“SCA has worked with Opticom on a range of projects for many years,” Hellberg explains. “It’s an easy choice because their experience in the forest products sector is unrivalled. They use the utmost discretion, of course, but their wealth of knowledge built up over 35 years provides a very useful benchmarking picture of the industry as a whole.

“It means we can take stock, not just of immediate feedback from our latest survey and the progress we’ve made over time, but of where we are in relation to our competitors. We can track perception and performance down to specific grades. This latest project was NBSK, two years ago we focused on CTMP. It’s been very satisfying to see that we’ve weathered all the challenges a new pulp line startup can bring, and that we are now where we want to be in the market, on a par with the best in terms of quality and service.

“Every survey provides a snapshot in time and will reflect to some extent current market conditions. Follow-up workshops provide the chance to communicate the results to a wider team internally and to reflect on how to make best use of what we’ve learned.

“The average interview lasts 50 minutes, which is a remarkable investment of our customers’ time for which we are very grateful, so we always seek to maximise their input.  Our Sales Directors are asked to read and interpret the data specific to their customers and extract valuable feedback to share and reflect upon. It can be tempting to think feedback on carbon emissions is a job for Sustainability, for example, or that supply chain excellence is a matter for Logistics, but the aspects chosen must involve action plans without referring on.

“No company can be all things to all people and customer feedback is only one piece of the puzzle. But it’s an important piece, and we value Opticom’s help in fitting those pieces together so that we can make better decisions for the future.”