Opening Speech at the 3Rd Nordic Marketing Conference of Statistical Products and Services

13.6.2005 5(5)

Opening speech at the 3rd Nordic Marketing Conference of Statistical Products and Services in Helsinki, June 13-15th 2005

Esteemed colleagues,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear friends,

It is a great honour and pleasure for me to open this 3rd Nordic Marketing Conference. Our Conference has been organised by the Nordic Contact Group on Marketing Topics of the five Nordic Central Statistical Offices and it is – as you all must know at this stage - hosted by Statistics Finland.

Five years have elapsed since a corresponding Conference was organised, then hosted by Statistics Denmark in the vicinity of Copenhagen. Ten years ago it was Statistic Sweden that stood up as the host for the first Nordic Marketing Conference in the picturesque tiny and sunny town Sigtuna, a bit north of Stockholm.

Looking back, really many things have happened concerning the field of work we are focusing on in this Conference since the first Conference of this kind was organised, ten years ago.

v In 1995, just some months before the Sigtuna Conference, the CSOs of the Nordic countries had established the first versions of our homepages on the Internet. Not so much for disseminating statistical information – but rather to inform the world about their organisational structures and other things, considered important at that time.

v In 1995 the marketing efforts of our CSOs were strongly product oriented. The slogan “customer orientation” was in fairly frequent use, but our follow-up systems and marketing practices were for the most part extremely product oriented.

v In 1995 there were only a few ideas about the necessity of putting up systematic Customer Relationship Management in the Statistical offices. All CSOs had some kind of invoicing system but the segmentation of customers according to need structures was scarce. Not even one office had obtained a software for developing a systematic approach of CRM.

We were, like my Danish colleague Isak Isaksen correctly crystallised it, ”glaede amateurer”, happy amateurs in the field of systematic dissemination and marketing.

Today things have changed quite a bit. Only a glance on the Program of this Conference will tell everybody about the great changes that have taken and continue to take place.

We can also notice another change. I am delighted to welcome our colleagues from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to our marketing family. We are all very glad that you reacted positively on our invitation to join our team and come to Helsinki to share your experience with us – and vice versa. You have really strongly faced the new challenges of modern dissemination of statistical products and services. The work has been difficult, I am sure, but we can see already now, that the efforts give results. Welcome to this Nordic Conference, dear Baltic colleagues!

Mr. Romano Prodi, the former Chairman of the Commission of the European Union once said:

“A few well-chosen, well-presented figures can be much more enlightening than hours of talk” (Cited by Mr. Bendt Bendtsen, Minister of Economic and Business Affairs at the opening of the 91st DGINS Conference in Copenhagen on May 26th 2005).

Statistical information has become more and more important in our societies. Its importance as a basis for decision making and for understanding change and structures, not only in the public sector but in all sectors of economic, educational, research and social activities is growing. Statistical information often serves as a decisive argument in a growing number of cases and decision making. It is our task as professional disseminators and marketers of statistical information to ensure that reliable and professionally produced statistical information finds its way in appropriate forms to the different segments of existing and potential users. And vice versa – that the need structures of users and potential users are reflected in the service ability of the CSOs.

This Conference will give us abundant opportunities to exchange experience, opinions and accumulated wisdom in serving different customer segments with different forms of interaction and service providing. Everybody’s experience is of importance, besides exchanging opinions, learning, copying and even “stealing” from each other’s experience, we should, I hope, also produce suggestions on forthcoming co-operation between the Nordic and Baltic CSOs, assembled here.

This is why the Agenda of the Conference contains so many workshops. Besides interesting plenary presentations we look forward to intensive work in ten workshops. Experience has shown that people speak up and come with their ideas easier, when the discussion takes place in small groups. On the other hand the topics of the workshops are so interesting that the main introduction and the reporting will be held at plenary sessions. Feel free to tell others about your experience – it will be valued as much as you yourself are expecting to hear interesting hints, ideas and solutions from the colleagues assembled here!

A few words about the language(s) to be used. I will illustrate it with a central wisdom obtained in the course of developing the service ability through interaction with customers.

It goes like this: “Nõudlik klient on kui kivi merekarbis, see hõõrub, aga lõpuks sünnib ilus pärl”. And like this: “Vaativa asiakas on kuin kivi simpukassa, se hiertää, mutta lopputuloksena syntyy kaunis helmi”. And like this: "En krævende kunde er som et sandkorn i en muslingeskal: Det føles ikke så rart men resultatet kan blive en smuk perle". And like this: "En krävande kund är som ett sandkorn i snäckan. Det känns inte så bra, men resultatet kan bli en vacker pärla"

This is a Nordic Conference so it goes without saying that it is allowed to speak Scandinavian and Swedish. However, for practical and pragmatic reasons it is recommended that we try to express ourselves in English, the present Lingua Franca so that we well all understand each other. In English the saying above would tell us that “A demanding customer is like a grain of sand within the mussel. It doesn’t feel so good but the result may be a beautiful pearl”.

We are having the Plenary Sessions of our Conference in the Room where the Directors of our office have their regular meetings. Feel free to enjoy the feeling of empowerment – much of the development in your offices will anyway depend on the success of your work in the future! Let us take seriously the old saying “Only used statistical information is useful statistical information” and meet the new challenges of today in developing systematic and effective ways of interacting with all potential users of statistical information to the satisfaction of all parties concerned!

With these words I declare the 3rd Nordic Marketing Conference of Statistical Products and Services opened.

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