Interview with Mr. İhsan Bilgiç, General Manager of Kubilay Boya

In the interview we conducted, Kubilay Boya General Director İhsan Bilgiç answered our questions. Bilgiç provided information about Kubilay Boya's research and development activities. [caption id="attachment_123494" align="aligncenter"] İhsan Bilgiç[/caption]  

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

I was born in Niğde – Bor in 1963. I graduated from Çukurova University's Faculty of Agricultural Engineering in 1983. I started working at the Ministry of Rural Affairs and Cooperatives in 1983, and following a reorganization in 1985, I served as District Director, Department Director, and Deputy Provincial Director within the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Affairs. In 1996, I was appointed as Head of Isparta Provincial Agriculture Directorate, a position I held until 2000. In 2000, I ended my public service through resignation and began working in the private sector. I held the position of General Director at Gökhan Boya in Menemen, İzmir, beginning in 2001, until 2005. In October 2005, I took on the role of General Director at Kubilay Kimya ve Boya San. Tic. Ltd. Şti., a newly established company within ALOSBİ in the Aliağa district of İzmir. I have continued in this position since 2005, when we began factory construction and production operations.

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

The foundations of our company were laid in 1984 when our Board Chairman Hasan Bilgiç, encouraged by his late father Mehmet Bilgiç, began selling furniture paints in a small sales shop in Ankara Siteler. By being customer-focused and offering quality service, we differentiated ourselves from other paint retailers, achieved continuous growth, and became one of the most important furniture paint sellers in Ankara Siteler during the 1990s. The Kubilay Boya family began production operations in 2001 as a partner with a company engaged in paints and varnishes manufacturing. During this approximately five-year partnership, we demonstrated exceptional performance, enabling the partner company to become one of the most significant firms in Turkey's furniture paint sector. Subsequently, particularly due to reasons such as insufficient existing capacity, the need for a new facility arose, and the two companies decided to end their partnership. Thus, in October 2005, our company began production at its own facility in the Aliağa Organized Industrial Zone under the name "Kubilay Kimya ve Boya San. Tic. Ltd. Şti." and introduced products under the "KUBİLAY" brand to the market. In response to changing economic conditions and global economic circumstances, our company, which aims to reach the quality and service standards of developed Western countries, has taken important steps toward becoming a global company by collaborating with leading foreign partners in the field for this purpose.

Which sectors does Kubilay Boya primarily serve, and what types of products and services do you provide? Could you provide information about the products, brands and services that Kubilay Boya offers, particularly in the Industrial Paints categories?

As the Kubilay Boya family, wood paint comprises 90-95 percent of our total production. Due to the family's tradition in furniture paint sales, our first priority as a company has always been furniture paints, and this will continue to be the case. Besides furniture paint, we are the first and only mirror paint manufacturer in Turkey. We have made significant research and development investments in mirror paint, and our efforts to become an important producer in Europe continue. We also manufacture general industrial paints.

Could you tell us about your domestic and export sales activities? Which regions do you primarily serve domestically and abroad, and what types of products and services do you sell?

The Kubilay Boya family, with 6 sales stores located in Ankara, İnegöl, Antalya, Samsun, Kayseri and İstanbul, is also Turkey's largest furniture paint retailer. Through the advantages of conducting sales and production activities together, we continue our uninterrupted efforts to provide the highest quality service to all business partners. Through our own sales centers and an extensive network of dealers, Kubilay Boya has become a trendsetting company in the furniture paint sector, with products that are followed and emulated. Beyond sales activities in Turkey, we attach great importance to export operations. We have operations in 15 countries, and our exports have increased by 50 percent over the past two years, and we intend to continue focusing on export activities. Among our mid-term objectives is to raise our exports to 30-35 percent of our total production, and we are making intensive efforts toward this goal.

What types of work do you conduct in the areas of innovation and research and development as Kubilay Boya? Do you have projects developed under university-industry cooperation, and if so, what are they?

I believe that research and development is the heart of enterprises like ours, and that companies that do not prioritize research and development work and make investments in it cannot achieve sustainable growth. On the other hand, as Kubilay Boya, our personnel is among the areas in which we have invested the most. Based on this thinking, we have one of Turkey's most distinguished technical teams. Kubilay Boya and Kimya Sanayii is a company that continuously renews itself. For this purpose, we have aimed to make long-term investments in research and development activities in order to continue our strategy of continuous "new product design." Within this framework, by employing expert and qualified personnel in our research and development unit, we have successfully implemented many TUBITAK projects and university-industry cooperation initiatives, including TDI Prepolymer Synthesis, which is not produced in Turkey, environmentally friendly low-lead mirror paint, lead-free mirror paint, and epoxy acrylate oligomer synthesis. Furthermore, I believe it is important to mention our latest research and development project developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, as a furniture paint manufacturer, we wanted to contribute to the difficult struggle of all our healthcare workers. In this context, we developed the Kubilay Ultra Hygiene series, the world's first antiviral wood coating system. In doing so, we created a new product that would help prevent transmission through touch, ease the workload of our healthcare workers, add value to the country's economy, and raise awareness for the Turkish furniture industry. In addition to this project, our research and development team continues to work on projects that will make an impact worldwide in the paint industry. In our research and development work, we work with Prof. Dr. Yusuf Yağcı from Istanbul Technical University and Prof. Dr. Güngör Gündüz from METU as academic advisors. Our primary objective in research and development project work is to maximize benefit from our professors' valuable academic experience.

Could you provide information about Kubilay Boya's environmental policy and sustainability approach? What can you say about your activities related to worker health and safety?

As Kubilay Boya, our environmental awareness and sensitivity are at a very high level. Our Environmental Policy is shared with the public on our website. As a company, we conduct production based on the principle that we will not harm ecological balance through all our activities and will prevent environmental pollution that may occur during our operations. We make process and production improvements to minimize natural resource use. We minimize our waste at the source, reuse and recycle it where possible, and ensure that waste that cannot be recovered is disposed of through licensed companies. We implement Occupational Health and Safety processes with the participation of workers and worker representatives. As a company manufacturing in a highly hazardous industry, we adopt a proactive approach to occupational health and safety. In addition to our work with an independent Occupational Safety Specialist, we employ a full-time Occupational Safety Specialist (Class A) on staff. Through regular inspections and monthly Occupational Health and Safety Committee meetings, we carry out our occupational health and safety activities. We set occupational health and safety accident and injury prevention at the lowest levels as annual occupational health and safety targets. Through annual internal audits and process improvement meetings, we maintain the sustainability of our environmental and occupational health and safety activities.

What criteria does Kubilay Boya prioritize when formulating investment plans? Does Kubilay Boya have investment plans for the coming periods, and if so, what are they?

Kubilay Boya has continued to grow from the date it began production to the present. Each year we aim to achieve positive growth in tonnage compared to the previous year. For this reason, we have faced capacity shortages at our current facility. For this reason, with research and development projects developing a product not produced in Turkey, we initiated a new investment two years ago with a Mid-High Technology Incentive Certificate that will increase our existing production capacity by 100 percent. If circumstances permit, we aim to put the new investment into operation during 2021. In this way, we want to move forward with confident steps in line with our growth objectives.