An Enjoyable Interview with Murat Kılınç from Deka Boya

We conducted an enjoyable interview with Murat Kılınç, Factory Coordinator at Deka Boya. Mr Kılınç stated that they are ambitious in decorative effect group products and provided information about their work under the San Deco brand.

Could you briefly tell our readers about yourself, your education and professional background?

I grew up in the city of Saint-Etienne and completed my entire education in France. I graduated from the Advanced Industrial Engineering department at UTT University. My interest in the industrial sector began to develop in my early years. From the first years of my university education, I gained knowledge and experience by participating in international projects at companies such as Oyak Renault and Renault-Trucks. Following my graduation, I started work as a project manager at MBDA, one of the leading companies in the defence and aerospace sectors. During this period, I participated in numerous projects relating to production flow and improvements. In 2012, I took up the position of purchasing and project manager at Ayfira Dış Ticaret in Istanbul, and thus began to become acquainted with the paints sector. Subsequently, in 2015, I took on the role of Factory Coordinator at Deka Boya. Could you provide information about Deka Boya's founding process and the stages it has gone through to the present day? Taking into account production facilities, machinery park and number of employees, as well as data such as turnover and production volume, what is your company's current structure? Founded in Istanbul in 1965, Deka Boya began producing interior and exterior facade paints and renders suitable for the market of that period. As demand in the market diversified, it continuously renewed its product range and developed a dynamic product portfolio. In the late 1990s, Deka Boya established a strategy particularly aimed at increasing the variety of effect (decorative) paints, and by adhering to this strategy to date has become one of the leading companies in the decorative paint sector. This story that started in Turkey today continues across 3 continents and in approximately 32 countries. We internalize the richness of differences; we take into account the local cultures, tastes and expectations of the countries we work in and show respect for all differences. Having operated in Turkey for approximately 51 years, Deka Boya today has an annual production volume of 10,000 tonnes including decorative and effect paints, and has an annual production capacity of 20,000 tonnes in plain paints alone.

What are the main sectors Deka Boya supplies, and what types of products? Could you provide information about your company's products, brands and services?

As Deka Boya, we supply products and services addressing the decorative paints and coatings segment of the construction sector. In particular, with our decorative effect group products, we add awareness and added value to select projects. Through innovative marketing activities, we serve successfully across different geographies in the world. Today San Deco, with a customer portfolio satisfied with our service and quality, is a strong and specialist company worldwide. We continue to add value to our sector both with our distributors and dealers abroad and with our customers domestically.

What kind of work do you carry out at Deka Boya in the areas of innovation and R&D? Do you have projects developed within the scope of university-industry collaboration, and if so, what are they?

For San Deco, which blends years of accumulated expertise with innovative and distinctive products, R&D work holds a very important place. To ensure the continuity of our brand's justified and successful image and to meet customer expectations, our R&D team makes intensive efforts, and we carry out our new product work across all our product segments with the effect group at the forefront. We love to imagine and to turn our imaginings into reality. Our R&D team, which views innovative ideas and suggestions as opportunities, transforms our dreams into reality in our modern R&D laboratories. With our corporate partner, we conduct work with various universities in the building chemicals segment. We will expand our product segment with polyurethane group and building chemicals. Within this year we will introduce these new products of ours to the market under the guarantee and quality of our San Deco brand, and our customers are as pleased as we are. Could you tell us about your domestic and export sales activities? What types of products do you principally sell to which regions domestically and abroad? As Deka Boya, with our "San Deco" brand we serve projects domestically in the decorative effect group, which is our area of expertise. Our export channel is quite strong; our export regions are Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Gulf Region and the Turkic Republics, exporting to approximately 32 countries across 3 continents. In these regions, through distributors we have created with our "San Deco" brand, we serve existing markets with decorative product groups.

Could you provide information about Deka Boya's environmental policy and sustainability approach? What can you say about your work relating to occupational health and safety?

We know our responsibility for creating a livable world and constantly question what we can do. For this reason, we keep the VOC content in our products below European Union standards and our products do not contain substances that would harm the environment or users. We know there is much more that can be done and continue our work to create an effective environmental policy. We implement various practices and conduct training to ensure the importance of worker health is understood, occupational safety awareness is established and this awareness becomes continuous. On occupational safety, we demand that the companies we receive support from present new perspectives and apply cross-inspections to prevent complacency. In addition, we closely follow new legislation and the plans and projects of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

What criteria are prioritized when Deka Boya develops investment plans? Do you have investment plans for the upcoming periods, and if so, what are they?

As Deka Boya, we always keep quality at the forefront. We feed our production system with feedback from our customers and raise our quality system to higher levels. We invest in our IT systems in order to maintain high satisfaction rates regarding our products, ensure the continuity of this, reduce complaints to the lowest levels and remain competitive. We operate in a developing industrial world and seek ways to reach and develop international standards in the added-value product market. To respond to increasing demand in the flexible market, increase our production capacity, maintain our flexible production capability and work with continuous improvement methods, we aim to acquire modern machinery and equipment and develop qualified human resources. Could we learn your thoughts on the paints industry in Turkey? In terms of this industry, what do you think are Turkey's advantages and disadvantages? In this context, how would you evaluate the impact of Paintistanbul & Turkcoat 2016 Fair and Congress on the industry? The paints industry in Turkey holds approximately 2% of the World Paint Market and, according to 2014 data, ranks 6th among producers in Europe with a volume of approximately 800,000 tonnes. The paints sector in Turkey consists of approximately 55% construction paints and the remaining 45% of furniture, industrial, automotive and other groups. The sector, which operates at capacity utilization levels of 60-70% and contains close to 700 large, medium and small enterprises, continues to grow in capacity while at the same time has a tendency to utilize its spare capacity in world markets. For this reason, we view Paintistanbul & Turkcoat 2016 Fair and Congress as both a sector meeting and an organization where actions can be taken towards new export markets.