Case Study: RadCreates RadCreates is a Swansea based custom chocolate and mould manufacturer. It is a small family business that designs and makes all sorts of moulds based on whatever you want or can think of. The moulds are made from high quality food grade silicone and if you want a completely custom design, they can turn the idea/concept into a physical mould you can use in the shortest possible time, which is usually less than five days. The moulds can be used in a wide range of applications such as, but not limited to, chocolates, boiled sweets, sugarcraft, ice, candles, soap, plaster of paris, hard plastics (urethane etc.). It is their aim to always strive to offer the best customer experience and quality of products. James and Hayley Radford, parents to two young boys, are now taking Rad Creates full time and moving the company out of the family kitchen into new premises The dynamic duo has more than doubled sales year-on-year and sell products to customers in France, Australia and the USA. And James, a chartered engineer with more than 17 years experience in industry, puts the business success down to challenging traditional methods of production through digital. He said: Hayley and I wanted to do something together and I invested in a 3D printer. We explored opportunities and developed ideas and the chocolates and moulds have really taken off. Using 3D printing to disrupt the market The cost of moulds has traditionally been prohibitive to smaller businesses, with other hurdles including minimum orders and upfront fees. So we combined my experience with CAD (computer aided design) and the 3D printer to disrupt the market with smaller businesses now able to access cost-effective moulds. More than 90 per cent of sales are through eBay, with the remaining direct orders coming from our website. Weve done well so far and growth has been completely organic with chocolate and mould sales up 80 per cent for Christmas 2017 compared to the previous year. And surprisingly we sell 40% of our moulds internationally. Focusing on online marketing to drive sale

The company mention they are working on printing images on chocolate. If they succeed at this and start to offer this as a service, it is an example of what strategy?

a.

retrenchment

b.

Cost leadership low cost

c.

Horizontal integration

d.

Focus low cost

e.

related diversification

f.

Market penetration

g.

market development

h.

liquidation

Which if the following would be a suitable future strategy?

a.

unrelated diversification - making candles or soap

b.

Selling off the company as a going concern

c.

Horizontal integration - buying up a mould making company in the USA

d.

cost leadership, best value - being the cheapest mould makers around