In our interview, Sika Turkey Marketing and Corporate Communications Manager Mr. Fazlı Bulut answered our questions. Bulut gave information about the history of Sika and its current structure.
Could you tell our readers a little bit about yourself, your education and your professional background?
Hello. I graduated from Istanbul Technical University Civil Engineering Department. After that, I completed my master’s degree in Construction Management at Boğaziçi University. I started my professional career at the Construction and Real Estate Directorate of the General Directorate of Türk Telekom.
I owe my expertise especially in Earthquake Reinforcement Projects to this position. Working as a controller in both design and construction stages has allowed me to gain many different disciplinary experiences. Afterwards,
I worked as a Product Engineer at Sika Construction Chemicals and provided technical consultancy on products and systems in a wide range of projects. And for the last 3.5 years, approximately, I have been working as the Marketing and Corporate Communications Manager in Sika Turkey.
Could you tell us about Sika’s foundation process, the investments it made and its current structure? How long has Sika been operating in Turkey for?
Sika is a well-established company that has been active in construction chemicals, industrial adhesives and sealants used in industrial production for 109 years. It has subsidiaries in 5 continents and 101 countries, and manufacturers in over 300 factories around the world.
In the first half of 2019, it has more than 24,000 employees and has generated sales of 3.7 billion Swiss Francs. Sika is expecting its sales to exceed 8 billion Swiss francs in 2019.
Sika Turkey has been operating in our country for about 29 years. We have 7 regional offices and about 200 employees. In addition, we have two production facilities in Tuzla and Mersin, which have the latest technology in the field.
We can say that we are the leading supplier in the construction and industrial manufacturing sectors to which we cater for with our capacity and innovative solutions.
What sectors does Sika supply to mainly and what kind of products? What are Sika’s products, brands and services?
As Sika Construction Chemicals, we have a wide product portfolio to meet the need for all kinds of construction chemicals that may be needed in a construction from foundation to roof.
Our solution adventure, which starts with concrete additives that are used to improve the characteristics of concrete, continues with underwater waterproofing, repair strengthening solutions, wet volume solutions, sealing and adhesive bonding solutions, and is completed with the latest roof insulation applications.
In addition, we are able to offer many different solutions especially for industrial production. For example, the windshield of 1 out of every 4 vehicles in the world is adhered with Sika products. Or the joint fillers used in private boats and yachts are very likely to carry the Sika brand.
Could you tell about your domestic and international sales activities? What kind of product sales do you sell mainly in Turkey and abroad, and to which regions?
Sika is a global company that has its own organization in 101 countries. Therefore, a local subsidiary can be found in most of the world countries. Although this size restricts Sika Turkey’s export regions, we have export operations to a total of 9 countries.
As Sika Turkey, we have been active for nearly 30 years with the leadership of our Export Department in order to identify strategies tailored to each country’s own needs and dynamics, and to integrate these strategies. In 2019, Georgia and Uzbekistan markets have been among the important countries in our export regions.
What kind of activities do you perform in the fields of innovation and R&D as Sika?
Innovation is one of the main strategic goals for our company. Our door is always open to any innovative ideas and solutions by any of our employees. Due to the fact that we have a very large organization, global problems, and solutions created for these can have very different perspectives.
Thus, it becomes possible for us to see that a solution created in Turkey is implemented in China. This gives us both a collective perspective and the ability to solve different details with different solutions.
R&D is one of our vital organs and seen as one of our biggest resources to carry the company to the future. The fact that Sika Turkey has been located as the regional R&D center is a huge opportunity and pride for us.
Could you tell us about Sika’s environmental policy and sustainability approach? What can you say about your works on worker health and safety?
We set out on our journey with the motto ‘more value, less impact’. If we are to elaborate it; we have adopted it as our main strategy to add more value through more environment-friendly and technological products, as well as social responsibility projects, and to create less impact by reducing energy use, waste management and occupational accidents, and we continue taking strong steps in this direction.
For the last two years, it has been a rule that it if a new product is to be released in Sika, it has to be more environment-friendly than the previous version. And this has been a factor that triggers both the realization of new ideas and creation of environmental solutions in our company.
For example; no solvent-based materials are worked on in R&D. Or a product that will produce more waste to the environment is not included in the agenda even if it is higher performance.
The importance of protective coating products, which will increase the life cycle of existing buildings, is increasing day by day. With high-performance water repellent materials, the durability of repairs and life cycles in ports can be doubled. And this prevents the excessive use of our precious natural resources.
What criteria are prioritized when developing Sika’s investment plans? Does Sika have any investment plans for the coming periods?
In addition to organic growth, we are a constantly growing company with acquisitions in recent years. The latest Parex acquisition in the global level was our biggest acquisition crowning this strategy.
In addition to this, considering the country’s potentials, new factory investments are continuing on a global scale. Sika has manufacturing organisation with 300 factories all over the world. Market requirements and efficiency especially are taken into consideration when planning investments.
In addition, technological investments are made continuously on a regional basis. The fact that Turkey have been identified as the R&D Center in chemical products used in tunnel construction is especially a great source of pride for Sika.
