We Had a Pleasant Conversation with Mr. Alpago Üresin

An enjoyable interview with Alpago Üresin, Deputy General Manager of Research and Development and Manufacturing at Flormar, during which Üresin provided detailed information about Flormar's R&D center and the work being carried out there.

Could you provide information about when your R&D center became operational, its technical specifications and the number of researchers working there?

Before discussing the history of our R&D center, I think it would be beneficial to look at Flormar's background. Flormar was born in Milan in the 1950s, known as the fashion capital, and flourished in the colorful and authentic lands of Turkey, where Asia and Europe intersect. Since then, with the experience gained from Turkey's multicultural structure, diverse skin types and countless skin tones, we continue on our path with passion to enhance the pleasure and happiness women derive from life through our wide range of colors and textures. We are proud to be a brand that enriches the concept of beauty with diversity and difference, earning the trust of women from all corners of the world and capable of rapidly meeting consumer needs while respecting differences. The Flormar brand draws its strength from 70 years of makeup expertise and a portfolio of high-performance products delivering intense color, alongside its rapid adaptation to trends. We serve women living in more than seventy countries in all makeup categories from face to eye to lip to nail, meeting many critical needs such as coverage and longevity. As our company sets new targets with each passing day in our growth journey, R&D activities began in 2002 at our Bahçelievler facility. Our R&D activities as a technology and research team continued to grow at our facilities in the Gebze Organized Industrial Zone, to which we moved in 2004. [caption id="attachment_158172" align="aligncenter"] Alpago Üresin, Deputy General Manager of Research and Development and Manufacturing at Flormar[/caption] Our research team, comprised of more than twenty-five specialists in their respective fields, and our laboratories equipped with state-of-the-art modern equipment allow us to focus on developing new products. In line with our strategic objectives, the general principles to be followed in the activities of our R&D department can be summarized as: development of new products suited to market needs, active completion of improvements to existing products, increase in the number of qualified employees and reduction of workload, strengthening of inter-departmental connections in product design, and increasing the number of patents and useful models by emphasizing research and development activities alongside product development. In line with our growth targets in the American and particularly Western European and Far East markets, as an R&D team we conduct resource and data analysis for research to guide the determination of market needs. We can confidently say that one of the largest factors behind the success of the Flormar brand, which currently meets with makeup enthusiasts in more than 70 countries, is high-performance, quality, innovative products containing hundreds of colors and textures. In the fast-moving consumer sector where competitive conditions are intensifying with each passing day and customer expectations vary depending on continents, countries, regions and even cities, we aim to add new products to our product range through innovation work and introduce new features to existing products for our customers. Our R&D department, which has set delivering quality and innovative products to the industry as a strategic goal, is supported by regular research, trade fair organizations and training so that it can closely follow developing and changing technologies. In this sense, we encourage unconventional thinking, creativity and marketable solutions. Like every sector, cosmetics is a sector nourished by, and changing and developing with, developing technologies. For us, developing technology encompasses not only machine technology but also innovative changes and trends in the areas of raw materials, formulations and packaging.

Could we learn more details about how your R&D center operates? What stages does an R&D project go through from the idea phase until completion?

