Sigma Electric General Manager Murat AKGÜL

We are a company that produces Low Voltage products in the electromechanical sector. Our priority and sine qua non is QUALITY. Every level of our production is under control in accordance with international quality standards. We have raised customer satisfaction with our versatile control system. Our investments in QUALITY have given a great impetus to growth in this process.

On our production side, we continue our new product investments without slowing down. In this sense, we are increasing our production power day by day with Low Voltage Circuit Breakers, Automatic Insurances, Contactors, Current Transformers, Toroid Transformers and Vertical Type Fused Load Separators, which we started to produce by completing the investment at the beginning of 2019. We are proud of creating a LOCAL alternative to the market in this area.

Could you briefly tell us about yourself for the sake of recognizing those who read the interview?

After serving as the Financial Affairs Manager for about 23 years within the Ünlü Group, which was founded in Istanbul in 1992 and has investments in the fields of Textile, Construction, Electricity and Foreign Trade with more than 1500 employees, I have been working as the General Manager of Sigma Electricity for the last three years with the decision of our board of directors. I was born in Istanbul in 1974. After completing my education in the field of business administration in Istanbul, I received a Financial Consultancy license and mainly engaged in financial matters.

What is your main field of activity?

We are a company that produces Low Voltage products in the electromechanical sector. In our factory in Sancaktepe; We produce our products, which we can divide into 20 main groups including Low Voltage Circuit Breakers, Automatic Fuses, Low Voltage Current Transformers, Low Voltage Contactors, other LV protection and measuring devices and Vertical Type Fused Load Separators that we have completed the investment and preparations for at the beginning of this year, and deliver them to the end users through our dealers.

What are the prominent elements in the 20 main group product groups you produce?

Our priority and sine qua non is QUALITY. As you know, the quality of your final products and services will be the weakest link in your production chain.When you look at it from this window, we are trying to make the Total Quality Management understanding based on the basis of "Satisfy your customer so that the institution can live", which aims to realize the Customer Requests continuously, prevail in all our processes in our business. Another issue is that the products we produce are produced in accordance with the international standards in force, and all global brands must provide the same standards in their products. Of course, one of the most important issues is that our country has a serious current account deficit in these product groups, so we need to ignore the contribution of our domestically produced products to close this gap.

Can you give information about the technical personnel, machinery and equipment investment and operation you have about quality?

At Sigma Elektrik, all business processes from design to marketing are carried out under the assurance of ISO 9000 Quality Management system; "QUALITY IS UNDER CONTROL..." Let me summarize our processes as follows. In order for raw materials and semi-finished products to receive APPROVAL for production, our company must first obtain CONSENT from our INPUT QUALITY CONTROL Laboratory under the management of our competent staff equipped with the latest technology devices. In this process, plastic raw materials, copper, screws, springs, etc. to be used in the manufacture of our products are subjected to batch control in our relevant test devices whether they meet the requirements of the standards for all products you can think of. All materials that do not meet the requirements are not accepted and are definitely not taken into the production process. After the raw material is accepted and put into production, our PROCESS CONTROL process is activated to cover all assembly stages from the part manufacturing process and prevents the problems that will arise in the production stage early. Our productions, which are assembled and become products, are delivered to the shipped warehouse subject to 100% routine tests. Again, our FINAL Control processes before shipment to the customer start to operate and approve the shipment of the products by selecting a certain amount of packaged ready-to-ship products and subjecting them to further testing and control. As can be understood, with our versatile control system, we are trying to raise customer satisfaction by solving any problems on the spot. Considering the lack of feedback on this issue, we understand why our SIGMA branded products are preferred.

What is the success achieved in your work on creating a substitute for the imported product?

The only condition for import substitution is to make domestic production. We continue our investments in production without slowing down. In this sense, we are increasing our production power day by day with Low Voltage Circuit Breakers, Automatic Insurances, Contactors, Current Transformers, Toroid Transformers and Vertical Type Fused Load Separators, which we started to produce by completing the investment at the beginning of this year. We are proud of creating a LOCAL alternative to the market in this area and we think that we have been successful considering the feedback we have received in this regard.

