Reference no: EM131763251

Regarding the following text:

When the founders of Chocomize graduated from college in 2009, the job market looked bleak and they didn’t receive job offers that interested them. One day at the supermarket, the guys visited the candy section and loaded up on candy, chocolate, and nuts. They accidentally left their purchases in the car on a hot summer day and when they discovered their mistake, the chocolate had melted around everything and merged into one giant ball. Like typical poor, unemployed graduates, they put the amalgamation in their fridge to eat later and as they hacked off portions, noticed that it was delicious. Inspired, they scraped together $100,000 from relatives and friends and launched a web based business where people could create custom chocolate bars. The concept caught on slowly at first, but then Chocomize received national coverage through magazines such as O - The Oprah Magazine, The Costco Connection, and Brides and sales took off.

In their first year Chocomize sold fewer than 150 bars a day but this increased to more than 10,000 bars a month in their second year, a 250% growth in sales. By the end of 2010, they employed 5 full time workers in addition to the founders. (International Herald Tribune, October 2010) While sales benefited from media coverage, it created operational headaches. When Oprah mentioned their company in her magazine, Chocomize was flooded with so many orders that their website crashed; they lacked employees to handle the volume; and their white chocolate machine didn’t have enough capacity. The founders also decided to turn down an order from a large retailer for 15,000 candy bars that would have been distributed to customers in stores over Christmas because it would have interfered with their ability to deliver normal orders within their promised four day delivery time.

Because of increased demand, by early 2012 Chocomize had relocated to a location with four times as much space as their first location, giving them 5,500 square feet of office, storage, production and packaging space. They also added four more employees and successfully filled thousands of orders over the winter 2011/2012 holiday season (from Thanks giving through Valentine’s Day.)  

What is the key trade off for Chocomize ?

a. Product selection and cost

b. quality of service and cost

c. innovation and capability and cost

d. product selection and quality of service

e. Quality of service and innovation capability

f. innovation capability and product selection