Partnerships are key to digital success

Mehmet Ali Akarca: The infrastructure isn't there yet, but we believe all companies will move to the cloud eventually. It gives them more flexibility at a lower cost, and scalability as well, which is quite important for certain industries. For example, in retail, for e-commerce or something like a sports club, you need scalability. But not so much for manufacturing, where reliability is more important. Because if you stop production on the factory floor, obviously, it's very costly. So for different customers, cloud provides different solutions and different benefits.

Gavin: Does it benefit KoçSistem as well?

Ali: Sure, because we manage our own cloud. We've been providing our own cloud solution for the last 10 years in Türkiye. Huawei Cloud enables us to have data sovereignty, and also ease of use.

The Huawei team has been extremely helpful and the results have been really good.

We've been in operation for 79 years and are the market leader in Türkiye. We service the finance, industry, government, retail, insurance, automotive, manufacturing. All these industries require different solutions for their specific problems. If you find your customers’ pain points, then you can really provide solution. I believe that with HCS (Huawei Cloud Services), we will be able to tackle those issues.

The big achievement here will be combining the global knowledge from Huawei with KoçSistem’s deep knowledge of local needs.

Gavin: Your company is at the forefront of driving the digital and intelligent transformation of Türkiye. What are the opportunities and the challenges ahead for the partnership with Huawei cloud there?

Ali: Sure, because we manage our own cloud. We've been providing our own cloud solution for the last 10 years in Türkiye. Huawei Cloud enables us to have data sovereignty, and also ease of use.

Digital transformation is key for Türkiye. Seven years ago we set up a subsidiary called KoçDigital. The main purpose of that company is advanced analytics, AI, and IoT. Seven years ago in Türkiye, this was unheard of, and everyone thought there would be no demand for this. However, more companies are trying to have a digital mindset.

For this digital transformation to happen, and to have an effect, you need to convince people that it’s really good. It starts from the CEO level and goes to all the way down to the workers. Everyone should believe that, by going digital, you will have more opportunity than if you don’t.

This is a crucial thing for Türkiye, because we're an export country. We need to enable our factories, and our companies, to be as digital as any those in any other country. China is a perfect example of that, because the Chinese development of digital is really amazing. It started with payment systems, and now its electric vehicles, solar energy, everything.

It’s crucial for us to follow these trends because we have a mission, not just to foster digitalization, but to enable companies in Türkiye to become more competitive, more in line with global developments.

Gavin: What are the core ingredients of a successful business partnership?

Ali: Our relationship with Huawei started nine years ago, and the first project that we did was terrible. We really had a problem. It wasn't Huawei’s fault. It was a mismatch with customer requirements. But we believed we could really create something together. Today, we are one of the prominent global partners of Huawei.

There’s an African proverb: If you walk alone, you will walk faster. If you walk together, you will go farther. We believe that with Huawei, we can go far.

If you have trust, you can really create something. We believe that, in the long run, you will always have success. Like life itself, you always have some problems. But if you solve that problem together, then you come out of it stronger.