Interview with Emre Kırca, Commercial Director of Veser

We conducted a pleasant interview with Emre Kırca, Commercial Director of Veser Kimyevi Maddeler Anonim Şirketi, where we discussed the company's quality standards and success policy. Mr. Kırca also shared insights on their social responsibility projects and the importance they place on sustainability.

Could you tell our readers about yourself and your background?

I was born in Istanbul in 1982. After completing my primary, secondary and high school education in Istanbul, I spent four years in Bursa during my university years. While studying Business Administration at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Uludağ University, I also took my first steps with the Veser family. My working life began in the Finance Department at Veser Kimya's Bursa branch. After completing my university education and returning to Istanbul, except for military service and a brief language course abroad, I never left Veser Kimya. Throughout my 14-year uninterrupted journey with Veser since 2007, I have had the opportunity to work in the Finance, Foreign Trade, Procurement and Sales Departments. Outside of work: I got married in 2012... Our married life developed quickly and we added three children to our family history. We have two daughters and one son. Being a large family with our furry children allows us to live our 24 hours fully. I am a man with a passion for the sea... Working from home due to the pandemic also reunited me with the sea. Whenever the opportunity arises, I invite my family to join these activities and aim to teach the children about life at sea. I currently serve as Commercial Director at Veser Kimyevi Maddeler A.Ş. With the merger of the Veser family and Vinmar, we continue to serve the chemistry sector strongly, and I am proud to be part of this structure.

What would you like to say about your company? What criteria form your success policy?

Since 1988, Veser is a strong company serving the Turkish and foreign markets - something we always take pride in saying. The greatest source of this strength is "honest work". We have never feared losing customers or markets, but losing our ethical values was always our greatest concern. Thanks to this respect for values, we have had a growing structure with us each passing day. Our journey continues with major distributorships that we started and are still maintaining, customers we always know are walking the same path as us, a product portfolio we will never stop developing, and our service network. Our journey, which began as a Turkish capital company, opened a different vision for us in 2017 with the Vinmar International family... When our growth-oriented structure aligned with Vinmar's strategy, we gained momentum. We now continue to compete with ourselves in the chemistry sector by synthesizing global strength with local company culture.

Which sectors do you serve? What are your product varieties?

Veser Kimyevi Maddeler A.Ş. has a product range that can exist directly or indirectly at every point where production takes place. I will reiterate the sentence I never stop repeating here. We "put our signature on every quality product packaged." While our distributor agreements in development and business partner searches never end; Cosmetic and Detergent Chemicals, Textile Auxiliaries, Construction Chemicals, Paint Industry Chemicals, Epoxy-Polyurethane and Polymerization Chemicals, Food Additives, Pharmaceutical Excipients, Water-Pool Chemicals, Mineral Oil, Agricultural Chemical Emulsifiers, Metal Chemicals and Rubber Chemicals are included in our product portfolio.

Last year was a year when pandemic effects were felt heavily and these effects continue. How did your company cope with this situation and what measures did it take?

With the beginning of the pandemic process and cases being reported in our country, the directives of our official institutions and the World Health Organization as well as protective measures were taken into account. To reduce contact, office work was carried out from home, and at the same time meetings and training began to be conducted online. Our logistics personnel who continued to work actively on site were continuously informed, protective equipment was provided and working environments were disinfected at regular intervals. The HES application was implemented. With the beginning of the vaccination process, all employees were informed. Our vaccination rate was completed at 100 percent. As a result of these developments, the work we did was documented. (TSE COVID-19 SAFE SERVICE CERTIFICATE)

What after-sales services do you provide to your customers?

This was a very good question. Quality service does not only continue during the sale, but also before and after the sale. We assume all responsibility for the products until the end consumer uses them. We have believed from the beginning that our raw material marketing and sales business is not only focused on volume and profit margin, but on our customer's market success and the ability to maintain long-term business partnership with our company. We have always tried to create win-win situations. We believe the secret to our growing success each year over the past approximately 30 years lies in these factors. Being known as a "Chemical Service" company by our business partners is one of our greatest goals. Additionally, we have an application laboratory for our raw materials. The quality of materials we provide to our customers is tested here. In line with the requests of our business partners, we conduct research and development work on new products and measurement and evaluation work on finished product quality control. Our customers know that raw materials purchased from Veser are, so to speak, insured by Veser and they will not face a problem that cannot be solved with us. We have never compromised on our service, customer satisfaction and quality, and we never will.

What is Veser's perspective on technology? How do you define the role and importance of technology in the sector you serve?

With pandemic conditions and the new normal order, technology has become the most important part of our lives. Computers and smartphones came between us and our partners whom we would visit for coffee, ask about news, and chat with in friendly gatherings. With the mandatory home-office work arrangement, we also became distant from our coworkers. But we also took advantage of this situation. Due to distances, we began to meet more frequently with partners we could not visit in an online environment. The concept of travel disappeared from our lives and of course this saved us time. Actually, I can say we started working more efficiently. The companies from which we source raw materials are in a position that constantly renews themselves in the developing technological order. This compels us to provide our partners with products working in the latest technology.

Does your company have any social responsibility project that you have launched or pioneered? Could you inform us about them?

In 2019 and 2020, we worked with TEMA (Turkish Erosion Control, Reforestation and Natural Assets Protection Foundation) and on the birthday of our employees, we made a small memorial forest by donating five seedlings in the name of each employee. In 2021, we implemented our social responsibility project in the field of education and selected a school as a sister school that we thought we could contribute to. We enriched the school library with both donations from our employees and company support. On the day classes started, we visited the school, personally handed over our gifts and experienced the joy of our younger siblings together. We established a football field and increased sports facilities. At the end of July 2021, in the Muğla fire that burned our lungs, we procured fire extinguishing equipment, quilts, blankets, sheets, kitchen utensils, men's and women's underwear, burn creams and various necessities with donations collected from all our employees and our company, and distributed them to those in need. At the same time, to adapt to innovation, we use the highest technology needed in our company operations and measure our efficiency. Veser's quality is not only its products but its family as well. We view improving the standard of living of our employees, increasing their knowledge and skills, enabling them to receive training and develop themselves as primary objectives in our internal planning process, and we desire all personnel to embrace these goals. Every year we proceed with achievable policies to increase our quality and continue our formation by improving all parts in a coordinated manner on the road to success.

What measures have you taken during production for a more sustainable world? In this context, how would you define Veser's perspective on sustainability?

Our greatest luck is our distributors... It is a topic that comes up in almost every product meeting for us. All our distributors are engaged in research and development work to create a more environmentally friendly world and provide more liveable opportunities for future generations. We happily communicate each new development to our supplier companies and provide new formulation support to change their product contents. Protecting nature, animals, humans, and moreover our future should not be a social responsibility ritual, a marketing policy - this is a necessity and an obligation. As the Veser family, we are happy and hopeful that we have integrated this into both our business operations and our social life.

Could you tell us about your goals for the coming years? What innovations await Veser in the coming years?

Like all companies, our greatest goal is to make our growing structure sustainable and permanent. For this reason, like yesterday, we will be with our customers tomorrow with new raw materials, different suppliers and new research and development projects. In addition, inorganic growth through company mergers and acquisitions that will strengthen us are also among our objectives.