In our interview, Bestek Sales and Operation Manager Çağrı Bülbül provided us with
information on their sales activities and the products they offer in the fields of adhesives
and sealants.
Could you please tell us about yourself and your professional background?
Hello, I’m Çağrı Bülbül. I work in Bestek Company as Sales and Operation Manager. I graduated from Bilkent University with a degree in International Relations, then I received my master’s degree in MBA from Bilkent University.
I have been working in sales for 17 years. The first five years, I was in oil-energy market, then I passed to industrial adhesives and tapes business. Today, I’m in the adhesives market for 12 years. I had the chance to work in tesa tape and 3M which are the innovative
and pioneer companies of the market as sales engineer, key account manager and sales supervisor.
Although my education is on business administration, working in a sector that is related to chemistry and engineering was and still is a different experience for me.
Our products are complementing each other since they are cross linked, like pieces of a puzzle; therefore, we are able to work in several markets such as defence, aerospace, automotive, appliance, construction, solar and furniture etc., to fulfil customer needs.
So, I can say that in Bestek, I have a chance to learn and develop myself together with our business partners every day.
Could you please give information on the history and areas of activity of Bestek?
Bestek has been founded by Mr. Özgür Ertekin, our General Manager, in Ankara in 2004. At the beginning, Bestek started 3M partnership as distributor of personal safety division.
In a few years, Bestek signed the contract of distributorship of adhesives and tapes division with 3M. We have a big geographical coverage in Anatolia Region since our company has been founded in Ankara.
In time, as Bestek grows up, in consequence of new business opportunities, we opened our İstanbul Office four years ago. Therefore, since 2018, from İstanbul to Trabzon, from İzmir to Adana, from Antalya to Ankara, we are able to sell our full assortment in every unique corner of Turkey.
Today, in Ankara we have a facility of approximately 2000 m2, where we can convert raw materials to end product by converting and slitting. At the same time, in our management offices in Ankara and İstanbul, we focus on managing our business in parallel of our targets that are being closer to customer, serve faster to customer and more effective for customer.
Bestek represents five well-known brands in the industry: 3M, our priority brand, Lohmann, Fischer, Weicon and Enimac companies are our business partners.
We try to be active in every area where production and industry are alive so that our bonding, mounting, fixing, masking, surface protection, sealing, potting, contemporary or permanent tape and adhesive applications can be sustained properly.
Could you please give information on the products and services you provide? What are your target industries?
Starting from 2021, our company added new brands in its portfolio while our 18 years old business partnership continues to grow up with 3M.
Thus, we increased quantity and variety of our products so that we could serve our customers better and increase the number of potential customers. What we have done so far?
In addition to adhesive&tapes, electrical&electronical, construction&architecture, defence&aerospace products of 3M, we have double-sided tapes of Lohmann which is a 170 years old German company.
Besides, we sell chemical and steel anchors, adhesive and sealants, firestop products of Fischer, which is also a German partner of ours. chemical and steel anchors, adhesive and sealants, firestop products. Last but not least, we signed a contract with Weicon that has structural adhesives, anaerobic products for loafs and screws, sprays and many other products.
Since we are very active and experienced in tapes industry, we signed a contract with Enimac, an Italian machine manufacturing company, two years ago. Enimac machines are mainly for packaging, box, envelope producers who want to laminate tapes easier and
faster on their products.
With all these partnerships, our target markets are quite varied, and I can clearly say that there is no market or segment that we cannot relate with. In 2021, we got ISO EN 9120 aerospace quality certification, thus we differentiate from our competitors.
Therefore, one of the most important markets for us became aviation and defence industry. We are so proud that we supply many products to Turkish defence industry to support production of unmanned aerial vehicles, aircrafts, armored land vehicles, guns&rifles, ships&boats, radio-set etc.
Apart from these, we work with appliances, renewable energies, automotive-railway OEM and tier companies. In addition, we are also well known in many other markets such as signage, furniture, lighting, power supply, electronics markets since we work with many popular producers of these markets for years.
Since we mainly focus on industrial users, we try to understand the needs of producers, then we try to choose the best appropriate products to match the needs of customers in an effective and efficient way.
Therefore, we are in touch with not only purchasing-procurement but also R&D, engineering to make trials-demos together with our customers, then finally when our customer decided on a product, we try to supply it in a cost-effective and rapid way.
Our business model is more than a sales company, rather than that we try to be a solution provider and problem solver. This is our motto for the growing path.
Could you inform us about your domestic and international sells? To which countries and regions does Bestek export its products? What kind of products do you sell?
We have three regions in Türkiye; Aegean, Marmara and Anatolia. Each region has their own geographical coverage. We supply tapes and adhesives almost every city of Turkey. In addition, our desire was to start export activities, but we were not active in exporting until 2021.
At the end of 2021, we also started exporting to Israel, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Our goal is to increase the number of these companies in the short and mid-term.
Could you please inform us about the innovation and R&D studies conducted by Bestek?
We determine every innovation we did based on customer needs. We purchased new lamination and converting machines upon our customers’ increasing demand.
We not only slit the tapes but also laminate liner and convert the jumbo rolls. Even though pandemic forced us to postpone our plans, in the short run we are planning to have a slit-rewinding machine investment so that we will be active in an area that we have not played an important role so far.
Moreover, we are also working on innovations about sales side, not only production side. We are working on a new CRM system that will let us manage customer demands and needs via an online platform.
What are the investment plans of Bestek in future? Could you please tell us about your priorities on investing?
First of all, we plan to increase the number of employees, especially sales force because we focus on better service for customers and faster customer contact. Nowadays, new recruitment process has already begun for Anatolia and Marmara regions.
I believe that the most important investment is the one made on people since employee are the window of a company. Therefore, our priority about investment is people. Apart from that, we concluded our trademark procedures with our own brand, Bestech.
If everything goes as it had planned, third quarter of 2023, we will start sales of our brand. This will be a big step for our company. In addition, we always underline the importance of
export. Both Bestek and our country needs export to grow up.
Therefore, we also plan to increase our production facilities and feed it with new equipments. All these plans are based on our desire to export to more countries, especially Africa and Turkic Republics since we believe that there are more business opportunities.
Efficiency and innovation in production will lead us to optimise thousands of products that we have so that we can determine goods that can be exported and focus on export.
