new vice president of Sartorian, a company that manufactures men's clothing."Five years ago, at a time when we had difficulty obtaining reliable supplies of high-quality wool fabric, we discontinued production of

The vice president believes that alpaca overcoats would be profitable than ever before and recommeds that Sartorian resumes production of such overcoats. However, the vice president’s argument is based on certain unsubstantiated assumptions which are discussed in this essay.

The vice presidents believes that the outcry from some customers when alpaca overcoats were discontinued, indicates a liking for such overcoats and hence predicts that such coats are in high demand. However, the vice president assumes that the opinion of some customers is representative of the opinion of all customers. Perhaps those who complained about the disappearance of alpaca overcoats may be a small proportion of the customer base of Sartorian. If this is the case, then the vice president’s argument that alpaca overcoat would be in high demand would be false.

Also the vice president is assuming that the taste of customers five years ago, would remain static. What the vice president has not taken into consideration is that fashion trends are capricious. 5 years is indeed a long time to base the demand of customers, as the fashion world is a continuously changing terrain with customers developing new favorites from movies stars and music celebrities. In fact, after the disappearance of these overcoats, customers may no longer like alpaca overcoats.

The vice president also stated that it discontinued alpaca overcoats due to the inavailability of high quality material needed to produce such coats. With the advent of a new fabric supplier, the vice president believes that the overcoat production should resume. However, the vice president is assuming that the fabric produced by his new supplier is of high quality. If this fabric turns out to be of low quality, Sartorian would find itself at the same position it was 5 years ago, when it could not produce these overcoats due to inavailability of high quality fabric.

Lastly, the vice president, believes that due to the complaints of customers 5 years ago, that alpaca overcoat is a competitive product and it would win the competition in the men’s clothing market, as no other company manufactures this kind of overcoats. Once again, the vice president is assuming that these overcoats would be in high demand when they return and would be comparable to the other overcoats at other companies. However, the overcoats in other companies, may have consistently been in prooduction for many years, thereby building a huge customer base. However, this cannot be said of alpaca overcoats which went out of production and is just returning to the market.

The vice president would have to produce more evidence to strenghten his argument in order to convince investors or the board of his company on this idea. His arguments are rife with a lot of assumptions which need to be validated.