CASE Tetra Pak
– Opportunity Toll Gate Process
Secures a Successful
Sales Funne
Tetra Pak supplies complete integrated processing, packaging and distribution lines and stand-alone equipment for the food industry.
Tetra Pak is operating in more than 150 markets with over 20,000 employees. Founded in 1951 by Dr. Ruben Rausing, Tetra Pak’s unique innovations have changed the way food is packaged and distributed around the world. This case focuses on Tetra Recart, “the 21st century alternative for canned food”, which is one of the latest additions to the Tetra Pak product portfolio. The Tetra Recart package is specially designed for products that have traditionally been packed in cans, glass jars and pouches.
Intervieweved for this case article was Erik Lindroth, former Marketing Director at Tetra Recart.
The article discusses Tetra Pak’s systematic approach to managing opportunities and developing their understanding of customers. The Opportunity Toll Gate process and the Attribute Mapping framework are presented as concrete tools to develop Unique Selling Points that differentiate Tetra Pak’s products from those of the competition.

Opportunity Toll Gate Process - A Knowledge Driven Approach to Sales
The Swedish Tetra Pak has developed what they call the “Opportunity Toll Gate approach” for managing the company’s sales funnel. At Tetra Pak Recart it is being used for developing a good understanding of the customer needs so that the best solution can be built for each customer.
“Our model is all about identifying and managing business opportunities, which is why Tetra
Pak has named it the ‘Opportunity Management Process’”, says Erik Lindroth who used to lead the marketing team at Tetra Recart. “We feel that both our customers and we ourselves have benefited from the very systematic way of doing customer intelligence within the framework of the Toll Gate process”, Lindroth continues.

The Opportunity Management Process consists of steps that have been described in the table below. Process Steps

Description

1. Understand the customer

- Category planning – understanding different customer

needs

categories in order to identify the most important ones
- Business story
- Risk map – Identify risks in general, and risks related to each customer category as well as to individual customers

2. Develop a concept and

- Business Case

value proposition to manage

- Payback calculations

customers

- Risk analysis

3. Evaluate solutions and prepare for quoting

- Review needs and scope of supply
- Updated risk assessment
- Risk response plan
- Finalized payback calculation
- Prepare a quote

4. Quote and make a contract

- Final scope of supply
- Updated risk response plan
- Sales contract
- Sales confirmation
- Risk re-evaluations

More than anything, the Opportunity Management Process for Tetra Recart is a method for ensuring quality at each step of the process. The first step ensures that the focus is on the right customer categories and that Tetra Pak understands the general needs of these customer categories – along with the needs of each individual company that they contact.
At the second step, a business case is developed based on the needs analysis that was conducted. Payback calculations are included in order to both highlight the investment nature of the solution and to describe the implementation process.
Step 3 includes developing the proposed solution and preparing the final quote. In this phase, the needs of the customer must be thoroughly understood. A finalized pay-back calculation will be presented as well as a risk response plan. At this stage, Tetra Pak must of course understand the customer’s existing solution and price per produced volume. Tetra Pak has a good understanding of different competing solutions but needs to also know the precise cost per can or

bottle in order to understand the financial impact on the customer and how