Standard Profil has been around since 1977 and is a leader in their industry. They made a smart move a few years ago and applied the diversification practices used in investing to their customers. Previously, GM was their largest customer, but now they get approximately equal business from VW, GM, Renault, and Fiat. Given GM's bankruptcy, this was a wise move and showed good management. Standard Profil is focused on their customers...they have a specific niche and they do that job well rather than trying to expand into many different parts of automobile manufacturing. When asked how they get feedback for improving their products, they indicated it was mostly from the OEMs who aggregate customer feedback and share it with their suppliers.
We left the factory and headed to a meeting with the Duzce Governor and Mayor. Given our past meeting with the governor of another small town, I expected this would be similarly "quaint". But when we arrived, it was a full-on press conference with journalists and cameras! I guess a group of MBA students from Silicon Valley meeting with the Governor is a pretty big deal. It was a very formal event, including the proper seating positions. I ended up being seated right next to the dean of Duzce University, who also served as a translator for the event. As expected, the entire visit was published in the local paper the following day. You can find the article here. (Notice me sitting taking notes in the second picture.)
Even though it was Ramadan, the Governor offered us juice and chocolates but not until after his assistant had gone around with lemon hand sanitizer to everyone in the room. Since we were sitting in his office, seating 26 of us was a little awkward but we made it work. The office was very new and nicely decorated. The Governor and Mayor answered a lot of questions and shared their insights with us. Some of the key topics were:
- Priorities for the region: Education, proper development of industrialization, addressing needs of the young generation.
- Common characteristics of successful business leaders in the region: Willingness to accept and take risk, courageous, keep track of world events, competent in analyzing how their business fits in.
- View of the US: Friends, important for the US to have friendly Islamic countries like Turkey, government style in the US is similar to the Ottoman Empire, people in the US don't have the correct view of what's happening in the world, the US isn't a different world -- it's part of the world.
I also came away with an appreciation for how the Turkish government functions. They have this local and central government (similar to our local and federal) but I think it's better in some ways. For example, the governor is appointed by the central government for a term of 5 years (for that specific region) while the mayor is elected by the people. They work together and there really is no hierarchy between them. One of the benefits of this is that the governor can make some less popular, but needed, decisions without worrying about being re-elected.
After the governor's office (where we again received nice gifts!) we proceeded to the Duzce Art (vocational) school to see some of the local craftspeople working. They were doing a bunch of activities such as painting plates, making jewelry, and creating what I called "oil and vinegar art". All the MBA students had a chance to do some of this too and the oil and vinegar art was by far the most popular. Basically, you had a tray of water and into this tray you splattered some different colored paints. Then you could use various tools to swirl them around or make interesting designs, but it was still entirely liquid even though they didn't mix together. Once you had a design you liked, you simply laid a piece of paper on top of the liquid and the color and "image" was transferred over. Pretty cool!
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| From 2010 Turkey |
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| From 2010 Turkey |
We had a few minutes to kill after the art school and luckily there was an outdoor bazar happening nearby. This gave us the opportunity to see how the locals shopped since the grand bazar back in Istanbul is very touristy. It was sort of like a farmers market in the sense that there was a lot of fresh food sold (including some tasty, salted string cheese stuff) but there were also staples like cleaning products, clothing, and bathroom supplies. Unlike in Istanbul, probably 98% of the women I saw at the bazar wore headscarves.
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| From 2010 Turkey |
We ate lunch at the Berceste Restaurant which was OK but I didn't think it was amazing. They did have good baklava for dessert though!
After lunch we piled back into the bus for the long drive to Ankara, Turkey's capital. We arrived at the Rixos Hotel which is super trendy even though the customer service was less than stellar. They had metal detectors at the front door and the security guys in front of the hotel used mirrors to check for bombs under every car that pulled up. I'm not sure if this is standard but we later found out the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan was staying there at the same time so they might have had increased security. Most of the folks in the hotel lobby were in business suits so as MBA students we felt a bit under-dressed.
The hotel rooms were by far the fanciest we stayed in during the trip. When you put your key into the light switch, the whole room came to life including the curtains which were motorized and programed to open when you entered the room. The photos below can explain the modern style of the room better than I can.
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| From 2010 Turkey |
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| From 2010 Turkey |
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| From 2010 Turkey |
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| From 2010 Turkey |
For dinner we met up with a Turkish friend of Andrea's who had lived in San Francisco for three years. It was great to have a local guide us and take us out for dinner. We drove about 20 minutes from the hotel to a part of Ankara that felt modern and posh, sort of like Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles. The restaurants and bars were trendy and there were nice Porsches, Mercedes, and BMWs parked out front. Something that was particularly cool, but would never work in the US, is that when we arrived our host Cem spoke to the taxi driver and of course we asked how much we owed. He replied telling us nothing...that we'd pay the driver after he comes back to get us after dinner. What? Really? They exchanged cell phone numbers and off the taxi went. Sure enough, when we called him later he came back for us.
At dinner Cem asked "Do you trust me to do the ordering?" and of course we said yes so he got us an awesome spread of amazing food. The most interesting thing was a raw lamb dish in lettuce wraps. The lamb was heavily spiced and ground up. Even though it sounded gross it was actually very good.
Cem is obviously pretty well connected since he pulled some strings to get Andrea a room upgrade at the hotel and managed to get a few free rounds of drinks at the bar after dinner. This is also part of the Turkish culture. They're very relationship driven and you go out of your way to help out friends, as he was doing for us. This is something I'd like to adopt when I get back home. I feel like our lives are often so busy that you don't go out of the way to help people or even to really engage with people.
After dinner we headed across the road to a bar where once again we were able to sit outdoors in the warm climate. We proceeded to have a few more drinks, include the findik (pronounced 'fun dick'!) shots which are some type of hazelnut liquor (hazelnuts are a big part of the agriculture business in Turkey.) This was another one of the most fun nights I had on the trip.
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