Innovation for the consumer and the environment
Arçelik received 7 different awards for their products in 2014 by IF Design Awards. We recently spoke with Cem Kural, the Director of Research & Development at Arçelik A.Ş., to learn more about how they approach innovation, as well as what makes the company more innovative than others. Mr. Kural joined us at the recent Turkish-German Innovation Summit as a featured panelist.
GSC: The company's vision is "Respects the Globe, Respected Globally". What does this vision signify for Arҫelik's Research and Development?
Cem Kural: Arçelik Group's vision "Respects the Globe, Respected Globally" forms the essence of its R&D strategy as it establishes and sets a guiding principle for all of the business activities we are involved with. Our vision emphasizes the importance of developing innovative, resource-efficient products and services, which reflect the current and future needs of our consumers, globally. In addition to enhancing the quality of lives of our consumers, our vision underlines the principle of minimizing the impact of our products on the environment during their whole life cycle. In line with our corporate vision; R&D agenda might be summarized as developing new technologies that are respectful for both our customers and our environment.
Developing special compartments in our fridges that keep different food fresh for longer periods of time - it can be vegetables in Europe or rice in China; or enhancing our wash cycle performance to have perfect and hygenic washing results even at low temperatures, in line with the needs of our consumers from different regions of the world, are examples of this philosophy. While developing these technologies we also ensure that our products minimize their impact on the natural resources of our planet so we place special emphasis on increasing the energy efficiency and decreasing the water consumption of our products. Arçelik's investments in research, technology and product development activities date back to the late ‘80s. Having more than 20 years of R&D experience and operating laboratories equipped with state-of-the-art technology, Arçelik Group has made its mark in lots of innovations and presented environmentally-friendly, pioneering and advanced products to the consumers.
GSC: Arҫelik Group has numerous brands: Arçelik, Beko, Grundig, Defy, Arctic, Blomberg, Elektrabregenz, Leisure, Flavel and Altus. With so many different brands, how does your company ensure it remains innovative in all of these areas?
Cem Kural: Innovation is at the heart of our strategy in line with our vision "Respects the Globe, Respected Globally". Innovation in our company is triggered by the technological advancements or new ideas stemming from our R&D team along with the market analysis and consumer insights, which are fed back by all the sales and marketing teams. With strong R&D expertise we develop technologies and products that meet and exceed the expectations and requirements of our consumers in different markets. We value the cultural differences and the diversity of consumer requirements from different regions of the world and tailor our products accordingly. The capability to develop high-quality products using our own technology, strong R&D, continuous innovation culture, flexibility and ability to operate in different countries and adapt the product range to serve different markets and consumer needs are the most significant factors behind the overall success of our company. As a result of our branded growth policy, we continue to increase our market share in countries where we operate and we are the second largest white goods company in the Europe - Middle East - Africa region. Besides our strong leadership in Turkey with Arçelik brand, we maintain our leadership with Arctic in Romania and Defy in South Africa. Beko, the global brand of Arcelik Group, is the brand which increased its market share the most within the last 7 years in Europe and continues to be the 2nd largest white goods brand in Europe during the first half of 2014. Beko has also increased its market share in Germany, the biggest white goods market of Europe, more than 2-fold in the last 5 years. Additionally, we leverage from the strength of our Grundig brand thanks to its high quality, unique design and brand recognition in many countries around the world. Grundig is the only supplier in Europe, which has products at all categories of house electronics. We support our vision with our sustainable, profitable growth strategy that focuses on technology, innovation, design, quality and brand. It has always been our priority to try to understand the consumers everywhere we are operating, be close to the consumers - to the users of our products. In this direction, we will continue to strengthen our market position and expand our global presence by giving high priority to the cultural differences and different demands of our consumers worldwide and developing tailored technologies that can satisfy these diversified needs.
GSC: "IF Design Awards is one of the world's most prestigious awards in the field of design. Thousands of products and brands from around the world compete to be most innovative. Arçelik was awarded with 7 different products in 2014. What and which products make Arçelik more innovative than the others?"
Cem Kural: It is a great honor for us to be awarded with different technology, innovation and design awards during the last decade. This is a significant acknowledgement of our technology, innovation and design capability and we will continue to offer "the most" and "the first" products and services to our consumers for sustainable leadership.
Arçelik Group has been the undisputed patent champion of Turkey for years, and for the past five years Arçelik has been in the list of the top 200 companies globally filing patent applications with the World Intellectual Property Organization. According to the 2011-2012-2013 Annual Reports of European Patent Office (EPO), half of the Turkish applications registered by EPO belong to Arçelik. After receiving The Most Innovative Company of Turkey prize in 2012, Arçelik was awarded with the Innovation Leadership prize by the Turkish Exporters' Association in 2013 as a result of its consistent efforts in the field of innovation. There are lots of innovative products we launched recently. To name a few: the refrigerator with the ice cream maker: This product offering home-made ice-cream joy by its integrated ice-cream machine went into mass production and put into consumers' taste in 2013. Refrigerator with special rice shelf is another example of our innovation power. Specifically designed for the Chinese market this product was awarded by CHEARI (China Household Electric Appliance Research Institute) "Innovative Product" title in 2012. Automatic Tea Maker which is the "First and only" automatic tea making machine of Turkey launched in 2013, offers brewing tea in perfect way that suits consumers' taste. Tea can be brewed more lucidly with Filter Sense technology and the taste of tea can be kept two times longer. Dolphin Washing Machine with its energy and detergent efficient features, HomefritteTM Accessory which enables healthy frying with 10 times less oil than usual deep fries or our dishwasher with Auto GlassShieldTM technology enabling 20 times longer lifetime for glassware are some of the other examples of our innovative products.
GSC: Thank you for this interview, Mr. Kural.
More information: www.arcelik.com.tr