Using costing concepts to improve performance

Hotel Chocolat is a British company founded by Angus Thirlwell and Peter Harris. It was one of the first online stores when it started selling products in 1993. The first physical shop for Hotel Chocolat opened in 2004. As of 2021, Hotel Chocolat has 103 shops, and has extended into Europe and the United States. Additionally, they have built a hotel on their working cacao farm in the Caribbean. Hotel Chocolat prides themselves on these three basic values: originality, authenticity and ethics (Hotel Chocolat, n.d.).Areas which show their extensive range of products and routes to market are: chocolate, alcohol and beauty retail online, in their own stores and through other retailers such as John Lewis, hotel, cafes, restaurant, school of chocolate, and corporate gifting services.

Answer the following questions regarding Hotel Chocolat. Consider aspects such as the product range, an industry overview and nature of the competition.

Questions:

WHO exactly are the customers for Hotel Chocolat (buying chocolate or hotel) and what are their NEEDS?

CLIENTS ARE. NEEDS ARE

How can Hotel Chocolat make use of Benchmarking Costing to improve its performance?

What other costing concept could be used to improve Hotel Chocolats performance?

What are the unique selling points for Hotel Chocolat products in general?

a) Products chocolate (Fast Moving Consumer Goods)

• Buy luxury chocolate online ultimate chocolate experience

b) Hotel experience

How can Hotel Chocolat make use of Benchmarking Costing to improve its performance?

What other costing approach can they use? Kaizen? Target Costing and why? What is the impact on the performance?