Interview with Ugur Guntekin (Arda Unal)

Interview with Ugur Guntekin (Arda Unal)

      Today (07/16/2013) Efekan and I had an interview with Ugur Guntekin, Ankara Region Manager at Promena which is the first institutional e purchasing company in Turkey . He introduced the fundamentals of the system and the need for it in the market through starting from 80s. In US and Europe, these systems have generally been used as internal services to buy need. According to Mr. Guntekin, these purchases can be classified into two: Direct and Indirect purchases. Direct purchases are usually purchases of raw materials; for instance, purchases of sugar, flour and dried fruits are direct purchases for a company that produces chocolate, confectionery and baked goods. Indirect purchases on the other hand are purchases of supplementary materials and services such as logistics, alteration and purchases of tools. Mr. Guntekin expressed that companies generally use Promena's services for direct purchasing, if there are multiple companies that produce the product they need.

        Mr. Guntekin also explained that early results of the usage of online purchasing portal were not as bright as expected on the paper. He believes that this arises from the lack of the consulting services. For that reason, they have an experienced consulting team to be able to reach the real potential of the system. They give advices about the appropriate time to purchase and other strategies for more profitable purchasing.

        Their portal offers the concept of quick purchasing besides tender. Companies that need to purchase in small amounts may use this feature to fasten the process. Promena has a universal stack of suppliers from each purchasing process, unless the buyer wants to keep their suppliers private. Each company in the portal has access to their previous purchases. Additionally, if a supplier company wants to take place in the stack, they have to have an invitation from a buyer.

     Their fees are completely variable according to customers. They get commissions from savings, sometimes for each tender; they offer request for information and consulting services for a price. Furthermore, he mentioned about the challenges of this business such as lack of well educated staff in the sales and purchasing department of companies. Especially for construction sector in Turkey, it is very challenging to apply this portal because tender process is so traditional, ossified and close to new methods. Therefore, this transformation from traditional to online portals is slower than expected.

        I believe that whole drama lies on whether we will provide consulting services and will be able to make our way in the market among all these strong competitors and internal purchasing services.