Could you please introduce yourself?
I was born in Aydin in 1981. I did my undergraduate study at Bilkent University and studied European Union Commercial Law at Stendhal University in France. Currently I am continuing my graduate study at Bilgi University. As my education life went on, I worked for various organizations and businesses from different sectors in order to gain experience and improve myself. Since 2005, I worked as warehouse attendant, purchasing specialist, technical sales specialist, sales manager, and CCO. Since 2018, I have been the CEO of Çağdaş Cam A.Ş. I am also an independent board member at two major organizations from different fields.

I follow the current economic, political and sociological situation and I try to see phenomenons, events and concepts from “How does it work?” point of view. I am keen on modern arts.

I am in an independent organization that supports families in need and unable to afford education sponsored by Pirinçler Holding.

Could you please tell us about your company and its operations?
Çağdaş Cam was founded in Aydin in 1975. It is locomotive business of our glass processing and trade ecosystem. Our company has been processing glass for almost 50 years now and does Industrial Glass Processing. Our fields of expertise include Refrigerator Rack Glasses, Commercial Cooler Glasses, Thermopane Multiple Glazing Unit Industrial Insulation Glasses, Photovoltaic Module and Greenhouse glasses. In a closed area of 41,000 square meters and with 210 employees, we process minimum 45,000 Tons of glasses per year.

We provide service for Turkey’s and world’s top organizations in the areas we operate and as a supplier, we supply products to production lines where thousands of people are employed. As we carry out these operations, our biggest support is our suppliers and colleagues. By turning the strength we get from these two supports into energy, we offer high-quality processed glass products demanded by our customers in line with the global price range to support their competitive power.

At Çağdaş Cam, we create high-quality glass products needed by the White Goods Industry using the products of Şişecam Düzcam – the leader of the Turkish Industry. Accredited fully by Şişecam Düzcam in all the fields our company processes glass, Çağdaş Cam offers numerous benefits including universal guarantee conditions, sustainability, innovation, and a competitive edge to its customers.

In addition to the present production areas, our company will commence producing oven and cooker glasses in 2021 and present its service quality and technology to oven and cooker users.

Could you tell us about the organizational structure of your company?
I believe that the brain of a business is the board of directors. Therefore, it is extremely important that the brain of the business function well and inspire and guide the other organs. The management of Çağdaş Cam is not only carried out by the family members but also members and independent members who are successful in different areas.

Besides the Board and the CEO position that leads our strategies, the company organization is comprised of 5 main branches which are Sales and Marketing, Supply Chain, Human Resources, Finance, and Business Development.

Our organizational chart was prepared based on the global reality and shaped according to the truths of the glass business. 35% of our personnel is female and we discriminate in favor of women in our firm. The majority of our organization is composed of our colleagues who were raised in-house with patience and time, which maximizes mutual loyalty between the employee and the company. The material rights and social benefits of our employees are above the sector-average. Social solidarity and cooperation is the dominant culture of our company.

We strive for a dominant coopetition culture managed by a dynamic team. We work for an ecosystem that will cooperate in current operations, nevertheless compete in terms of innovation.

Our company does not act on indivudual role modelling, but in a synchronized fashion as a team and rigorously try to develop their collective movement muscles.

Which sectors do you provide service with?
We process a variety of glasses in different types, thicknesses, colors, and forms needed by the White Goods Industry. Additionally, we process glasses featuring a high transmission and various diffusion ability used in greenhouses and photovoltaic module glasses used in the energy industry.

We provide our high-quality glass products to our various customers in Turkey and in the globe. With an established capacity to process minimum 45,000 tons of glasses, Çağdaş Cam is a specialty company that has only whiye goods glasses and energy glasses processing bands and does not include any other sectors in its production.

You can count the number of such specialty companies in the glass processing industry on the fingers of one hand.

Could you tell us about your export rates and which countries do you export to the most?
Since 1990 - the year when we carried out our first export, the share of our export sales in our budget has been increasing year by year. We perform the majority of our exports to the EU states, which is followed by NAFTA countries. In the pre-Covid-19 period, the rate of our exports to the total sales is 30% and above.

Our company has foreign trade agencies in Holland, the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America and we strive to give service to our export customers from a close distance.  In the upcoming period, we aim to have presence in the regions where we carry out export operations the most to not only with sales agencies, but also on-site warehousing and production operations.

While asking to a Turkish glass processing company about exports, the most important point to underline is the intense efforts of Şişecam Düzcam to lead the Turkish glass processing industry towards exports. This should be highlighted separately.

In fact, Şişecam Düzcam’s know-how/ experience/ marketing support, supply convenience, product range, and setting up the Turkish Glass platform in an effort to lead the Turkish glass and glass processing industries towards exporting in the past 8 years in the leadership of experienced and qualified executives from the most senior position to operation is worthy of commendation specially for the processed glass exports. The most outstanding example of a huge industry employing thousands of people indirectly/ indirectly being transformed from local to global through correct direction, patience, and strategy is the export performance of the processed glass industry in the past 8 years.

