If we ask 100 leaders: “Which word do you use most frequently?”…   

Probably, one of the answers would be ‘change’.  Almost all books about business indicate the same thing.  Change, change, change… Its benefits, how it works, requirements, learned parts were discussed in many articles. Ok, is it easy to change yourself and change others?  Is there a recipe that we can use for changing ourselves quickly? 

Change is difficult, painful, hurts and even sometimes bleeds, however, change is a part of natural flow of life.  There is nothing unchanged in this world.  So, why do we struggle?  Perhaps, saying “I'm the Change” is the best solution. 

Borusan is one of my best chances in this life... It is a keystone that enables realization of my passion for change and my actual identity. I was born and grown in Borusan.  In my nearly 18-year journey in Borusan, I’ve worked in different roles, different projects, and each story reminded me over and over again that I’m the change.

After graduation, I started my career in financial affairs as the alpha of the present, the nurture of the past. On the green grass of METU (the university I graduated from), in a blink of an eye, I dived into account plans and budgets. I said, “Oh my God, what kind of world is this?” It doesn't look like the world I've read about in the books. And then I thought: to have an idea, you have to know first. The ability to learn is the most crucial part. I started to work a lot and understand, and enjoyed as I understand, and learned more as I enjoy. So, I tried to play a role in every new initiative of the company. I've set up systems. I've seen that no matter what you do, every story has a beginning and an end. The system alone is not enough, the processes are also crucial.

Next thing I know, I'm a 6 Sigma Project Manager. A 3-year period full of projects and processes... It was incredibly fun. Now, I know one more thing. Systems, processes and sustainability. Ideas are valuable when they are put to practice.

The journey led me to financial affairs department and then to the strategy department. It's a completely different world. You have to understand, determine and support the realization where a huge organization should shift the helm, what it should focus on, how it should behave. Sectors, market facts, management opinions, employee needs, digitalization, innovation... The journey of learning also continued here with its prosperousness.  Systems, processes, sustainability and strategy. A true and on time vision always takes you one step further…

Then, my journey took me to the operation department. Service, parts and all after-sales support functions... It's not simple, it's the heart of the problems and your job is to manage the problem. I'm talking about service and parts, technical knowledge is very much needed here but oddly enough, I don't have it. And I'm not even an engineer, and I'm a woman😊 and I'm sure a lot of my friends couldn't understand this role, because I wouldn't be wrong if I say I didn't find it weird sometimes. All I know so far is that I learn fast, create processes from the beginning and change.

Service experience is the most critical part for our customers. Every customer have the right to get fast, high quality, and convenient service... There are regional directorate organizations for that. Different customer/employee experiences in each location according to capacity and competence…  An organization of 500 people, 9 workshops, 9 warehouses, dozens of shuttles, tools, that is, various options and a strong capacity…. Despite all these, customers who cannot reach us, limited technical support, workshops of different levels, non-standard processes, different customer, and employee experiences...  Seeing these, I said “Let's rewrite the rules of the game and make a revolution in our services.”, just as expected from me. But let's create such a unique business model that no one can imitate it.

Then let's make a claim... in favor of our customers; everywhere in Turkey, we will not let customers' machines be idle with our fast, lean, efficient, and standard processes. It's an incredibly challenging claim, but I know: hard can be achieved, and impossible takes time. And we just need time.

If a person clearly determines his/her goal, he/she knows what to fight against, even if the journey is tough. It is important to create a team that will focus on this goal, experience the same pain and joy at the same time, feel the spirit of revolution in them. Value is parallel to your assets and process, but it's your companions who change the game, who make something out of nothing, and who destroy what exists.

The belief in change in the eyes of each of my companion made me even more enthusiastic. We started to rewrite the rules.

Does the customer have a problem of reaching us? Then let's set up a Service Contact Center. 