As a domestic manufacturer, what advantages and disadvantages do you have compared to European producers, what are the difficulties encountered?

I think the most important advantage for our customers is cost. I think that our customers who trust domestic production by considering their budget are profitable. Since our production is here, they can reach our factory in a short time and find answers to all their technical questions, if they want to visit our factory, they can have an idea about the production processes We see the most important disadvantage as the brand perception that we have difficulty in overcoming as a country. Under normal conditions, positive discrimination is expected in preference, but we care about providing equal conditions when starting the race as a domestic producer. Then the issue of expectations will be more than met by us.

When you evaluate 2018, what kind of effects has it had for Sigma and the Industry?

Economic crises; We know that it arises due to many reasons such as lack of production, lack of demand, borrowing and financial deterioration. Unfortunately, our country enters into such crisis environments from time to time. Of course, we were affected together with the sector by the crisis we experienced in 2018 and which deeply affected the whole country and whose effects continue when we consider the point where interest rates are still located. Because our raw material costs have increased very seriously considering the point of exchange rate, of course, we had difficulty in managing our costs. This put a serious strain on you as you have customers to whom you guarantee a price and you have to fulfill the demands. Apart from costs, the tightness in the market with the effect of the position taken in the crisis environment in the banks had a negative impact on the entire sector in terms of cash flow. Both your costs have increased and the deterioration in your collection quality naturally affects the enterprises negatively. When we look at the past as a country, economic indicators improve in the short periods and you catch a growth, but when the structural reforms we all need in the medium/long term do not take place, we face a crisis again. Of course, many structural reforms can be counted, but what needs to be done about our sector and what we are trying to do is to produce in a way that creates high import substitution with high added value, to establish production facilities that will bring foreign currency to the country, to provide employment, and at least to establish self-sufficient production facilities can be considered as one of the main ones to develop and encourage them. When we provide these, I think we can look at our tomorrows with more confidence.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a Domestic Producer in an environment where foreign brands do not even give prices at the end of sudden price increases in exchange rates and banks stand back? What happened during this period? Did you have a strategy for 2019?

While talking about the relevant period in our business partners whom we came together in our last dealer meeting; During the period when the crisis was felt the most, they expressed that they could not get a response from many brands that they wanted to offer to their projects, that product deliveries did not take place and that they were in a difficult situation against their own customers. However, they conveyed their satisfaction to us by saying that our company did not leave them alone during the crisis period, fulfilled their demands and fulfilled their promises based on their contract. Of course, we felt the reflections of this by growing by 65% compared to the previous year. You will appreciate that growing at this rate in such a year clearly shows both the trust that our customers have in us and the accuracy of our investment. Although exchange rates have retreated compared to the first times, they have still not stabilized. In this case, planning naturally makes it difficult to develop strategies. However, our investments continue and we have made a growth-oriented budget in 2019. Do you continue your growth trend exponentially every year? What everyone seems to be saying about the sector is that there has been a serious growth and prominence in our company for the last three years. However, the foundations of this growth started in 2009 with the acquisition of Sigma into the Ünlü Group. We can show the last three years as the period when we started to reap the fruits of our investment and development activities as a group. In particular, our efforts to increase quality and product diversity are still continuing and will continue. If we consider the additional investments we have made in order to be a producer, the sum of them makes it inevitable for you to grow after a while. In order to increase our brand awareness, we both diversify and increase our marketing activities. As your brand awareness increases, the demands increase in acceptances.

What kind of structuring did you have in a way that would affect growth in the domestic market?

Achieving growth in such an environment is not easy. There is a contraction in almost all sectors, especially in the construction sector. In these market conditions where everyone is talking about contraction, how do we talk about growth? Yes, as everyone knows, the cake is getting smaller, but we are working to get a bigger share of the cake. We are working for public areas where competitors are active but our company is not enough. We carry out product work for these areas and complete their acceptance and approval. We expect a growth in this area this year. We also believe that the new dealers we have added to the Sigma family this year will contribute to our growth targets.

What kind of team do you have in the domestic market?