The most important parameter triggering the R&D process at Flormar is our slogan "Happiness is Your Color" and the vision we have defined as our reason for existence: "Enhancing the pleasure and happiness women derive from life." We structure all our processes in Flormar R&D around our company's four core values: "Passion, Pride, Agility and Sustainability." In Flormar R&D activities, we are bound with passion to our brand and everything related to our brand. Behind our success lies our vision of developing our products and services we offer with passion to create happy customer experiences. The vibrant colors of nature inspire us, which we reflect to bring happiness to women's lives. Our passion for color is the most prioritized source of our success. Color, in the Flormar world, is not only the essence of our brand but also positioned as the key to touching women's lives. With our personalized color palettes and collections inspired by the colors of life and nature containing thousands of different shades, we enable every woman on earth to find the color suited to her skin tone. We take pride in every step we contribute from our products produced to high technology and sustainability standards to creating happy and colorful customer journeys. Pride is the driving force of our success. Our focus is to meet our customers' needs, and to achieve this, we act agilely while taking risks, bringing innovative and trend-setting solutions to the market. This is why "agility" is positioned as an accelerator of our success. Sustainability is one of our critical focal points in the journey that continues from the design of our products to entering our customers' makeup bags. Throughout our value chain, we create effective systems with lasting impact with every kind of innovative idea that emerges, aiming to reduce our environmental impact and carbon footprint. I can say sustainability is our promise for current and future success in all areas. Within the scope of company strategies and in line with the main objectives taken especially for the improvement of quality processes and customer experience, two years ago at Flormar the new product development process was comprehensively reconsidered end-to-end as a special project with the participation of a very broad team. As a result of detailed work lasting approximately 6 months, we created the "Flormar New Product Development and Launch Model" and put it into practice. Thanks to this system consisting of clearly defined stages and approval gates starting with the collection of R&D project ideas, our new product projects are brought to life through more standardized and sustainable operational processes. Thanks to this new system, we average at least twenty product launches per year, and present projected and categorized products to our customers' experience through the detailed work of all units and team members who are part of this system.  

Could you tell us about some of the projects you have completed so far at your R&D center and the current work you are undertaking?

Following intensive R&D research and detailed and sustained work, I would like to share two new products we have developed and brought to market. In particular, the stick-form "Flormar Lightweight Lip Powder" lipstick and "Flormar Skin Lifting" foundation, which have generated considerable interest and attention through marketing communication activities we conducted in recent weeks. Our Lightweight Lip Powder lipstick features high pigment and matte finish with an ultra-light texture and contains ingredients that help moisturize the lips. Its formula is enriched with Murumuru oil, coconut oil, Cupuacu oil and Monoi De Tahiti oil. When developing this product, we chose the stick form to provide easy application. With its easy-to-apply structure, it makes a difference in makeup routines, and we believe it will become indispensable with its flawless appearance throughout the day. The Flormar Skin Lifting Foundation we have been working on for a long time is a special product containing ingredients necessary for anti-aging care and SPF 30 sun protection, simultaneously meeting skincare and makeup needs. Thanks to its niacinamide, botanical collagen, hyaluronic acid and antioxidants, it nourishes and protects the skin. We launched both our products to consumers as a result of prolonged work and testing. We take pride and pleasure in launching Flormar's new brand identity with these two special products.

In which areas are you planning to work in future periods and what types of projects will these activities include?

Cosmetics is a highly dynamic sector. Following developments worldwide and rapidly adapting to innovations is the most fundamental rule for achieving a leading position in this sector. By participating in numerous trade fairs, seminars and training domestically and internationally, we increase the knowledge base of our innovation team. We come together with companies and consultants determining international trends to discuss which product groups the industry is focusing on, what performance textures will have, what popular colors are and packaging solutions, and we develop our products and carry out projects with the motto Happiness is Your Color. We have begun enriching our creativity in accordance with the strength of our innovation muscles and our target audience's fundamental needs, and we continue to create new products by combining different products with our own knowledge and technology. In this regard, we have organized our R&D roadmap around very clear axes and are working with passion to reach our targets with rapid steps in this direction. In our three-year roadmap for clean and green formulations, in particular, we benefit from the ingredients within our "Flormar Clean Beauty" scope in our newly developed formulations. We also review the formulations in our current product portfolio and, in this context, make updates with our full dedication, developing products and formulas that meet basic makeup needs and support our "Stay Colorful & Move Clean" sustainability vision. In selecting our newly developed packaging and when revising our existing packaging, we have adopted as a basic principle reducing plastic use by at least 15% within three years. In this framework, we prioritize the use of recyclable materials and PCR (Post Consumer Recycled) materials that can be recovered and recycled, and we implement our projects in this direction. For our limited-edition collection products as well, we prefer recyclable packaging materials for packaging.