MondayAGRIBUSINESS

TuesdayENERGY DEVELOPMENT

WednesdayTRAVEL, TOURISM & AVIATION

ThursdayINFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES

FridayENTREPRENEURSHIP

FATMANURERDO⁄AN

fatmanur@kariyeryolculugu.com

18FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2008ECONOMIC REVIEW / SectorsDN

The ‘sectors’ page of HürriyetDN is the venue of our weekly exploration of the deeper dynamics in Turkey’s economy

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Preparationsalone don’t cut it

Nestle: How it all began hereFULYA ÖZERKAN

BERLIN - Hürriyet Daily News

The history of the world's largest food andbeverage giant, Nestle, in Turkey is long,even older than the Republic.

Establishing its first building in Istan-bul-Karaköy in 1909, the world-famousSwiss brand supplied food during theBalkan war. Black and white photos de-picting part of the Nestle team provide aclue to its long past. A number of middle-aged Ottomans from the Nestle-Karaköyoffice are seen wearing the traditional fezand using the Arabic writing system.

"Next year, we will publish a photo-graph album from past to present mark-ing the 100th year of the brand inTurkey," said Alexandre Cantacuzene, se-nior president of Nestle, responsible forthe Asia-Oceania-Africa region.

Four years after the proclamation ofthe Republic in 1923, Nestle founded itsfirst factory in Istanbul-Feriköy and hascontinued to grow since then.

Many firsts

"Nestle has many firsts in Turkey," saidCantacuzene. The first chocolate with pis-tachio in 1933, the first baby milk in 1968and the first coffee mixes in 2002, are a few.

Six Nestle factories in Turkey provide5,000 people with employment. Five of thefactories produce bottled water and theother produces food and beverages.

"Nestle is not only a chocolate company,contrary to misconceptions among someTurkish consumers," said Cantacuzene.

With 400 brands in Turkey alone, Nestletailors its products to suit local tastes and

needs. The company officials say there areover 200 different blends of Nescafe and it isthe world's leading coffee brand.

The coffee mix "Nescafe Üçü BirArada" (Three in One), is produced forthe Turkish market. Cantacuzene said itwas only recently that the product startedto be mixed in the Nestle factory in thenorthwestern Turkish city of Bursa.

"Previously, it was imported from Thai-land and only repackaged in Turkey, andnow we have the full mix of coffee, sugarand creamer prepared in Turkey," he said.

Cantacuzene said the company hasmade YTL 110million in investments overthe last three years, particularly in confec-tionery. For its global production, Nestlepurchased YTL 85 million worth of hazel-nuts from Turkey. "Also, 70 percent of

culinary products produced by NestleTurkey are exported," he said.

Cantacuzene provided details about theconsumption of Nestle products in Turkey.

"Fifty-five cups of Nescafe are con-sumed per second in Turkey… around 140million glasses of milk were consumed inTurkey with Nesquik in 2007," he said.

Not only does the brand offer new tastesfor Turks but also sweetens their lives, byundertaking social responsibility projects.

"Over 20,000 children have developedhealthy nutrition habits as part of the pro-gram, 'Beslenebilirim' in Turkish," saidCantacuzene. "Although our bottled waterproduction has increased by 75 percent overthe last four years, we managed to reducewater consumption by 12 percent and en-ergy consumption by 19 percent."

We like to think of ourselves as gifted individuals whocan conquer the business world with good education,elaborate plans and fine strategies. Experts tell us ev-eryday what works and what doesn’t. We listen totheir convincing theories and presume that businesssuccess is predictable and is just a matter of carefulapplication of known business principles.

This approach to success causes many businessesto experience desperation at one point or another.“What more can I do tomakemy product sell?” criesthe owner. But after countless debates and trials, withno results, he ends up sitting back, hoping that someday business will take off.

If success has a formula, why do businesses haveto go through this frustration? If we have so muchknow-how, shouldn’t we just apply it and succeed?

In an attempt to understand why the world doesnot work this way, I came across Daniel Gilbert, pro-fessor of psychology at Harvard, the author of themuch-acclaimed book ”Stumbling on Happiness.”The findings of his research help explain the discon-nect between theories of success and its realities.

According to Gilbert, we are particularly bad atpredicting the future and making decisions for our-selves. Apparently, since we can’t predict what willhappen, the best way to understand what works andwhat doesn’t is simply to try it. But trying requires tol-erating failure, andmost of us are hard wired to avoidthat at all costs. That is why we pay big dividends tothose willing to risk this kind of failure, to go wher-ever chance and experimentation may lead them.

