A BRAND THAT IS GROWING WIH FIRM STEPS IN ITS 30TH YEAR...

BALKAN PLASTIC

Balkan Plastik, which entered the sector 30 years ago with the production of small household appliances, is today a company that has managed to become a brand, producing first-class visible plastic parts for the world's leading white goods manufacturers. We listened to the journey and present of Balkan Plastik, which continues its development with its modern production facilities and innovative perspective, from the President of the Board of Directors, Filiz Kolbaşı...

Can we get to know you?

I was born in Istanbul in 1973. After my primary and secondary education, I received my undergraduate degree from A.Ü., the School of Business Administration.

I started business life right after university. I had my first work experience in one of the leading brands in the small home appliances industry in Turkey. During the 5 years I spent here, I gained significant experience in my field of work, accounting and finance.

Afterwards, an intensive training process began, which ran parallel to business life and was planned in line with my career goals. This process, which included seminars, workshops and trainings that will support my professional competencies, was very productive and instructive for me.

Then, my husband and I started working for the development of Balkan Plastik. However, in Turkey's conditions, like every working woman, there was a period when I took a break from business life. First, my daughter, who is now 17, was born, and then our twin boys, who are 14, were born. During the time I was taking care of the children's care and education, despite all the difficulties, my interest in Balkan Plastik continued and I tried to support my husband as much as possible.

Unfortunately, my return to business life full-time was due to an unexpected event that deeply saddened our family. The death of my husband, Mr. Oktay Kolbaşı, was the beginning of a new and mandatory era. Balkan Plastik had to continue its activities. I took over the presidency of the board of directors and here we are today.

As a woman and a mother, I continue to work to carry Oktay’s legacy forward and to make Balkan Plastik a leading brand in the industry.

Could you give some information about your company and its operations?

Balkan Plastic is one of the leading brands in the industry, operating in engineering, plastic part production and plastic part mold manufacturing. We entered the sector in 1993 with the production of small household appliances. At that time, we were carrying out our production in our facilities in Bayrampaşa.

2003 brought along an important breakthrough for Balkan Plastik: We moved our facilities to Silivri, where we still continue our production. We have constantly improved our facilities, which are equipped with the most modern equipment of the period and built on a total area of ​​10 thousand square meters, 6 thousand square meters of which are closed, to this day.

We have mold production, plastic injection production, assembly and screen printing lines in our facility. While making these investments, our goal was to produce in-house solutions in the highest quality and fastest way for all processes, from design to turnkey product stage. In this way, we can easily offer the quality of Balkan Plastik to our customers at every stage of production.

As in every sector, customer satisfaction and unconditional quality are the first priorities in our sector. In order to meet the expectations, we provide quality control at international standards at every stage, starting from the supply of raw materials. We attach great importance to the highest level of supply of molds, parts and subcomponents, from the design of the injection part to the production of the mold.

We also plan our production capacity on the basis of meeting customer needs and expectations. We have 24 plastic injection machines ranging from 120 tons to 800 tons. We work with many raw materials such as ABS, PP, SAN, NAS, TRITAN, POM, PS. We can carry out the maintenance, repair and manufacturing of all our molds in-house.

As Balkan Plastik, we are rewarded by both our customers and the industry for the quality understanding, product diversity and high capacity we offer. We have many awards as a supplier of visible parts with class A quality standards. As the Balkan Plastik family, this is what makes us happiest and increases our motivation.

This year we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of Balkan Plastik. Considering the economic conditions and international conjuncture, it is not easy to keep a company alive with increasing success momentum for 30 years. We have achieved this with the contribution of all our colleagues. However, we position our goals on the horizon. Therefore, this is a never-ending journey - every goal we achieve is the beginning of new goals for us.

Could you give information about the organizational structure of your company?

I think success is only possible by being a real team and keeping up with change. Balkan Plastik is a family consisting of 125 employees, each of whom is expert and experienced in their field. Our biggest advantage is the happiness of our employees and the continuity this brings. Our team consists of very valuable friends who have been working together for many years. We have many friends with whom we have been working together for 20, 10 years. Above all, this enables us to create a strong corporate culture. It is also an important factor in terms of the continuity of the workflow and its continuation without disruption.

The most important success of Balkan Plastik is that our corporate culture, which is based on solid foundations, is open to change. Time flies very quickly and both technology, priorities and the perspective on production are constantly changing all over the world. In light of this reality, we see Balkan Plastik as a living system. Our investments, technological infrastructure and organization are constantly in motion.

