August 14, 2012

1. What kind of work are you doing to keep track of your competitors? (To try the products and services of competitors at home or abroad, to do Market Research in marketing departments, to do field studies with sales team, to do media monitoring, etc...)

Getting to know competitors is an important issue for us as well as all companies. As for what we're doing, we're actually doing all of the examples you've given us in your problem. We follow our competitors in two ways. The first is what we can do at the desk. Competition tracking is much easier for companies than before because you can look at the company's web site and track their work on social networks. When you search the internet, you have the opportunity to access a lot of information easily. You can look at information banks and catalogs with information about companies in Turkey and abroad. We're doing this kind of research on our competitors.

The second method is field tracking... we can get a lot of information about our competitors from our sales and marketing teams in the field. Our customers are a very important source of information in this respect. They know you well as competing companies. Information from our customers reaches the management through our sales team. Suppliers where you receive joint services are also good sources of information. Information from suppliers is also collected by our purchasing units. In addition, international fairs are among the best places to see what the competitors are doing.…

In the category of disposable plastic plates, cups, cutlery, spoons, we can see by an interesting way who shares the market share in this sector in any country. The best place to see such products is in the trash cans. When we go to a country with our sales team, we stop our car at regular intervals along the way and look at the garbage cans. At first glance, we can easily understand which companies are involved in the market and which ones are more active in the market. You might think of it as a practical and short-term competitor & market research…

 

2.  What does it add to you to follow the opponent, to be aware of what his opponent is doing? How does it add value to your strengths and weaknesses? What kind of contribution does it make to strengthen your position in the market to take action against your opponent?

We follow the opponent in the concept of “Game Theory” by Nobel Laureate mathematician John Nash. This theory says that if all players are directed to the same goal, they will reduce the chances of getting it; if they are directed to different goals, they will increase.As a result, the market is an entire field with competitors. If you detect your opponent's strategy and then set a strategy accordingly, you will be more successful. How good or how fast you are depends on your opponent's field of action and what you're doing. We follow our competitors to build our own game, strategy. We see that it is more accurate to find areas where our competitor does not play, leaves empty or weak and to act accordingly and produce more successful results for our company.

We have positioned SEM plastik in plastic packaging sector as a different company that will not be compared to its competitors in this sector. We are a company that can produce many products at the same time. For example, we can produce both disposable plastic products and plastic packaging used in the food industry as well as travel equipment that will meet the needs of airline companies. We take our services to our customers with a team that specializes in the fields of business of our customers. We are leaving our competitors in this direction. Our goal is not better than our competitors, but to be different from them. Last year, we were awarded the fastest growing companies by the joint venture of Harvard Business School, TOBB and TEPAV and this strategy is an indication that we have successfully implemented this strategy in the selection of 62 fastest growing companies in Turkey and that only SEM plastic is listed in the plastic packaging sector.

 

3.  Do you have stories to watch by your competitors? For example, how does your opponents follow you? If there is a story you can share about it and would you like to share it?

In fact, there are many examples we can give about this, but I can share a bit of a funny moment. 5 – 6 years ago, a fair company came to visit our company and suggested that we take part in the fair they organized in a country in Africa.  Both the height of customs duties and the potential of the market because of the lack of exports in terms of the decision and we decided not to participate. But then we learned that the fair company went to our competitors and said that we will participate in this fair. 6 firms who heard that we attended have participated in this fair. Our competitors, ‘SEM Plastik is located here because we are the export champion in the last 5 years, it means that a potential, they have seen an opportunity’ thought, but as we anticipated results, they have experienced a great disappointment in this fair.