ABT's Trade Director Gürhan Gulle Answers Our Questions

In an interview we conducted, Gürhan Gulle, Commercial Director of ABT, answered our questions. Gulle provided information about the consulting services and training offered by ABT.

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

I was born and raised in Istanbul in 1979. I completed degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Economics at two different universities. I began my professional career at PwC Turkey. Subsequently, I worked as Assistant Country Controller at DHL Global Forwarding Turkey, and after 4 years, I held an FD position at Pulver Group, which lasted 5 years. In 2013, I transitioned to Allgeier IT Solutions Turkey, a subsidiary of the German holding company Allgeier Holding, as CFO, and after 3 months, I was appointed CEO. Until 2016, in addition to completing various private and public digitalization projects, I conducted consulting operations. After serving as COO and later CEO at companies engaged in domestic production and sales of small home appliances in 2016 and 2017, I founded ABT Akışkan ve Boya Teknolojileri in late 2017 together with Atilla Çağlı and Alkan Çağlı, where I currently work as Managing Partner.

Could you provide information about ABT's founding process and the stages it has gone through to reach today? What is ABT's current structure?

Frankly, ABT was founded by individuals whose expertise and experience in the field are proven, with the aim of providing products and solutions in the field of fluid and coating technologies to domestic and foreign customers in line with technological structuring goals, carrying out improvement projects to increase productivity, and providing consulting services in fluid process control, electrostatic system integration, spraying and metering applications. Today, we can see how sound our decision was by observing how the sector's multiple needs have directed us toward becoming a multi-faceted company. Since its foundation, our company, which has completed numerous renovations, developments and special-purpose projects both large and small, continues to increase its reputation day by day with the impact that our references bring to it.

What sectors does ABT primarily serve, and what types of products and services does it provide? Could you provide information about the products, brands and services that ABT offers specifically for the Paints and Coatings sectors?

Primarily serving the Automotive and Automotive Supplier Industry; Aviation, Wood, White Goods and General Industry sectors, we provide services in spraying, metering and robotic technology systems, as well as product improvement and development, projects, maintenance, training and consulting. During these activities, in addition to using products from world-renowned brands whose distribution we carry, we also incorporate our own domestically produced products in special-purpose projects, thereby sharing our reliable, quality, innovative and cost-benefit-focused support solutions.

Could you tell us about your domestic and international sales activities? What types of products and services do you primarily sell to in terms of regions domestically and internationally?

Looking at it from a broader perspective, we can say that among the sales activities we have planned for 2019 and beyond, the primary focus is penetration by multinational companies and consequently building a Global Operations network. In addition to this, there is building loyalty with our current Brand Strategy and supporting penetration. If we can achieve the desired substitution effect internationally, we can ensure certain annual increases in exports and balance domestic and international operations by the end of the next 3 years, and increase our equity reserves. Looking at ABT's positive physical characteristics, in principle, these can be listed as production technology, business methodology, the countries in which we operate and will operate, the degree of competition for our products and services, and price trends. To date, while we have been present in many countries with special-purpose products and projects, in the coming period we will be operational in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, France, Angola, China and several South American countries through global projects to be completed.

What types of training and consulting services does ABT provide?

We provide our customers with applied technical painting and coating training to make simple but effective improvements in fluid and coating consumption, and to reduce current losses and thereby lower consumption and consequently costs. During these training sessions, we first communicate technical information about surface preparation, product selection and coating applications necessary to correct identified defects, and in the next phase, we relay the work required to increase productivity and quality to operators, introducing our customers to new technology daily. Regarding our other service, project design and investment consulting, we examine our customers' investment expectations and risk limits, and subsequently, based on the outputs of our analyses to ensure they invest in accordance with their assets and budgets, we present them with product and project solutions offering the highest ROI with minimal or no risk.

Could you provide information about ABT's environmental policy and sustainability approach? What can you tell us about your work regarding occupational health and safety?

The most critical point for sustainable development is the existence of a sustainable environment. Operating on the basis of the "Green Audit" principle, we carry out improvement work to reduce paint waste and achieve a greener nature. We strive to develop solutions for our customers to paint more products with less paint. As the ABT family, by identifying the functional environmental dimensions of our activities, we aim to keep any negative impacts at the minimum level and ensure sustainability related to the environment in everything we do. Therefore, in accordance with our respect for the environment, complying with all legal regulations and conditions, taking relevant actions to demonstrate that all natural resources are finite, ensuring waste control, and integrating systems with high renewable energy performance into our products and services constitute our company's environmental policy and sustainability approach. Both in our work and in the services we provide, the primary indispensable condition is keeping occupational health and safety risks under control. The fact that a person works in a closed cabin every day in the painting process threatens the health of operators. For this reason, in addition to legal requirements, we need to ensure the optimization of appropriate working conditions. Regarding all services and products we provide, we take necessary protective and preventive measures and provide timely training and plan regular repetition to prevent occupational risks, protect health and safety, and eliminate accident factors.

What criteria are prioritized when ABT's investment plans are formulated? Does ABT have investment plans for the coming periods, and if so, what are they?

First and foremost, we aim for branding to be reliable and reputable. We want people to be able to talk about our company even when we are not present, and in the medium and long term, we want to spread our turnkey package solutions abroad by utilizing our domestic production capabilities. In all of our 1-3-5 year plans, the fundamental objective is to touch people's lives. This is a wonderful feeling; our customers' and business partners' smiles and happiness are invaluable to us. Therefore, the first criterion for our investment plans is to be directive. Subsequently, we have priorities regarding energy efficiency, transfer efficiency, production capacity increase and surface quality improvements by leveraging the benefits of the automation process. For the coming periods, you can be assured that ABT, in order to have a say in determining the direction of the sector in which we operate, will achieve total quality in R&D, innovation and technology and continue to lead new developments without hesitation.