New Threats for Companies After the Pandemic Meeting

New Threats for Companies in the Post-Pandemic Era Speaking at a meeting titled "New Threats for Companies in the Post-Pandemic Era" organized by the Vision 100 Platform, Eti Board Chairman Hakan Polatoğlu emphasized the importance of implementing digital transformation processes with a holistic approach, the impact of steps taken in Environmental, Social and Governance areas on company performance, and the need to build supply chains on a sustainability foundation. A meeting on "New Threats for Companies in the Post-Pandemic Era" organized by the Vision 100 Platform, with participation from company executives whose sector generates 60% of Turkey's private-sector GDP, was held on Wednesday, 23 February in Istanbul. The meeting, attended by senior executives from approximately 100 companies, addressed a wide range of post-pandemic topics on company agendas, from digitalization to sustainability, from circular economy to cloud technology and cybersecurity, from supply chains to organizational culture change. Speaking at the meeting, Eti Board Chairman Hakan Polatoğlu focused on the approach that needs to be adopted for digital transformation processes involving large investments to succeed, and expressed the importance of the impact of steps taken in Environmental, Social and Governance areas on company performance and the need to build supply chains on a sustainability foundation.  

Digital Transformation Must Be Implemented with a Holistic Approach

Eti Board Chairman Hakan Polatoğlu: We are witnessing people evolving toward a hybrid lifestyle as a result of digitalization, whereby in addition to their real lives, they also have a presence in the virtual dimension. In this way, we are observing the development of new values, behaviors and attitudes at the intersection of the real and virtual. On the other hand, we can say that people using the tools and services of the digital world are equipped with superior capabilities. For example, we see that numerous abilities have been gained such as rapid access to information in desired detail, self-education, finding addresses, making time estimates, following current events instantaneously, learning weather forecasts and so on. This new type of person can now perform the same task and responsibility in a shorter time and with less effort. Since they can work flexibly and remotely, their private life and work life are intertwined. With the effect of virtualization, the concepts of time and space have become differentiated. Due to their advanced capabilities, they now expect their contributions to any task to be at a high level and diversified. Therefore, while on one hand we adapt technological development to our institutions and acquire the opportunities of digitalization, we must simultaneously make all business processes compatible with the new type of person and develop new human resources management approaches. Successfully implementing this holistic change is one of the difficult tasks facing the business world in the period ahead." he said.

Sustainability Necessary for Supply Chain Resilience

"For the food industry, which is based on agricultural and animal inputs, beyond the social responsibility that must be borne toward the environment and nature, it is also indispensable that the inputs needed from tomorrow onwards can be procured in the desired quantity, cost and quality. Therefore, sustainability should be an important strategic objective. As is known, globally, due to increasing climate change, droughts, famines and natural disasters are occurring. At the same time, due to income inequality, shortages and inequalities in food access are increasing for large populations. While local initiatives are necessary to address these problems, they are insufficient; it is imperative that efforts be directed comprehensively toward main targets determined under a global strategy. Within the framework of the European Green Deal presented for the European continent and industry, the goal is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. As Eti, unless another major and more comprehensive agreement is created, we have adopted this European agreement as our framework target. Under a sustainability master plan, we are implementing numerous projects so that all our production and logistics processes are zero-waste, minimum energy and clean water use, and carbon neutral. Within our contract farming activities conducted over an area of more than 140,000 decares, we are implementing proper agricultural practices together with farms in each region and facilitating their widespread adoption throughout our country. Additionally, together with WWF-Turkey, we have been implementing joint projects on different topics related to agricultural production for 14 years. In summary, as a company, beyond fulfilling our own responsibilities, we are providing leadership through numerous projects we are implementing within our broader ecosystem that includes our stakeholders to ensure positive change." he said.