We need that trial and error to lead the waythrough the new worlds in business, because busi-ness as we used to know it is long gone. Rapidlyevolving Internet technologies and communicationstyles are one of these new lands, and they havechanged the dynamics of business forever. For a longtime, we’ve said “the customer is king” and now ithas finally come true. In this kind of environment,there is no straightforward formula for success. Andsuccess also depends on a healthy dose of luck.When you’ve done all you can do, you have to stoppushing, and just go with the flow.

When luck does finally knock at the door, it comescompletely out of the blue. It comes not because weare brilliant or uniquely talented, but because we justhappen to be in the right place at the right time.

But then, as somebody once said, luck is when op-portunity meets preparation. To take advantage of it,we have to have already put in the hard work, so wecan have that defining moment.

ISTANBULHürriyet Daily News

A substantial proportion of Turkishbusinesses are strongly in favor ofjoining the European Union, butfor most of them the prospect of ac-cession is still a far-away reality, arecent survey has revealed.

Some 72 percent of the compa-nies have not yet started preparationto comply with the acquis commu-nautaire, according to a survey bythe Association of European Cham-bers of Commerce and Industry, orEUROCHAMBRES, and the Unionof Chambers and Commodity Ex-changes of Turkey, or TOBB. Mean-while, 95 percent have no idea ofthe related compliance costs.

The survey, conducted amongnearly 3,000 Turkish companies hasshown that Turkish businesses arenot yet ready for EU accession. Thisis mainly due to lack of informationon EU legislation and on the ad-vancement of the accession nego-

tiation process, EUROCHAMBRESsaid in a press release.

The smaller the company, theless it is informed about EU legis-lation, according to the survey.Some 76 percent of big companiesconsider that they are fully or partlyinformed about the acquis, whilethe percentage drops to 37 percentfor small- and medium-sized en-terprises, or SMEs.

The survey was carried out inthe framework of the EU-TurkeyChambers Forum, or ETCF, whichis a two-year project implementedby EUROCHAMBRES and TOBB.ETCF aims at strengthening mutualknowledge, dialogue and long-term cooperation between theTurkish chambers of commerceand their EU counterparts, thus

promoting the integration of EUand Turkish business communities.ETCF is fully financed by the EUunder the 2006 Program for Pre-Accession Assistance.

Further efforts needed

“The information gap about theacquis in the enterprise sector is notparticular to Turkey and was alreadyidentified in the context of previousenlargements,” said Pierre Simon,president of the EUROCHAMBRES.

Commenting on these findingsduring a conference in Brussels, hesaid, “Nevertheless, survey resultscall for further efforts to ensurethat information on the acquis isavailable to the largest number ofTurkish companies, especiallysmaller ones. The lack of informa-

tion among Turkish businesses onthe conditions for, and conse-quences of, EU accession may leadnot only to un-preparedness tocope with the community singlemarket, but also to mistrust vis-à-vis the accession process.”

The prospect of EU accessionshould be a powerful catalyst to-ward the reforms in Turkey, saidTamer Taflk›n, a member of theTOBB executive board. “In order tokeep Turkish enterprises motivatedto continue reforms, it is very im-portant to enhance communicationand mutual understanding be-tween the business community andto a larger extent the civil societiesto overcome any misperceptions.This is exactly what chambers arecommitted to doing.”

Turkish companies see semi-nars, workshops and conferencesas the best tools to fill their infor-mation gap, and recognize a rolefor chambers of commerce in im-proving their knowledge aboutEU-related issues, EUROCHAM-BRES said. In this respect, theETCF project can play a crucialrole, since it was specifically de-signed to carry out training semi-nars, partnerships betweenTurkish and European chambers,or the publication of manuals onselected EU legislation, it said.

EUROCHAMBRES representsover 19 million member enter-prises in Europe through 45 na-tional associations of chambers ofcommerce and industry and a Eu-ropean network of 2,000 regionaland local chambers. TOBB repre-sents a network of over 1.3 millionenterprises, 365 local chambersand commodity exchanges and 56sector assemblies.

CLUELESS: Only 37 percent of Turkey’s small- and medium-sized enterpises, or SMEs, are informed on what they should to to comply with European Union standards. DAILY NEWS photo, Melek ALDEM‹R

Companies not ready for EUThe majority of Turkish companies are supporting the European Union membershipprocess, but on the ground, they are far away from EU standards. More than two-thirds of companies have not yet started preparations to comply with the acquiscommunautaire, according to a survey. A majority have no idea of the related costs

ESTABLISHED: Nestle, the world’s largest food and beverage company, established its firstbuilding in Istanbul’s Karaköy district in 1909. Its first factory in Turkey was founded in 1927.