Through this cooperation with the ESMT, TÜSIAD, which actively pursues its determined work towards increasing the digital transformation capacity of the Turkish industry, aims to contribute to the competitiveness of the Turkish economy by the leverage of digitalization. The initial module of the cooperation project, which is designed as three modules of conceptual as well as practical contribution to the existing activities of TÜSIAD, took place in the format of an executive program on 4-5 May 2017 at TÜSIAD Headquarters in İstanbul. TÜSİAD Board Member and Leader of Industrial Transformation Roundtable Mr. Bahadır BALKIR underlined the following points in his opening speech:
“We are in a process that would change and transform individuals, industries as well as societies at large. In this process that could be defined as the digital evolution of industry, those who are quick and who would adjust themselves most rapidly to this transformation, will win”.
“As TÜSIAD, we are emphasizing this need on every possible occasion since 2015, in order to protect our country’s competitive power and for the sake of economic and environmental sustainability. With this understanding, we have defined one of our focus areas in our working programme as industrial transformation. Via TÜSIAD’s Industrial Transformation Roundtable and Working Group on Industry 4.0, we focus on studies, which aim for triggering a comprehensive industrial transformation in the global economy to further increase the competitive power of Turkey. As an important component of our activities, we have initiated this cooperation project with the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) that has already carried out extensive studies about digital transformation topic”.
In this initial module, ESMT professors Olaf Plötner and Joe Peppard as well as Maximillian von Loebbecke, Founder of 365FarmNet presented their work focused on global competitiveness and the adaptation of companies to digitalization. The module was concluded by a panel with the participation of TÜSIAD Industry 4.0 Working Group Co Chairs Ali Rıza Ersoy and Oğuzhan Öztürk.
1 The cooperation with the ESMT is part of TÜSIAD’s wider communication strategy towards Germany. In this context, a cooperation agreement encompassing a period of three years and focusing on the Industry 4.0 topic was concluded between the Turkey Culture of Change Initiative (www.tcci-de.org) founded in Berlin in 2013 and the ESMT.