I think that Şişecam Düzcam’s direction of the local glass processing industry towards export should be studied on an academic level to inspire/ encourage other sectors.

What distinguishes you from your competitors?
Our company competes gentlemanly and within ethical rules with various companies from various areas of business in different parts of the world. However, we adopted a work ethic that believes that competing with oneself is always the form that improves us the most. Therefore, under any circumstances, we do not think it is right to compete without making any compromises on the ethical values that make us, us. Therefore, we focus on competing with ourselves. We owe our progress to this perspective of a marathon runner to a large extent.

In this context, we provide our customers with a system in quality, collaboration in service, speed in delivery, stability in pricing, an advanced infrastructure for P&D and our appetite for innovation. Nevertheless, we strive to continue all these critical points based on sustainability.

We improve in synchrony with our customers and we rapidly develop new products needed by the white goods industry. We are advanced in independence and quick feedback with our sample lines and test rooms specific to new product development.

In addition to all these great features, we have young and dynamic human resources. All combined, satisfaction of our customers turn into long-term relationships. In this context, Çağdaş Cam customers take their relationships one step further each year. Our measurements show us that our customers define their supply experience with us as ‘recommendable’.

Çağdaş Cam has mid- and long-term strategies and is managed focusing on budget and being committed to these strategies in terms of commerce, finance, and sales and marketing. Çağdaş Cam aims to become Europe’s top glass processing facility.

Could you tell us about your new investments and R&D projects?
Our company adopts the policy of investing what it made from business back in business. In this regard, it displays a dynamic investment plan that can quite swiftly respond to the needs of the market and very quickly realize investment decisions needed. In this age of acceleration, rapid action not only in delivery and service, but also in new investments/ R&D and P&D projects is a must.

Therefore, our company that has a dynamic and constantly-updated production line has invested 23,5 million Turkish Liras, which makes 12% of its total sales turnover remaining true to its strategy for 2020. The company rather than stopping the engine in rough sea during Covid-19 ran a higher power engine. For 2021, we will invest 52 million Turkish Liras in our business, extend our production capacity and product range, and engage glass products needed by the White Goods Industry.

Our company was given the Design Center title in the glass processing industry in 2017 by the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology. By continuing in-house design center projects, the company tries to be one step ahead of the demands of its customers and carries out development projects to add value to glass products in its design center.

What are your operations for the pandemic period and your predictions for 2020 and 2021?
Çagdas Cam has taken very serious measures since the day the pandemic became evident in Turkey and the government began giving warnings. We strived for fulfilling all our obligations to create a healthy working environment giving priority to people and without doing any cost calculations. While doing that, we tried to manage the process in cooperation without delaying the production bands of our customers. In 2016, we analyzed and digitilazed all our processes and migrated our systems to cloud in collaboration with Microsoft Turkey; thanks to that we could have all our white-collar and gold-collar personnel work from home since the beginning of the process.

We showed up for social responsibility not only in our own businesses, but also in the society we live in/ belong to and led the free distribution of equipment and hygiene materials as much as we could.

With the pandemic, we are face to face with an agenda that interests each and every individual in the world since the World War II. This process will evidently create permanent changes in trade and supply chain in producer and consumer habits. I hope we will learn from the changes that occur/will occur after this ongoing adverse process and our mistakes in the past and the entire world will become more humane, more participative, and more eco-friendly.

In such periods of time when such ambiguities are dominant, the area gained and differences created by individuals/ companies/ organizations/ governments are not easily turned off. Therefore, I advise all our industrialist friends to consider this process an opportunity and not to be scared to make controlled/ strategic investments to work this period in favor of our companies, thus our country. We should not forget that soggy days are the best to cover a lot of ground.

How do you see the development of Industry 4.0 in Turkey? What are your preparatory works and measures?
Industry 4.0 is a technological revolution rather than an industrial one. In this era when technology can work in cooperation with humans, I believe that what we need to create dark factories where everything is done by machines is not only huge investment budgets but also human resources with a great skill set and experience and an ability for optimization to run that system.

Therefore, I see transitioning to Industry 4.0 for our country not as investing in automation but rather as raising the brain power to run the automation. Otherwise, we might be wasting our already limited national resources on wrong investments and we might become a machine dump site. Without overlooking this risk, it is imperative to develop policies from a holistic point of view supporting, first of all, human resources and local machine producers.

In order to make sense of this new era better before we transition to Industry 4.0, I suggest visiting Rahmi Koç Museum in Istanbul and Museum Industriekultur in Nümberg.

Çağdaş Cam can monitor several KPIs on advanced systems and optimize our production bands and lead operations in the sector, which will lower costs and increase efficiency with robotic instruments.

What are your thoughts on and expectations from BEYSAD?
Turkish White Goods Industry is the most important industrial power worldwide after the Automotive industry. Even, it can also produce and sell under its own brand and patent differentiating itself from the automotive industry. BEYSAD being at the center of all these industries adds value to our sector and us, the members with its activities and events.

In this regard, I would like to extend our gratitude towards everybody who put effort for BEYSAD since the day it was established and all the executives of BEYSAD for their meticulous/ devoted work.