Interview with İsmail Darcan, Chairman of the Board of Boytek

Boytek Chairman İsmail Darcan discussed the Turkish composite market's challenges and solutions with us, drawing on his 40 years of professional experience in the sector.

Could you give our readers a brief overview of Boytek?

Our company, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year, entered the chemical industry in 1978 in Yenibosna with the production of alkyd and polyester resins. We operate production at two locations with a capacity of 85,000 tonnes per year. Our production portfolio includes polyester resins for all types of composite applications, vinyl esters, gelcoats, pigment pastes and SMC/BMC. Our priority is to produce the right product for the right application at the highest quality and consistent standards through customer-focused R&D. Our products have been exported to Europe, Asia and Africa since 1986. The company also supplies all the inputs required by the sector to the market. Since 1999, we have operated in compliance with ISO 9001, 14001 and 18001 standards, and we rank first among sector players in our region and European countries.

Forty years is quite a long time in Turkish industry. To what do you attribute your continuous development over this period?

Over the past 40 years, our priorities have been: being different without copying anyone, continuing new product development, producing fast and customer-specific products, working continuously, constantly training ourselves, our customers and our employees, and increasing environmental awareness. In this way, we have managed to maintain both our success and continued imitation by others.

Could you briefly inform us about the composite sector? What are the problems facing this sector and what solutions do you propose?

Our sector has diverse application areas. The consumption of unsaturated polyester resins serving the construction, automotive, maritime, textile, furniture and irrigation sectors continues to show the fastest growth trend in our country. Since the 2008 crisis, in the global economic climate, political developments caused by globalization influence economic developments, which in turn affect the psychology of people worldwide. In this context, our country has been affected by all these factors and will continue to be affected by both its logistical advantages and disadvantages and by globalization. Unfortunately, our raw material inputs have only 45 percent domestic content, and since they are petrochemical-based inputs, they are rapidly affected by the changes in the global economic climate I mentioned earlier. For this reason, I have insisted for decades in every forum that we must undertake petrochemical investments in our country to free ourselves from foreign dependence and to eliminate price differences in input supply. Turkey's economic development must primarily be based on production. I must note that in this regard, sector players and decision-makers also have a responsibility.

Despite these problems you have mentioned, could we ask for your views on the situation of sector players?

While some sector players continue their quality understanding in accordance with the principle of sustainability, some players are acting unconsciously and in the short term, guiding consumers to lower prices rather than properly directing them, thereby adopting an attitude that hinders the sector and the development of composite products. The solution to this is possible through the awareness of sector players and sector associations working together. With this sensitivity, our company has been publishing the "Composite World" newsletter every three months since 2006, which is an important information source for the sector, informing players in the market. Additionally, for the past three years, our company has been organizing meetings called "Economic and Sectoral Evaluation Sessions" for sector players at the Gorrion Hotel within our facilities, and I note that we are a company that is setting direction for the sector and pioneering in this regard.

Finally, do you have a message for the sector?

I must emphasize that we have been the doyen of this sector for 40 years. As İsmail Darcan, I have had to continuously shape our company policies within a single circle of "past-present-future." I wish that market players will continuously blend quality, rules, humanity, chemistry, the environment, employees, stability and development in the same circle and move forward for many more 40-year periods with this understanding like Boytek. I also wish them to understand the importance of the spirit of entrepreneurship and to contribute to our country's economic development and employment.