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

This and much more in our newsletter Forest Insights #1 2025, read it here!