We Conducted an Interview with Serdar Çolak

We conducted an enjoyable interview with Serkim Reçine Board Chairman Serdar Çolak. Mr. Çolak shared valuable information with us about the company's production areas and R&D activities.

Could you tell us about yourself and your professional background?

I was born in Istanbul in 1979, married with three children. I graduated from Kadir Has University's Department of Business Administration. During my university years, I played basketball in the youth development programs of Fenerbahçe and Ülker clubs. This gave me the ability to work as a team and develop leadership skills at an early age, which I have found very beneficial in my professional career. After completing my education, I started my professional career in 2001 at our family company, then called Serkim Boya Kimya. Since 2016, I have been serving as Board Chairman.

Could you share Serkim's development process from its establishment to today and the sectors it serves?

Serkim began production in 1993 under the name Serkim Boya Kimya to manufacture alkyd resin, paints and varnishes. In 2003, taking into account sectoral developments, we decided to discontinue paint and varnish production and specialize in resin manufacturing, continuing our investments in this direction. Following this period, we began diversifying and developing our products for the paints and varnishes industry. In 2018, we relocated to our facility with 30,000 tons of production capacity in Tuzla Kimyacılar OIZ, and with the startup of our new facility, we changed our company name to Serkim Reçine Kimya. As Serkim Reçine, we started exporting in 2009 and currently export to 30 countries, with exports representing 35% of our sales. Our target is to increase this ratio to above 50% by 2025. We continue to increase our sales in many countries including Lebanon, Tunisia, Guatemala, Honduras, Senegal, Costa Rica, Greece, Portugal, Azerbaijan, Spain, Uzbekistan and Romania through our distributors. Our company, which achieved 140% growth in the last four years, has a very wide product range for the paints industry. By correctly analyzing our customers' needs and providing technical support, we continue to rapidly increase our market share.

What product groups do you offer to the paints and coatings sector?

We manufacture alkyd resin, saturated polyester, acrylic resin and epoxy ester resins for construction and industrial groups, primarily furniture paints, automotive repair paints, road marking paints, marine paints, floor coatings and coil paints.

Could you tell us about your R&D work to develop your products and the resources you allocate to these efforts?

With the completion of R&D investments at our new facility, we have a total R&D working area of 140 m2 and a highly experienced and successful R&D team. Our team is growing every day, and we plan to become an R&D center in 2024 in line with our objectives. We develop joint projects with many organizations, particularly TÜBİTAK, together with our R&D team. We also place great emphasis on university-industry cooperation; we will conduct related activities on this subject during 2023.

What are the key points you focus on to maintain quality in your production?

As Serkim Reçine, our competitors are not domestic producers but global manufacturers competing in international markets. Therefore, we continuously improve ourselves to maintain our quality standards at the highest level. Particularly with the products we have developed in recent years, we have become a company whose products are followed rather than a company following market trends. Along with production, we have a good team of professionals with high motivation in each of our departments. Moreover, with our facility equipped with innovative technology, we continue our investments to maintain our quality standards and enable the production of innovative products. Serkim Reçine uses automation systems in its production and demonstrates extreme precision in raw material input controls to maintain quality consistency at maximum levels.

Due to the climate crisis, the concept of sustainability is gaining increasing importance. Could you share your sustainability policy and the work you are doing in this area?

The climate crisis is humanity's greatest problem and unfortunately we have started to feel its effects. As Serkim Reçine, we have adopted a sustainable production approach and accelerated our work to reduce resource depletion and negative environmental impacts. First, to improve our environmental performance, we have initiated ISO 14001 Environmental Management System work. As an organization, we are continuing our work on recyclable and bio-based products to reduce our carbon footprint and create a sustainable future, and we will soon commercialize these products.