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Foreword by Mikael Selling
CEO and Founder of Opticom
It’s been an interesting start to 2025 with disruption to global free trade agreements, continuing geo-political tensions and fluctuating markets. As we commented post pandemic, the new normal is - there isn’t one, so expect the unexpected.
If the future is impossible to predict, how do we prepare when we don’t know what’s coming?
While investors like certainty, the most successful companies often thrive in the opportunity presented by uncertainty. We’ve been helping our clients make better business decisions for more than 30 years, because the difference between taking a measured risk and an ill-informed one is seismic.
When I co-founded the business back in 1990, we made a deliberate decision to focus on this industry. Our unique position of being both industry expert and independent observer has given us a thorough understanding of the complexity of the forest products sector, which we believe is second to none.
We all remember when ‘data is power’ became a popular catchphrase a few years ago. At Opticom, we prefer something less catchy but more accurate: Meaningful data interpreted by experts is power. We may not know what opportunities lie ahead, but the deeper an understanding we have of the present, the better equipped we can be to anticipate and respond when the status quo changes, as it always does.
Business is people. Digitalisation and AI are important tools to enhance performance, but business is essentially a series of human interactions, between employers, colleagues, suppliers, customers, consumers. People build every aspect of the supply chain. We all know the detrimental impact a bad manager or inept salesperson can have on a business, and the same applies when it comes to data. It’s why we’ve built our reputation on smart, communicative, knowledgeable people who understand the detail and complexity of the forest products sector. We invest in their training and development because they need to be skilled to impart meaning, and therefore value, to data.
Because we understand the industry, we ask the right questions and make sense of the answers. We take on anything from a bird’s eye view of a business to a deep dive into a single technical question. It could be due diligence or brand tracking, communicating sustainability or testing a new product in the market; the breadth of our services might surprise you.
So let’s start a conversation – get in touch for a no-obligation consultation.
LET’S TALK
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Why choose the industry specialist: Two real case studies
Let’s say your wanted confirmation that a new product concept had market potential and was commercially relevant. You need an objective second opinion but you’re not sure where to start. You’re short on time so you approach a general market research company. Product development is a complicated affair so you spend most of the first meeting explaining your company structure before you can get to the heart of the matter. But the agency is not familiar with the workings of forest industry companies, nor the sector’s terminology, so that needs explaining too. And because the agency doesn’t quite grasp how complex the value chain is, it advises you to do a general survey which doesn’t quite get to the crux of the problem.
Because we already understand the company and its value chain, we design the questionnaire with minimal input, saving the client time and money. Asking the right questions is the critical first step in extracting meaningful insight from data.
We often do a deep dive where the client isn’t sure what to ask, they just know they have a question to resolve. We can turn a vague guideline into an actionable questionnaire, designed from scratch specifically for the client, which would be a near-impossible task for an industry outsider.
More on choosing the industry specialist
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Getting off to the right start: A quick Q&A
Does it matter who designs your questions?
- Yes. Extracting meaning from data starts with asking the right questions. Who you choose to write and ask the questions makes all the difference.
Anyone can do it, right?
- No. A general agency may not have the experience to conduct a deep dive into complex issues and it will need to invest time (and your money) to understand them first.
Will I need to spend time educating you about what we do?
- No. At Opticom we don’t just know how a pulp mill works; we understand its entire value chain from wood supply to end-product and consumer. Why choose an agency that doesn’t understand your business or know your customers when you can talk to the industry specialists? We are unmatched when it comes to experience of the forest products industry and the data that we’ve accumulated over decades.
Can Opticom save me time?
- Yes. When we open a discussion with a client, we already know the mechanics of their business and understand the underlying trends and challenges they face. This puts us in a strong position to advise on the right questions to ask. Very often, we can be trusted to design the entire questionnaire with minimal input after an initial conversation.
Find our offering here
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See you at Tissue World in Düsseldorf
If you’re attending Europe’s leading exhibition and conference for the tissue industry next month, I’ll be speaking on Wednesday 9th April and would love to see you there.
Public perception shapes policy, markets, and the future of the industry. But how well do we understand what European consumers actually think about forests, sustainability, and climate change?
Join me to find out!
Mikael Selling
Book a meeting
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| Services |
Our mission is to help our clients make better business decisions by transforming data and knowledge into strategic advice and concrete action plans.
We offer a unique portfolio of consulting services with different scope and content but all focusing on creating value:
- Customer research
- Brand building
- Brand tracking
- Stakeholder management
- Future Lab
- Tailor-made research
- Workshops
- Market segmentation
- Sustainability Insights
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