Interview with Müge Tamkan, General Manager of IMCD Türkiye

IMCD Turkey, which has moved to its new office at AND Plaza, continues to grow with the aim of further enhancing service quality and maintaining close proximity to its customers. IMCD Turkey's opening ceremony for its new office at AND Plaza on Wednesday, 28 March, was attended by IMCD CEO Piet van der Slikke. At the opening ceremony of the new office, we conducted an enjoyable interview with IMCD Turkey General Manager Müge Tamkan, who welcomed us.

Could you tell our readers briefly about yourself and your educational background?

I was born in Adana in 1977. I completed my education at Adana Anadolu High School, Yıldız Technical University's Chemical Engineering programme, and Marmara Business Administration in English (MBA) programme, respectively. I have been working in the chemical raw materials sales sector since 1999. I have a spouse who is a colleague in the profession and two sons aged 12 and 7. I am in my 11th year at IMCD Turkey.

Could you tell us about the development process of IMCD Turkey from its establishment to today?

Our company, established in 2004, has achieved growth over the years both organically by acquiring new product groups and suppliers, and through company acquisitions. The IMCD Turkey team has reached 60 people as of 2018. Since its first day of operation, our company has moved forward with confident steps towards becoming Turkey's most successful specialty chemicals distributor and has achieved market leadership positions in many sectors it serves.

Which sectors does IMCD mainly supply, and what types of products? Could you provide information about your products, brands and services?

IMCD Turkey has 4 main business divisions: Paints, Inks, Adhesives; Construction, Plastics, Textiles, Industrial Oils; Food and Nutrition; Pharmaceuticals, Cosmetics, Detergents.

Could you explain the importance of the Turkish market for IMCD?

The Turkish market is IMCD Turkey's main market. We also export to neighbouring countries when there is demand aligned with the strategies of our business partners, but our main focus is the Turkish market.

Müge Tamkan, Piet Van der Slikke

 

Could you tell us about your domestic and export sales activities? Which regions do you primarily serve domestically and internationally, and what types of products do you supply?

We are active wherever our customers are located in all the sectors we operate in. For this reason, we have a sales network covering all of Turkey and sub-distributors. Since all our products are specialty chemicals and additives, we always conduct sales with technical support. Therefore, our sales team consists of chemists and engineers with technical backgrounds who are experts in their field.

Could you tell us about laboratory and R&D activities? What can you say about your R&D investments? Do you have projects developed within the scope of university-industry cooperation, and if so, what are they?

We have had a technical manager in our pharmaceutical division for many years who provides formulation support to our customers. Following the establishment of our paint laboratory in 2018, we will be in a position to provide the formulation support we offer to our customers from our own laboratory. A specialist laboratory manager who will work on this subject has joined our team. Following the establishment of our paint laboratory, we will establish a technical formulation centre for food testing. Since our primary priority is to help our customers with their technical requirements quickly and accurately and to introduce our supplier companies' strategic product groups to our customers, the fact that only people working on technical matters on our team support our sales team further strengthens us. Each year we organise technical seminars inviting R&D managers of our customers in the pharmaceutical, paint, construction chemicals, plastics and cosmetics sectors. We will also begin technical seminars in our Food and Detergent divisions starting from 2018.

Could you provide information about your work on environment and sustainability, topics which are becoming increasingly important in the sector each day?

With regard to environmental awareness, we are trying to introduce our suppliers' environmentally friendly, next-generation products to the Turkish market. As certain regulations in our country change over time, we foresee that the market we will address will grow even further. The business partners we represent, through the importance they attach to R&D, continuously expand their innovative and environmentally friendly product ranges. Since IMCD Turkey works predominantly with products from European origin manufacturers, we have a business model that continuously thinks ahead, follows global trends, and is based on sustainable practices.

How would you evaluate the sector comparing yesterday and today?

In all sectors we operate in, we provide service with a model that offers our customers a package consisting of complementary products, delivers value-added, differentiated solutions with formulation support, and this is the greatest secret of our rapid and correct growth. As IMCD Turkey, our aim is always to enhance our service quality further and to remain very close to our customers. In our 14th year, we clearly see that we continue to grow our business volume each year without wasting the trust and support of our suppliers, who are our business partners, and our customers. On this occasion, we would like to extend our sincere thanks to all our business partners for the trust and support they have shown us.