After recov­ery, before the big deal

The his­to­ry of the enter­prise we know by the namedött a mai “Sweet Point” began in a small work­shop in a base­men­t, in1985. They grew quick­ly and became a com­pa­ny li­mi­ted by shares in 2006. Accord­ing to Im­re Hor­váth, owner and direc­tor, the fact that they could become so big in such a short time tells us a lot about the Hun­gar­i­an sweets bu­si­ness.
Sweet Point start­ed bu­si­ness with can­dies in the last years of the social­ist era. The candy peri­od last­ed for al­most 10 years, then in 1994, Im­re Hor­váth recog­nised the bu­si­ness poten­tial of fon­dants. Mo­re pre­cise­ly, the poten­tial in mak­ing new types of fon­dants, which in turn made them the mar­ket lead­ers with­in three years.
Then one or two mo­re relaxed years fol­lowed, when we laid back and enjoyed our suc­cess – admits Im­re Hor­váth. – How­ev­er, this year, we are plan­ning to come up with anoth­er big idea – he adds.
Future years will be devot­ed to inno­va­tion: in addi­tion to mak­ing fon­dants and Christ­mas fig­ures, they will enter the mar­kets of table choco­lates, min­er­al water and dietary sup­ple­ments, while their inno­va­tion in their native field will be the pro­duc­tion of chew­ing gum. Two years ago, when unex­pect­ed finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties appeared, they had no big ideas to turn to yet. As a result, 2006 was a hard year of recov­ery for them. Inno­va­tion in 2007 is a neces­si­ty and the relat­ed tax allowances rep­re­sent an added ben­e­fit.
This is prob­a­bly the most impul­sive cat­e­go­ry. Besides qual­i­ty, pack­ag­ing is also extreme­ly impor­tant – he says.
They have been look­ing for a cre­ative, inde­pen­den­t, hard work­ing mar­ke­ting man­ag­er for years unsuc­cess­ful­ly. Some­thing was always miss­ing: either skill or cre­ativ­i­ty. Prod­uct devel­op­men­t, pack­ag­ing, invent­ing brand mes­sages and select­ing pro­mo­tion­al tools is still the respon­si­bil­i­ty of Im­re Hor­váth and two of his old col­leagues. – In multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies, mar­ke­ting man­agers have li­mi­ted pow­er­s, ma­jor deci­sions are made by the board and approved by the head­quar­ter­s, the local peo­ple sim­ply exe­cute or allo­cate budg­ets – ha says. We can see our own ideas come to life, which is a moti­vat­ing expe­ri­ence – he adds.
The basis for any mar­ke­ting how­ev­er, is a good prod­uc­t. With­out a good pro­duc­t, all mar­ke­ting tricks are use­less.
One of their pri­mary obec­tives is to expand export­s. They already have good con­tacts in neigh­bour­ing coun­tries and even Den­mark. Their name, espe­cial­ly as an umbrel­la brand is per­fect for for­eign mar­kets and much bet­ter than the names of some tra­di­tion­al brand­s.
– When we start­ed our bu­si­ness, our for­eign name was an advan­tage, because every­body went shop­ping to Aus­tri­a. Lat­er, how­ev­er, the trend changed and it took us a lot of time and effort to change this – he remark­s.