Mikael has been a client to Opticom International Research for over 10 years, both at previous positions as well as at his present one at SCA. Here he shares his experiences with Opticom, focusing on the latest joint project which he was personally involved in: SCA Containerboard Customer Research 2018, which was a continuation of an earlier, similar study, which Opticom conducted back in 2014.

The main objective was to track progress and measure the effects of their hard work and initiatives taken as a response to the valuable feedback given in the previous project: Did their customers appreciate their efforts so far? What more could be done to improve and how? Ultimately, they wanted to gain the latest in-depth market insights on how SCA could contribute even more to their customers success and find new opportunities together.

Mikael says that the study of 2014 served as an excellent foundation for launching the next one, “We had a very good base and modified the different areas of investigation and specific questions to get them even more to the point, so that in the end, the outcome of the 2018 survey was even better.”

Right from the beginning, choosing Opticom to provide SCA Containerboard with the customer study, was based on Opticom’s profoundly good reputation in the forest industry, as Mikael points out, “Opticom is well-known within the industry for providing very good qualitative research and strategic advice.”

In addition to getting a compehensive report with the aggregated results and in-depth analysis, Mikael found it very interesting and valuable to read all the detailed transcripts of the individual interviews. When asked about whether Opticom adds value as a project partner, he emphasizes that Opticom has highly skilled project management and very talented consultants, all staff being very committed market researchers with vast forest industry knowledge and experience, “They grasp what it’s all about, and many of our SCA clients actually got back to us, saying that the interviews were very professionally conducted, actually much better than they had imagined!”

It’s crucial for a company within B2B market research to have a team of consultants who know and master the various topics, including understanding the specific industry terms. Most of the consultants have worked with other forest industry-related studies for several years and Mikael stresses that, in order to obtain relevant information, it’s important that the customers feel that they are understood and that the different topics are discussed in-depth with the use of open-ended questions. This is also what distinguishes Opticom’s qualitative approach from traditional customer surveys with short multiple choice-questions which might not provide enough relevant or useful information to act upon in the end.

According to Mikael, the main benefit of this specific project was to be able to get personalized feedback from customers, based on the detailed transcripts provided by Opticom. He actually made direct personal follow-up meetings with 30% of the survey respondents himself and in total, SCA had individual discussions with 90% of the customers participating in the study.

This is something that the customers appreciated greatly, with some saying that they had never got this kind of dedicated response on a customer study before. This has resulted in an even closer customer relationship and has also strengthened SCA’s market position overall, according to Mikael.

Concerning what the market insights provided by Opticom has meant to SCA as a supplier and what has been most valuable, Mikael concludes, “We have been able to confirm that we are on the right track even though there is still work to be done. We now have a much better understanding on how to proceed and our customers really trust us in that, which in itself is invaluable.”