Tom's Business Case

Introduction

It was a cold morning in February 2013. Jesper Møller, the CEO of Toms Confectionery Group, was looking down at the frozen fountain in the courtyard by Toms’ headquarters outside Copenhagen. Designed in 1962 by the famous Danish architect Arne Jacobsen, the headquarters, like the company, was an iconic piece of Danish history. For decades, Toms had been a Danish household name and local market leader within the confectionery industry. Today, however, it was time to look ahead.

Toms, like most other companies, had gone through the financial crisis with a solid focus on the cost base. However, as a small player in the global confectionery industry, the company could only go so far with cost cutting alone. Instead, Toms needed to make a thorough analysis to capture the opportunities that lay ahead. That morning, Møller had called together his management team to discuss Toms’ fiveyear strategy for the chocolate confectionery business under the following headline:

In the spring of 2012, Toms took a significant step forward by acquiring the German chocolate company Hanseatische Chocolade GmbH. Overnight, Toms added sales of 360 million Danish kroner. However, the management team agreed that this was only the first step in Toms’ path. As Møller and the management team watched the day’s first truckload of cocoa beans approach the factory loading dock, they began reflecting on the past, present and future of Toms as a chocolate confectionery company.

How should Toms profitably grow its chocolate confectionery business?

Toms’ ambition was to find focused growth as a strong niche player. Until 2012, the Danish market had accounted for almost 60 percent of Toms’ revenues. But Denmark is a mature, price-competitive market with heavy excise taxes on confectionery products. Møller and his team feared that the Danish market would become increasingly unattractive for chocolate confectionery manufacturers. Instead, Møller was confident that other attractive...