If the senior manager’s prediction is accurate, which of the following

QUESTION

If the senior manager’s prediction is accurate, which of the following is inferable?

A) If TLS does not change to either a product approach or a functional approach, then it will not change its organizational approach at all.
B) If TLS is not profitable this year and fails to develop any new products, the company will first switch to a functional approach and then to a product approach.
C) If TLS is profitable, then it could organize itself by customer groups.
D) If TLS does not change to either a product approach or a functional approach, then it could not have been profitable this year.
E) If TLS does not change to either a product approach or a functional approach, then it could not have developed any new products.

ANSWER

Answer: C
Explanation: C) The senior manager predicts what will happen if the company is not profitable and if it fails to develop new products. However, the senior manager makes no prediction about what would happen if TLS is profitable. So, according to the senior manager, if the company is profitable, anything can happen, and so the scenario suggested in Choice C is possible. Choice A: There may be other ways that TLS could organize itself. Choice B suggests that the company will change twice, but the senior manager doesn’t say that. Choices D and E have the same problem. Together, failing to be profitable and failing to develop new products would be enough to force TLS to go to one of those two organizational approaches, but the fact that it doesn’t adopt one of those approaches doesn’t tell us what failed to happen. For example, if the company is not profitable, then the company might not reorganize regardless of its success in developing new products, so Choice E is not inferable. Similarly, if the company fails to develop any new products, then the company might not reorganize whether or not it is profitable, so Choice D is not inferable.