Our organization in this field consists of regional directorates affiliated to the Domestic Sales Directorate under the Sales and Marketing Directorate and sales officials and sales engineers in the relevant region. Here, we have divided marketing into two as sales and projects. While our project team visits the projects in Turkey, they also make the approval acceptance of the institutions. They follow up new projects and deliver these projects to our sales teams. Our Sales Team completes the process by making the sale through our dealers. What is the Share of Overseas Sales Rates in Sigma's Growth? Our overseas sales are of great importance in our growth, and we realized our growth in 2018 both from the domestic market and together with overseas sales. In growth, we prioritize growth on the basis of target country and quantity. We speak as a company that has managed to use the Sigma brand in 65 countries with our increasing overseas sales rates in the last three years. This year, we aim to increase the number of countries to which we send our products to 80.

In 2019, you said that we will use our brand in 80 countries. What kind of change did you make for this?

To date, our products have been used in 65 countries, but in 2019, we have set this figure to increase to 80 countries. In order to achieve this, we went to a new organization in our foreign trade department. In addition, we are working hard to complete accreditations in the new target countries, especially on the public side. We also participate in an average of five international fairs every year.So far this year, we have participated in Sudan, Algeria, Dubai and Hannover fairs respectively. We also have a Nigerian fair planned. In addition, we think that we will get the results of intensifying our visits to the Customers we contact at these fairs. Which region or country will come to the fore in 2019 predominantly abroad? This year we forecast growth mainly in the African region. However, we have contact with almost all regions and we will follow and see.

You have been serving as the General Manager of the Company for the last three years, and a growth of 50% has been achieved every year in this process. How and What kind of change and transformation have you achieved during this period?

I don't think it's right to attribute this to people. This is the product of a team work The Ünlü Group, which has been continuing its commercial life with our industrialist identity for 26 years, has more than 1500 employees and success is inevitable when we channel our experience in production into our activities in this field. It doesn't matter what you produce, the methods you use in production matter. The system and method are important if you adapt them successfully, your productivity increases. We observe the needs of the system well and make changes on site and on time.Again, the contributions of our group management to the success of our company have been very high. When you are the implementer and follower of the decisions we make, success comes by itself. I repeat that our investments in QUALITY have given a great impetus to growth in this process. Again, by listening to the demands of our customers, understanding them and being in dialogue, the growth in this organization has come automatically.

What are your views on the competitive environment in the sector?

Competition is necessary for you to improve yourself. First of all, we look at ourselves and see what we can do, where we improve it, how we increase our efficiency and ultimately how we can bring down our costs and become competitive. Of course, we support competition that complies with commercial ethics and rules. Companies that differ in the quality, price and service of their products will be the winning party in this competition.

Do you have any new product work in R&D or P&D?

Our R&D department consists of an expert and experienced staff in the field. This team reveals the products and product groups needed by the sector with the changing technology and conducts its research accordingly. Market research and demands shape our new product work. For the product decided, first design studies are carried out, then after the protection is produced with our three-dimensional printer and the final controls and approvals are given, the mold productions are completed in our mold shop and the necessary tests and approvals are completed and then we proceed to the production stages. This is how we expand our product portfolio every year. In this year, our products whose molds are completed in this way will be presented to the market. Our p&D activities continue all the time. We continue to work on applying some new technological developments to our products by making some innovative applications on our existing products and responding to market demands.

How would you express Sigma in a single sentence? What does Sigma mean to you?

We have a slogan that I think you have heard, "Serving the world that produces in Turkey", I think it will be enough to explain many issues including our producer identity, locality, quality and the markets we reach.

Do you have expectations on the public side?

We know the structural reforms that are mentioned by every segment. These issues are mentioned and especially concern manufacturers like us; We have an expectation that such practices that will enable us to look at our tomorrows with confidence such as supporting R&D, supporting and encouraging production, producing products with value-added import substitution by using domestic resources efficiently, increasing exports from production, increasing employment will be planned, implemented and followed and finalized by the public. As a company, we are trying to develop these items with our own means. As a country, we need Research and Development, production, efficiency, especially to export markets in large quantities. I would like to thank you for including our company in this issue and wish you continued success....