In our interview, Selge Kimya A.Ş. Founder and General Manager, Mr. Selim Genç, answered our questions sincerely. Genç told about Selge Kimya’s vision and goals.
Could you tell our readers about yourself and your professional business life?
Since our childhood coincided with the 70s, I think we became one of the luckiest generations. We experienced almost everything you can see in Turkish movies about that period.
But the beautiful thing about those days was that the rich girl in the neighborhood was at the same school as us, and we were all shopping at the local grocery store, also we didn’t have a credit card, but we could write a debt on grocery shops.
There were playgrounds almost in every neighborhood as many as you can imagine and there were also neighborhood fountains, of course. We used to sell water in the neighborhood during the summer, and also everyone would drink from the same glass, however; no one got sick.
We have grown up in such days. Since I was 7 years old, during the school holidays I have found a job every year and worked voluntarily and on my own Accord in many works such as grocery store, hardware store, and haberdashery.
Starting from my secondary school years, with the advantage of living in Sarıyer, the most beautiful district of the Bosphorus, I worked as a guide for years in the Arab frenzy that lasted until 1989. Also, the year I started the university; I worked in the historical Özsüt
Patisserie, which dates back to the 1900s, located on the Bebek coast, which is the cutest neighborhood in Turkey, and it was owned by our neighbor.
I did everything including waiter, cashier, and business manager. On the one hand, while I was studying at the university, I was earning some pocket money and enjoying it very much.
You can’t imagine what treasures those experiences have given me that will be fundamental in the years to come. This part that I have described in such detail is what we do even in my own family today was, meant to explain that creating a family environment where parents do all the work ourselves, therefore our children do not get tired, does not benefit them, but also harms them.
Unfortunately, we do not see that we have made them asocial and that they will experience difficulties in business life, even if they have a successful school life in the future; however, they will have great difficulties in bilateral relations and friendships.
During our visit to one of the major industrial establishments of our country, our friend who is the general manager of this company told us that, he could not stand 6 months a very smart young man who graduated from one of the best universities in Turkey with first place degree, speaking many foreign languages.
He said that, he had to regrettably parted ways with this young man who had zero social life and communication, thus who could not adapt. Let’s raise our children as human beings, not race horses, and teach them to love, share and work. Life will surely make a good path for them.
I graduated from Mimar Sinan University, Department of Turkish Language and Literature in 1994. For 7 years I continued working as a teacher under the Ministry of National Education which was my childhood ideal, until the year 2000.
I had to leave my love of teaching, which has been in me since childhood, due to insufficient financial conditions. I worked as the sales and market development manager in the chemical raw material sector for 20 years, with some of the leading companies in the
sector; I worked at Bayegan, Veskim, Likit Kimya.
Here, I would like to express my gratitude, especially to Ercüment Bayegan, from the Bayegan family. He is the person who brought me to this sector and opened a new path for me.
He has a special place for me. I established Selge Kimya A.Ş. in 2020 in order to evaluate
my experiences and contemporary methods that I have planned which were not allowed or considered in the companies I worked with throughout the years.
What would you like to say about your company? What are the criteria that form your company?
Selge Kimya aims to be a company that will reflect the experiences I have gained in the companies I have worked with for years; eliminate the shortcomings I have observed; give self-confidence to its employees; gain while earning; focus on happiness, peace, respect
and love to its customers, suppliers, and employees, and aiming to implement this with determination.
In my opinion, most companies nowadays, have no idea about how the physical structure of the working environment affects the performance of the employee. Seeing the expenditures made in this regard as unnecessary actually shows the value given to the personnel.
It is proven by researches that the performance of the employees of the companies that make the workspace spacious and cheerful increases exponentially. Our main goal is to approach the customer sincerely, by never seeing them as a source of income, but rather as a friend or a member of our family.
We aim to provide them with the right information, supply their products at the most affordable price, provide the best quality service, and ensure continuity in production without causing any trouble. So, we continue on our way with colleagues who are suitable for this goal.
