GRE Issue Task 5

No business should sacrifice the quality of its products or services for the sake of maximizing profits.

The speaker asserts that, in any business, maximum profit goals should not render the quality of products and services to be sacrificed. I strongly agree with this claim. I see that instead of leveraging profit by reducing cost, the loss of quality will only stimulate a downward trend of revenue. This inclination works out for all kinds of businesses, as elaborated below.

Let us begin with tangible products, namely toys, food, and electronic devices. A corporation may skip a single step in its production to cut its production cost. Assuming that it is the safety check such as rounding sharp tips in children toys, bacterial scanning in food, or electrical stability in home theater sets, those products will be harmful. As soon as they find it, people will throw it away and the company will lose its market. Even worse, there is a possibility that consumers will sue the company because its products have hurt them.

Service-based business is our next target. How do you think of a hotel with a bad service quality would be? People will not recommend it to their peers, let alone they will come back again. What about an airport which always make its passengers feel stressful due to its lack of friendly officers and complicated administration? Even if there is no rival to worry about, individuals will fly more often if they know they will find themselves feel comfortable in the airport. Furthermore, I suggest that the airport should add more facilities related to its passengers’ needs, such as a free hotspot area or a handphone charger booth. Despite of their maintenance costs, these facilities will attract more customers, and result in more profit as what every corporation strives for.

Last but not least, this issue is also viable in the internet, particularly the social media sites. Facebook, for instance, has to restrain itself from accepting too many advertisements in its site. A bigger number of marketing deals with big companies will generate a bigger sum of money in the short term, but visitors will consider it as a quality loss. They will distaste Facebook for its letting a bunch of third-parties attacking them with unnecessary campaigns, and eventually rely on other sites in the same category. As lack of visitors means the death of an internet-based business, Facebook would wither and die as a consequence. This possible disaster is why Facebook should strictly maintain its quality rather than pursuing profit maximization.

As now it is clear that sacrificing the quality for profit will only result in undesirable ends, I appeal that every business leader should find a way to gain more profit by maintaining or even increasing the quality of its products and services. In the end of the day, the market will respect it and the corporation will stand out among its competitors.