The White Goods Sector in Turkey has successfully passed a serious test with ranking the 2nd position in the world and the ecosystem it has created.

BEYSAD Works for the Future of the Sector

Ş. Burak ÖZAYDEMİR
BEYSAD Board President

Evaluating the Covid-19 period, as BEYSAD, we think the epidemic has shown the critical significance of the existing supply chain and sectorial clustering in Turkey. The White Goods Sector in Turkey has successfully passed a serious test with ranking the 2nd position in the world and the ecosystem it has created. The depth and quality of the supplier structure in the sector has ensured that the manufacturing of the key producer enterprises is not interrupted. Our industry is expected to be effected positively by the shortening of supply chains in the upcoming period, therefore the negative impact will be less than the global, regional and national economies.

Known by all our stakeholders, as BEYSAD, we lead our activities with Strategy Documents and shared wisdom search conferences that we hold with the participation of all our stakeholders biennially. In this sense, we published our current document in March 2020, and shared it with all our sector and stakeholders. When the pandemic process started, we started to carry out our activities dynamically according to the current needs of the sector and our members, besides our medium-term goals in our document.

In this process, we formed 4 working groups, and we are proud to see that they accelerate BEYSAD's work by holding monthly meetings. These groups are;

-Export Committee

-Human Resources Committee

-Industry 4.0 Committee

-Sustainability and Environment Committee

In addition, the Young BEYSAD activities continue for the future generations of our sector.

In parallel with the face-to-face activities we carried out before the pandemic, as BEYSAD, we gave priority to communication for delivering fast and healthy information to our members to get them affected the least during the pandemic. We tried to act as a bridge between our members, key industry authorities, other stakeholders and public authorities in terms of sectorial knowledge and expectations.

In order to manage our activities within the association more dynamically, we have held weekly Board Meetings online since March. During the meetings, we have evaluated the activities to be carried out for the benefit of the sector, the country and the members, created our plans and tried to implement them quickly in the following days.

We have held frequent online meetings with our Human Resources Committee members, too. Thanks to the HR Committee Meetings, beneficial practices have been shared, the members have been influenced and quick measures have been taken.

By constantly interacting with the key OEMs, other NGO stakeholders and expert organizations, we have given priority to sharing information and useful articles with our members in compliance with the current priorities such as Short Working, Legal Issues and Financial Management.

The members definitely take their own precautions within their businesses in line with their dynamics; however, we have shared a series of tables and reports that include the practices of the key industry and other sectors in order to guide in this regard.

At the beginning of the epidemic, we conducted 3 surveys to carry out our studies at a healthy level and comprehend the member needs fully. We conveyed the results, which provided an important sectoral image with intense participation, to our members, key industry authorities and public authorities.

In response to the demand for more information from the key industries, which are among the expectations from BEYSAD in the results of the survey, we made a series of interviews with our key industry purchasing officials regularly in 2 separated periods. With the short question sets we presented, we delivered the replies from one key industry to our members every week.

In addition, we believe that we have succeeded in conveying the current and future predictions and expectations of our key industries directly to our members with our Key Industry - Supplier Meetings that we hold online. In this context, we have brought Arçelik, Vestel and Haier Europe Turkey Purchasing officials together with our members online.

During this period, we have aimed to hold an online information meeting every week. On this occasion, we have had the opportunity to come together with our members, as well as convey important opinions directly to them from expert sources, and supported them to find answers to their questions interactively through the question and answer sections.

We have held online "Information Meetings" on many important issues.

We have determined the topics according to the priorities that the industry needs. Short-term working allowance, legal aspects of Covid and financial risk management have become the first priority. These have been followed by the content related to leadership, digital transformation, corporate management and systems.

During this period, our Key Industry Association TÜRKBESD has published the Sector Report, an important work, and we have jointly organized a special presentation webinar for our members as part of the BEYSAD Member Meeting Event.

We have brought our members together with many stakeholders such as TAIDER and ÜNSPED through these online meetings.

In the upcoming period, primarily on behalf of BEYSAD; we aim to inagurate our Industry 4.0 Center of Excellence, which we manage in partnership with Özyeğin University and TÜSİAD and is supported within the scope of EU IPA Competitive Sectors. We believe that the center, with its comprehensive infrastructure, will make a critical contribution to the consultancy, training, pilot project and university-industry cooperation that our industry needs on the path of digital transformation.

We aim to increase the direct exports of our members and contribute to the financial balances of both the sector and the country by effectively communicating the dynamics of our industry that distinguishes them positively in export markets. Within the framework of adapting to the target market and customer expectations in the near future, we plan to carry out studies that will guide the work of our members, especially the EU Green Deal, on Environment, Climate Change and Energy. BEYSAD HR platform will continue to work on the developments in the pandemic process and the Human Resources agenda of our members. The Young BEYSAD platform, which we see critical in raising the next generations of the sector and the association, will continue its activities by expanding with new members.

As known, the European Union has created a sustainable development plan under the name of the European Green Deal, showing an important example of global leadership in the fight against climate change. Within the scope of this plan, the EU aims to zero its greenhouse gas emissions, to separate economic growth from resource use, and to conduct this with an inclusive and fair approach to all stakeholders in 2050. In line with this goal, in July 2021, the EU published a document themed “Fit for 55”, which aims to reduce emissions by 55% in 2030. With this document, concrete and ambitious targets were set in terms of making Carbon at the Border regulation, increasing the share of Renewable Energy in the energy sector from 20% to 32%, increasing the use of hydrogen as fuel and reducing carbon dioxide emissions 100% in transportation in 2035.

While observing the initiative taken by Europe in the field of environment and sustainability with hope and pride for our future generations, we need to adapt to the effects of the initiatives for both protecting the natural resources of our country, and the fact that our country and our sector are the main export market. In this context, it seems critical that all sectors in our country participate in these studies with a comprehensive plan in cooperation with the public and private sectors. In this sense, the completion of our country's signature to the Paris Agreement will make a significant contribution, too.

Considering the White Goods Sector, we need to ensure that our products and production activities are made using less resources and we need to create the necessary documentation to show this situation.

Comprehensive Key - Sub-Industry cooperation in R&D studies, participation in the EU projects and public support will be influential to reduce the use of energy and raw materials. As BEYSAD, we formed a committee in line with the priority of this issue to coordinate our work with the key industry and our member stakeholders.

We believe that the Center of Excellence, which is being established with the cooperation of Özyeğin University and TÜSİAD with the EU IPA funding, can make significant contributions to these studies in terms of both University cooperation and technical infrastructure.

The fact that white goods production in Turkey is export-oriented reduces the impact of financial fluctuations on production in terms of quantity. However, the problems experienced on the supply side have started to come to the point that will affect the competitiveness of the sector. Although there are no major supply-related recessions in our sector, similar to the automotive sector, it is not possible to say that there are no problems and risks. Key and sub-industries are struggling with long supply duration and logistics problems in terms of supplying the required quantities and varieties of the steel, plastic, chemistry and components. These conditions cause financial losses to all companies in our sector. Our country and our industry need to work together to overcome these obstacles with shared wisdom in the challenging period ahead. We think that the cooperation culture of our sector and our distinguished stakeholder institutions are very valuable in this sense.

We would like to thank our Board of Directors, all precious friends in our committees, the members who participated in our events, the key OEMs leading sector, and all our stakeholders for their intense contributions to our efforts to continue our Association activities and contribute to the sector despite all the conditions in the previous period.

On behalf of our members and management, as BEYSAD, we would like to thank HOME APPLIANCES TURKEY SUPPLIERS' MAGAZINE for the cooperation and the opportunity to share our plans and activities.