Which sectors do you address to? What are your product types?
The trade of chemical raw materials covers such a wide area that there is no sector that is not included. With 23 years of experience, we plan to address nearly 40 sectors within our knowledge.
Right now; we address nearly 15 sectors such as detergent, medicine, leather, cosmetics,
textile, textile auxiliary, agriculture, paint, metal, sole, ceramic, and construction chemicals, and we are increasing the number of these sectors day by day.
Since we know both foreign suppliers and domestic users very well, we gave priority to these sectors, where we are stronger, in our plans when establishing the company. With the
increasing importance of hygiene and personal care during the pandemic process, especially the cleaning and detergent sector took the first place.
The agricultural sector is an area where we are very assertive, especially in the Mediterranean Region. For years, I have said that agriculture will be the pride of our country’s exports.
All of our customers in this sector have made great progress in the last 10 years and have had a huge share in exports, and this is naturally reflected in the raw material market and they have a great place in the increase in our turnover.
The textile and textile auxiliary sector is already one of our main groups. Although we have a very good network with these sectors, we still do not see ourselves as sufficient and we are constantly increasing our targets.
Of course, the most difficult part of our job is to obtain finance and the most important thing we should pay attention to is to ensure that the sale is collected. Because an uncollected sale is not a sale.
This is the first thing we say to our colleagues. Selge Kimya will make great contributions to the economy of our country. It aims to guide investors and develop our industry with
our technical team, which has the knowledge and experience that will reduce imports, provide turnkey project consultancy for the establishment of new chemical raw material factories and provide product know-how. Demands from domestic and abroad in this regard are also quite high.
What is your domestic and international sales volume? According to which criteria do you determine your sales potential?
In these days as we enter our 3rd year, we are experiencing the happiness of being at least 3 times ahead of the point we aimed for in the establishment. In this process, I can say that the strategies we applied during the pandemic period have been very beneficial.
The continuation of our business under the roof of Selge Kimya with the companies we know and work with for years in sales is a positive return on the service we have been providing to our customers.
For now, we have started working with Iran and Azerbaijan abroad. We will enlarge our team as soon as possible in order to increase the number of export countries.
The increase in exports, which relieves us of regulating the cash flow, will greatly contribute to the growth rate of our company.
What is the importance of R&D for your company? Could you tell us about the R&D projects you have carried out recently?
We did very good work on new products, especially in the leather, cosmetics, and textile auxiliary sectors. Our SELTOF 100, SELTOF 200, and SELTOF 300 products, which we started trial production and sales, brought results as the first studies of our R&D.
In addition, from the works of our cosmetics department, we can say that new essence products that appeal to different sectors will be ready for sale soon.
It will give us great pride to present these products to the Turkish market first and then export them all over the world under our own brand.
Do you have any work you carry out as part of social responsibility? What is the reflection of these studies on your employees, your brand, and your sense of responsibility?
Selge Kimya is active in its region based on its power in social responsibility projects. This is one of the foremost of our founding purposes. As the years go by, we will see how serious we are on this issue.
As a former teacher myself, our goal is to be a light for our children who are unable to complete their education or who are unable to study due to financial difficulties in the future and to raise a generation that reads with our support and takes firm steps towards the future.
I believe we can do this. In addition, a Selge Family Forest project that we plan to establish on behalf of our customers with the idea of “Save nature so that the future will be saved” is among our plans.
Could you tell us about your goals for the coming years? What innovations await your company in the years ahead?
While establishing Selge Kimya A.Ş., we want to create a solid infrastructure for my children, in other words, for future generations, especially my son who is currently
going to university.
Selge Kimya’s main goals are to be an exporter that sells to all over the world, a manufacturer that has created its own brand, and a company that is known and recognized in every city in the domestic market and that benefits its country with the employment
and exports it creates.
As a person who knows that the goal is not the ceiling but above the ceiling, we will tirelessly explain this to our children, to future generations, that nothing good can be achieved easily. With love and respect.
