Hi there,

Please don't forget the 3rd option of Total Contribution Margin!

In terms of which to go with, this highly depends on both the case (the clues given, the objective, and the industry) as well as your preference preference (how you more naturally think).

With the prompt you gave, I would go with classic profitability tree given it's pretty clear this isn't something value-chain will identify…I'd also go classic profitability over total contribution margin, given it's pretty clear we only have 1 product (honey)…though I would clarify this. This means product mix and margin for a given product won't help us as much either.

The market has high demand for honey, but we have a profitability decline…therefore we're going to be able to pretty quickly figure out whether it's a product/revenue issue or a cost issue.