We had a pleasant interview with Ms. Aylin Zakuto, General Manager of IMCD Turkey. Ms. Zakuto shared valuable information about IMCD Turkey’s activities in the paint and construction chemicals sector.
Could you please tell our readers about yourself, your educational and professional background?
I began my career at ISP immediately after graduating from the Chemistry Faculty of Boğaziçi University. For nearly 10 years I worked at ISP, who currently continues its activities as Ashland, being responsible for the Turkish, Middle Eastern and African markets.
In the meanwhile, completed my master’s degree in Organic Chemistry at Marmara University. Then I continued my career at IMCD Turkey. I worked at IMCD for about 10 years in different roles such as Sales Management, Business Unit Management, İnternational Supplier Management.
I have been working as the General Manager of IMCD Turkey for two years. I have two
wonderful sons. I try to have a balanced work and family life.
Could you please share with us the story of formation and process of development of IMCD Turkey?
IMCD is a Netherlands-based distributor company engaged in the sale, marketing and distribution of specialty chemicals and food ingredients. The company, being is a leader in its field, offers suppliers and customers in EMEA, Asia-Pacific and the Americas a broad
product portfolio supported by innovative formulations in line with industry trends.
Listed on Euronext (IMCD), Amsterdam, IMCD works closely with around 3,700 employees and 56,000 customers in more than 50 countries on 6 continents to provide value to suppliers worldwide.
On the other hand, established in 2004, IMCD Turkey has over the years become the market leader in many sectors through the suppliers it cooperates with, new product groups and company acquisitions.
IMCD Turkey also incorporated the Cosmetics Laboratory to its special Paint & Construction Chemicals and Food Laboratory this year in order to support the sales teams and provide technical solutions in Istanbul.
What are the products and product groups that your company sells? Which sectors do you serve?
IMCD Turkey is a market leader in the distributorship of special chemicals in Turkey as well as in the world. We supply raw materials to our customers who make final products in the fields of paint, construction chemicals, pharmaceuticals, personal care, plastics, food and textiles. As of the end of 2021, we actively work with more than 2,000 customers.
What are the product groups you offer to the paint and coating industry?
Our product portfolio in the field of paint and coating consist of organic, inorganic and anti corrosive pigments, carbon blacks, acrylic, epoxy, polyurethane, silicone and alkyd resins, special monomers and acrylates, cellulose ethers, nitro cellulose, rheology control additives, wetting-foam breaker-surface conditioner-thickener and wax groups, water repellent additives and silanes, powder polymer, starch ether and fibers, superplasticizer and flow regulators.
How do you evaluate the paint and coating industry in Turkey? What is the importance of operating in Turkey in this field for you?
Paint, construction and coating sectors in Turkey are of great importance for our product portfolio consisting of special chemicals. Especially the increase in domestic demand and exports during the pandemic period had a positive effect on the sector.
Due to its location, our country also plays the role of a bridge for neighbouring countries. Additionally, the sector has a structure that can remain lively and dynamic due to the construction sector-oriented economic approaches.
As IMCD Turkey, I think we have shown our faith in both the industry and our country among distributor companies by opening the laboratory at the beginning of 2018. We are proud to say that we are the first company to open a laboratory in this field.
We continue to serve the needs of the market with our global technical network and our experts in Turkey.
What is the importance of R&D for your company? Can you tell us about your R&D and laboratory activities that you have carried out recently?
As IMCD Turkey, we conduct solution-oriented and innovative studies in line with the demands of our customers and new trends in our Paint and Construction Chemicals, Food and Personal Care department laboratories.
We also carry out joint projects withother IMCD laboratories in the world and our suppliers that we represent. We also provide technical training to customers and sales team in our laboratories.
Thanks to the advanced training sessions we hold on specific selected topics under the umbrella of the IMCD academy, our employees are able to produce faster and easier solutions to our customers problems.
In addition, we contribute to the development of new products by producing solutions to the problems that our customers are currently experiencing in our laboratories.
This is a critical point for us to ensure high customer satisfaction. With the synergy
of our other laboratories, we are able to produce innovative solutions for our customers.
Could you please mention about your quality policy? What are focus points in order to maintain the quality of your products and ensure customer satisfaction?
As IMCD, we closely follow both local and global regulations. We are working in our laboratory to develop products equivalent to raw materials that are to be removed from use.
We regularly share trends and new environmental regulations with our customers. In the field of paint and construction chemicals in recent years, we have promoted solutions for products that are free from components harmful to human health, such as low VOC, lead free and carcinogen- free raw materials.
Again, in line with the trend towards natural raw materials in the field of personal care and cosmetics, our portfolio includes natural raw material solutions. We pay attention to the fact that these raw materials have Ecocert and Cosmos certificates.
What does sustainability mean for IMCD and how do you work in the field of sustainability?
As a company that plays an active role in the value chain of the chemical industry, IMCD is concerned about doing business by embracing environmental and social sustainability.
We have adopted a processes balancing our economic, environmental and social needs by using the world’s limited resources in a sustainable way, while minimizing our impact on the environment, and creating more with less.
In this respect, we closely follow the needs of our customers and develop the most suitable solutions for such needs. In general, we focus on healthy, sustainable and carbon emulsion-reducing product groups in our trend analysis.
In paint and construction chemicals, interest in water- based, antibacterial and hygienic coating systems has begun to increase. On the construction chemicals side, systems that provide energy saving with horizontal and green architecture have been standing out.
As IMCD, we work with all trendy products in our laboratories and offer appropriate solutions to our customers.
Could you please talk about the future targets of your company?
We expect the increased costs on raw material procurement and logistics experienced during the pandemic to continue for a while. In terms of product range, an increase in return to nature concepts is expected.
In addition, in the years ahead traditional business models will change and digitalization will gain more and more importance. Solutions compatible with the digital trend will take larger place in our lives, and the sales and marketing strategies of companies will be shaped in this way.
With the digitalization investment made by IMCD, we activated our MyIMCD B2B platform. With this application, where we add new customers every day, we brought many services such as online order, sample request and technical support to the digital platform and made IMCD active 24 hours a day.
In addition, we continued to convey innovations with virtual fairs and online webinars under
the leadership of our experts. Our digitalization investments will continue. Moreover, we believe that we will move IMCD Turkey forward with both new acquisitions and organic growth targets.
Could you please tell us about your work on social benefit?
As IMCD, we believe that opportunities should be offered to those in need with social issues, as in every field. In this direction, we do not limit our brand promise only to our business partners, customers and employees, but implement it as “equal opportunity in education” in our corporate social responsibility activities.
Last year, as part of the 25th anniversary of our company, we cooperated with the Education Volunteers Foundation of Turkey (TEGV) for the children who have difficulties in accessing education.
Through TEGV, we initially distributed 351 tablets to children aged 7-11, so that children can benefit from modern education opportunities in regions where access to online education is limited.
Hence, in addition to the curriculum of the Ministry of National Education, children will also benefit from TEGV’s online education platform, which includes subjects such as science, mathematics, English, IT, reading and mathematics, and can access social-emotional learning activities from their internet-loaded tablets.
In addition, we made our laboratories in Istanbul available for children’s online experiments and carried out studies aimed at making our children love chemistry. We aim to expand the project exponentially every year.
With this philosophy, cooperating with TEGV, this year we sponsored the The Science Firefly Truck, which toured the village schools in Anatolia.
IMCD The Science Firefly Truck which will tour village schools in the 2022-2023 academic season, aims to connect 1500 children with science in the first year of the project and make them love science.
