[TOEC] Marketing research

[Mats Strandberg]

In my daily work when we try to launch new products - refine the offer for
existing ones through product modifications, we usually pay a lot of
attention to the opinions and reflections of our customers.

Sometimes I think it could be useful to actually get (and use) some
experience from the business environment and apply that on the SAC contest.

How many times have we issued any customer satisfaction inquiries? How many
times have we asked what people are content with - and what they are less
satisfied with?

The issue brought up by Jan (SM5DJZ) is a scary example of how customers are
badly treated by the SAC organizers. To spend 9 consecutive years
participating in SAC (both CW & SSB), winning 8 continental trophies and
receiving just one of them is a TOTAL disaster!  I hope that this was just
an exeption but I am afraid it is not...

It seems to me when reading all these entries that one really as Jan so
clearly expressed, need to clean some old laundry before inventing some new.

The changing of organization from all Scandinavian countries each year is
one key reason why this obviously does not work at all. Why not realize that
organizing a contest needs a structure with both enthusiasm and experience.
Such experience is gained through several years of work and this will never
be the case with this changing of responsibility. The reasons for
alternating between countries has the origin in how things looked many years
ago. With the technology of 2006, Scandinavia has become smaller and we do
not need to use this obsolete way of "management".

Organize a multi-national team with participants from all the Scandinavian
countries and also from other participating countries (Europe and DX). Such
a team would consist of experienced contesters and organizers and would be
the fundament for an efficient organization.

It is time to realize the world has changes since 49 years ago and we need
to take new measures to modernize the organization of SAC. Without an
improved management, no rule changes will make the contest more popular.
Restore the confidence for the contest first - then change the rules (or
make the difficult two tasks simultaneously)!

73 de SJ6R / SM6LRR - Mats



Before we even talk about coming SAC's maybe we can start cleaning up old
laundry, like
awards and plaques. My friend 5R8FU has participated in SAC CW and SSB
during the last 9 years
and as the participation from Africa is not too heavy he has won the
AF-plaque 8 times!
Year 2000   SSA   CW plus SSB
      2001   NRRL  CW plus SSB
      2002   EDR    only SSB
      2003   SRAL  only SSB
      2004   SSA    only CW
      2005   NRRL  only SSB
Of all these plaques he has only received ONE from 2003!! (Issued by SRAL)

If this is the situation is the same for all other plaque-winners I don't
know, but I can
really understand why the serious contesters worldwide prefere something
else these weekends.
I know for sure that there even older plaques still missing here within
Scandinavia.

What can we do about it?
73's de Jan SM5DJZ
QSL-manager 5R8FU