We are currently in a new restructuring. We are in the process of reshaping our corporate identity and organizational structure with an approach that embraces our roots but is future-oriented. We have renewed our logo, for example, we aim to carry Balkan Plastik further with our corporate identity works and the communication strategy we will develop accordingly. Today, values ​​such as quality, reliability and sustainability are indispensable. These are already the natural expectations of our customers, it is necessary to go beyond these expectations and be visible in order to make a difference. We are currently focusing on these issues.

Which sectors do you serve?

Balkan Plastik started its 30-year production adventure with Balkan motorcycles. Afterwards, we continued with small household appliances, kettles, and electric popcorn machines. Then we turned to the white goods sector. We have been producing class A visible plastic parts for the world's leading brands in this field for many years. We are the first class supplier of BSH, one of the world's leading white goods manufacturers. In addition to white goods, we also produce in the automotive and small household appliances sectors. We also produce injection parts to be used in the stands of Pos Marketing companies.

Could you tell us about your export rates and which country you export to the most?

Exports constitute 30% of our turnover. We export to European and Asian countries. The countries we export the most to are Spain, Poland and Germany. We also export to India and China.

What are your features that distinguish you from your competitors?

As I mentioned before, we have a highly experienced and expert staff with whom we have been together for 10 to 20 years. We attach great importance to continuity in the relationships we establish with both our employees and our customers. Long-term business relationships, and fast and precise solutions have a key role in structuring production processes that fully meet the needs of our customers. Even though the end consumers do not know us, we are aware that we are the visible face of the world brands that we supply with the parts we produce. In addition, we produce sensitive parts that come into contact with food, especially in the field of white goods. Therefore, in order to achieve the highest quality, we strive to find the best solutions not only for the final product, but also for many issues from raw material procurement to production processes, from deadlines to supply chain. Our understanding of customer satisfaction and quality-oriented process management is one of the most important factors that make us different.

What are your projections and risk factors for 2024? Do you have any special preparations or precautions regarding the earthquake?

The biggest risk for 2024 is uncertainty and the unsafe economic environment brought about by this uncertainty. This is not just a problem for our country. Unfortunately, the whole world is struggling with this. There is a global contraction in the market due to the conjuncture. When you add the increasing inflation and the increase in the exchange rate to this, it is very difficult to see your future. While this situation limits our investments, it unfortunately creates a slippery ground for our projections for the future.

How do you see the development of Industry 4.0 in Turkey? Do you have any work or measures regarding digitalization?

Industry 4.0 defines a system that produces solutions for many concepts that shape today's understanding of production. Efficiency, profitability, production at expected standards and even providing the fastest supply by adding the supply chain to this system are the economic aspects of the issue for companies.

But Industry 4.0 should not be limited to just this. We can reach the best solutions on issues that are very important for our future, such as sustainability and reducing environmental impacts, with Industry 4.0. The data-based optimal solutions offered by the system on overlapping points such as energy consumption-production, production-efficiency, raw material-waste, also produce extremely effective results in the social areas I mentioned.

As Balkan Plastik, we take this issue seriously and base our investments on Industry 4.0 principles. In this context, we have made significant investments in both hardware and software. We also achieve serious results in matters such as efficiency, preventing production losses, and error-free production with minimal waste. Our investments in this area will continue.

What are your opinions about BEYSAD and your expectations from BEYSAD?

Competition is one of the leading dynamics of development in every sector. This fact remains valid today as it was yesterday. However, today it is seen that the development of companies one by one does not fully solve the problems, and collective efforts that will ensure sectoral development as well as competition are gaining importance. Economic conditions have also lowered the upper limits of the share that individual producers receive from the pie. Now the smartest way to increase your share of the cake is to increase the size of the cake itself. This is not a job that any manufacturer can achieve alone. In this sense, sectoral non-governmental organizations fill a vital gap. Therefore, BEYSAD is very important for all of us in terms of conveying sectoral problems to the necessary authorities, making the sector's voice heard, and finding solutions.

On the other hand, organizations such as BEYSAD offer serious support to manufacturers in terms of closely following the market and sectoral developments, increasing mutual awareness by creating networks between companies, and reaching new markets and customers.

The duty of producing companies like us is to support BEYSAD, which represents all of us, in its activities for sectoral development. As Balkan Plastik, we are always ready to provide this support.