“I have some good news and some bad news,” Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Roleff Kråkström began, as he opened the Moomin Characters Ltd monthly meeting during another surge of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I’ll begin with the bad. We are unfortunately forced to postpone the big party that we have every year.”

This was bad news because parties are a key fabric of the Moomin organization. Parties serve as one means of retaining its sense of common purpose and togetherness. They are a fundamentally important part of the Moomin philosophy.

“The good news is that our performance is the best ever,” Roleff continued. He presented the revenues, profits, and balance sheet, and asked: “Does anyone have questions or comments about the figures?” After a moment's silence, he added: “I do. This is amazing! You are all doing a fantastic job! When things are not going so well in the market and in society, Moomin continues to perform. In tough times people go back to what gives them comfort.”

Performing well has become customary for Moomin. The business has been growing profitably and expanding worldwide. Moomin Characters Ltd, the company that is responsible for Moomin copyright supervision, is at its core. Giving comfort to people has turned it into a business with a global annual retail value of close to a billion euros. Moomin has developed into a dynamic ecosystem of companies, which nurture a wealth of strategic partnerships.

Ecosystem as a concept is borrowed from biology to denote a complex weaving of relations and interactions where different actors depend on each other. The term ‘business ecosystem’ was coined by James F. Moore to depict coevolution and reciprocal strategic logic between companies to stay ahead in a continuous quest for capitalizing on innovations.

We consider Moomin to be a business ecosystem because it is characterized by coevolving capabilities, roles, and support of various organizations and individuals. It is based on a shared vision and mutual benefits. The ecosystem evolves around Moomin Characters, which has a hand in thousands of products across the world and trades in copyright and registered trademarks.