To: Jacques Trumen
From:
Subject: Compagnie du Froid Analysis
Date: November 6, 2014
Memorandum
Campagnie Du Froid is a summer ice-cream business founded in 1985 by the father of
Jacques Truman. In 2007, after the passing of his father, Jacques Truman took over the business and emphasized an aggressive growth strategy. By 2009, Campagnie Du Froid was a market leader in the eastern part of France, northeastern coast of Spain, and northern Italy. Each region had its own manager and the main headquarters was located in Paris. Jacques believed decentralizing the decision making as much as possible. Each region had its own manufacturing, marketing, distribution and sales organization. The central office took care of accounting, developing of new products, and sharing of learning experiences across the regions. Each year
Jacques met with the regional managers to discuss a profit plan for each region. The profit plans laid out regional goals for the upcoming year and were used as a tool to monitor performance.
During the summer months, a profit statement every two weeks was generated and sent to
Jacques in order to detect any major problems.
The France region is run by Jean Pinoux and had performed exceptionally well in 2009 with profits above budget and sales increasing by 20% from the previous year. Jean had stumbled across a new source of revenue in which he helped deliver packaged food for regional producers using the company’s refrigerated trucks. The incremental cost to provide the service was very low and was seen by Jean as a simple way to increase revenue. Jacques was surprised by Jean’s new initiative, but acknowledged the profit potential in the distribution business. Pierre Giraux is

the manager of the Italian region. The 2009 sales goals were met and Pierre had expanded business into most of the western Italian coast, but suffered