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Not innovative enough, not open
enough, not specific enough, not
sensational enough – CeBIT attracts
a critical public, spoilt by the rapid
technological progress of recent years into
smiling somewhat condescendingly at
Turkey’s efforts to promote itself. The announcement
by Turkish Prime Minister
Erdogan that »in a very short time« one
fifth of its exports will come from the IT
sector, was not enough to make many
trade visitors drop their mask of nerdy,
professional coolness and lethargy.
Yet the Turkish stand did offer some
surprises and plenty of evidence of the
country’s impressive rise up the ranks as
an IT nation. A total of 81 Turkish companies
presented an enormously diverse
image of the local electronics industry.
Exhibitors at the 4,300-square-metre
stand showed that worthwhile differences
lie in the detail. For instance, the East of
Turkey does not have a very good network
of specialist electronics stores – a disadvantage
that the region is counteracting
by achieving enormous growth in the ecommerce
sector, according to Efe Aras,
manager of Istanbul applications developer
Visilabs. »A large number of online
sales platforms for second-hand goods
supply these outlying areas.« Turkish portals
like hepsiburada.com and sahibinden.com
are opting, like global player
Amazon, for personalised advertising and
deals tailored to individual customers.
The software for this is being developed in
Turkey – with companies like Visilabs only
now starting to forge contacts with foreign
companies. »Particularly in Central
Asia, we are hoping for some enormous
growth rates«, reports Aras.
KocSistem, the technology arm of industrial
giant Koc, showcased some RFID
systems that simplify the process of tracing
individual freight deliveries in the
major trade centres of the world. Company
representative Resat Helvaci sees the
Middle East as having plenty of catching
up to do in terms of technology. »Dispatch
processes for freight containers in many
areas are still not effective enough compared
to those in Europe. RFID technology
prevents goods from being lost and speeds
up the loading and unloading process.«
The planned privatisation of Turkish
ports in the second half of 2011 is being
seen as a good marketing opportunity: »It
will attract investors to the country and
increase our volume of trade with Western
Europe.«
Building a bridge
to Germany
If you were expecting the Turkish stands
to have some their own developments on
this year’s keynote theme of »Cloud Computing«
(access to data and programs via
an internet server without having to store
it all locally), you would have come away
empty-handed. Both Turkey and the
Middle East are still developing countries
in this regard. »We have our hands full
distributing the technology in Germany. I
am not aware of any enquiries from the
Islamic region«, says Mark Clark of Siemens
Communications – a surprising situation,
given that Turkey, unlike many of
its neighbouring countries, already has a
well-developed broadband network.
While this technology is already successfully
cutting costs in IT departments
all over Europe IT, its use in Turkey is still
limited to insider get-togethers like the
CloudCamp held in September 2010 for
the first time in Istanbul, which attracted
some 160 participants. But there were no
business people congregating there – only
TuRkEy
representatives from an avant-garde network.
When asked about their experience
with Turkey, CeBIT press spokespeople
from IBM and Microsoft to Cisco, who were
all focusing on Cloud technologies, reacted
as though they had been caught short:
»Please leave us your contact details and we
will get in touch with you in the next few
days«, was the standard response.
There was positive evidence, however,
of some close interaction between German
and Turkish companies. Mobile phone
company Turkcell is opening its European
group headquarters in Cologne in
April. The company wants to secure millions
of customers by offering them particularly
good connections to Turkey. However,
none of the Turkcell staff could tell
zenith how much growth they were targeting
in the first few months, nor provide
any information about how they planned
to differentiate themselves from established
competitors in the market.
Turkey undoubtedly has a long way to
go as an IT nation before it can live up to
the expectations of its Prime Minister. But
developments are certainly happening
and in Germany too attempts are being
made to set the right course and help German
companies tap into the market. Albeit
on a small scale, the »Türk-Alman
Business Center«, the brainchild of Lower
Saxony promotional organisations, NGlobal
and Hannoverimpuls, is the first port
of call for German business people wanting
to make contact with the Turkish IT
scene. The North German state is attempting
to target Turkish companies and promote
itself as an attractive investment location
– the only such initiative in Germany
so far. It will also be accompanying the
up-coming Lower Saxony Foreign Trade
Forum in April 2011 – with Turkey once
again in the spotlight as the Partner
Country for this event.
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