Why a customer could not reach us? Because they only have one contact: Service Engineers. They are also so busy that countless calls from customers are missed. Imagine being a customer. You have a problem; your machine is let idle but you haven't called the service yet. Imagine being an engineer. The phones always ringing, the work doesn't end. But the time has changed. We are now accessible: anytime and anywhere. Now, when a customer wants to contact us, they can send us an email, write a message from WhatsApp, or call the call center. We've increased the request channels.  Incoming requests are categorized and forwarded to our planning team. Our planners are technicians with at least 10 years of technical experience. They know the customer, know the job and know the technician. They assign the right technician to the right job. If your planning is strong, you quickly understand the problem and get to work quickly. Our planners are really crucial in this context. If you position the right experience in the right place, the world changes. Some figures today explain our development pretty well. In 2018, we received a total of 22,500 requests from 2,524 different customers. In the last 3 years, we made 1 m € worth extra sales from 260 customers who did not buy a product from us before but received the service. Our demand response time reduced from 5 days to 2 days.  That's the revolution!

Is there limited technical support on the field? Let's establish a SWAT team.

Competence is not built easily in sectors like ours. It takes time. And you can't know everything at the same time. I can't know everything either, but if I can reach anyone who knows them, I can solve all my problems. Then we decided to create such a sophisticated center operate as our library, our brain. At the time of the need, we can quickly solve the problems with the power of technical support. And that's what we did. Today, our SWAT team serves everywhere in Turkey for 24/7 and solves even the unsolvable.  Especially our dealers use this formation immensely. Our dealers account for 50% of incoming requests, and it is also nice to see the development of our dealers.

We can't survey our work, everything is in our agendas, then let WE-KING come into our lives.

In the past, everything was in books, minds, whiteboards. Who will be where, and what the consequence of this were only known by engineers. It's necessary to digitalize it. We have shown all the effort. We had the Viking app, but it's bulky, it doesn't fit our work but we've invested a lot. If you have dreams, sometimes you have to accept your mistake and bear the cost of it. It takes courage, I know. If we can't perform data and process mining, we can't run our business. We bravely turned the Viking into WEKING. We started the journey from scratch all over again. Now we have a digital platform that starts from demand and then goes to planning. And we put everything on a phone.  We even patented WEKING. Now we know: Where is the problem, where should we focus, where are we strong? Thanks to this platform, we also managed to increase our technician utilization from 75% to 80%.

Our future, CRCs…

Workshops with 9 different competencies... It looks messy so let's centralize them. Let's pour our source here. Okay, we're not factories, but we can make our processes to operate as a factory. With this vision, we have invested in 2 large facilities. We have created completely different workshops both in terms of process and system. With the same human resource, we doubled the capacity. We've accelerated the process by 4 times with the right steps... We started to internalize everything we were outsource from outside. We have increased our production and repair capabilities.  For this reason, we are transforming our workshops in our locations and increasing the capacity of our CRCs every day. In 2018, we set a historical record with a total of 2,500 revisions. Our Gebze TAT period decreased from 40 days to 15 days. We can now do 85% of the work here, at this facility which we normally outsourced before. This transition has also been quite difficult. Moving the service here, especially from locations, requires very serious investments and processes.

Stores, support operations, digital applications and many more effective steps... We have proven that some jobs can work out more effectively and of good quality without the need to supervise all affairs all the time. In operations, our job is changing the rules of the game. There are no limits in our lives anymore. Knowledge, experience, parts, components, everything can change places, and this organization takes shape according to needs.  We're water. Strong and real, and a source of life like water. We take the shape of every place we enter. Isn't that power and wealth?

In the meantime, we are still trying to be a solution for our changing problems.

So, was it easy to take these steps? A whole organization, 25 years of experience, customers who are used to it, and leaders who only know how to change... I admit it was very difficult and every one of them was so real. Change is easy in words, very difficult in reality. We've received countless complaints; we've hit the wall countless times. Especially the process of deciding on the first model. We crawled ... it was really impossible without my companions, my mentors, who shone a light on me on this journey, who lifted me when I fell, who pushed me very, very hard, with the same faith and vision as me. A diamond needs the right pressure to form, and that pressure does not care whether you are a woman, a man, this or that.  So, I have some advice for you;

• Trust yourself and continue learning every day!
• Build good, strong relationships and healthy communication!
• Enjoy every moment of our journey!
• And say, "I am the change!"

Özlem Caymaz

Author

I was born and raised in Borusan, and have been living in Ankara since my university days. I studied business administration at ODTÜ. I am a mother of 2 children. If not for my current job, I would like to become a doctor. I believe that the meaning of life is to benefit my loved ones and all people.