WEEKLY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMY NEWSPAPER
‘Information Society and World Telecommunication Day’ was held in Ankara on May 17 by All Telecommunication Businessmen Association (TUTED) on May 17 with the participation of Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA) President Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan. ‘Information Society and World Telecommunication Day’ is being celebrated in all the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) countries under the ‘Information and Communication Technology Entrepreneurship for Social Impact’ theme. The event’s opening speech was given by TUTED Chairman Dr. Dilek Ataman Bağdatlıoğlu, she underlined the Industry 4.0 and geometric increase and noted that the platform-based companies rank higher and stated that the future lies in the hands of digital. The symbol of the era: Big Data Stating that “Our sector is the investment pioneer” Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan highlighted the fact that they meet serious conditions in terms of local and national production. Sayan said that: “We are trying to pave the way for local and national production. Operators and us; we expect entrepreneurs, manufacturers and SMEs to make production. If you contact us when you produce, you are always welcome; we want to use them together. The three major operators do not just deal with the main structure, they are doing the best they can for innovation and R&D. We try to make our country a regional and global data center.” Emphasizing that the R&D and innovation have gained importance in the international cooperation and they are inevitable; Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan stated that humanity witnesses a new industrial revolution and the big data will be the symbol of our era. On which areas should Turkey focus? The ‘Social Impact of R&D and Entrepreneurship’ panel of the event was moderated by BTK Board Member Figen Kılıç. Cisco Turkey General Manager
IT sector’s got a message
Cenk Kıvılcım, Turkcell General Manager Kaan Terzioğlu, Türk Telekom Regulatory Deputy General Manager Ramazan Demir, UBER Turkey General Manager Neyran Bahadırlı and Vice President of Vodafone Turkey Executive Board Dr. Hasan Süel participated in the panel. Indicating that as fast and competitive business processes improve, costs drop; Kılıç emphasized that supporting SMEs is very important in all these developments. Bahadırlı highlighted the importance of local production and the investment strategy for the success and gave the following information: “Our biggest goal is localization in Turkey. We are doing R&D studies on driverless vehicles as UBR. Work is being done on smart transportation regulations in the world. Our biggest goal is to support innovative regulations related to this in Turkey.” Kıvılcım stated that: “Customization and software are vital. We talk a lot about it but we need to focus more on Industry 4.0. We need to answer some questions first
such as in which areas Turkey is a leader and in which areas we need to make strategic investments? We should not let the German take over the smart building field! We need to create a focus immediately and produce projects. Let’s create Turkish software for smart buildings. We need to invest in software.” Süel talked about Vodafone Digital Development Campaign and the coding training given to children aged 7-13and stated that the leverage of entrepreneurship should be told to the society. He added: “We must make Turkey a center of attraction. The technology creates equality of opportunity. My message to industry; open the way for us to invest! This country needs good infrastructure. An environment where there is competition, investment is encouraged, the latest technology is offered to the end user in the most affordable way should be created.” With Industry 4.0, Terzioğlu stated that the communication should be accessible and
Main messages... • Turkey should become a regional and global data center. • R&D and innovation are gaining importance in international cooperation. • Questions such as in which areas Turkey is the leader and in which areas strategic investment should be made must be answered. • We immediately must focus, aggregate and create projects. • Pave the way for us, let us invest! An environment should be created where competition and investment are encouraged. • Efficient tax legislation should be created. • Turkey’s clouds must be in Turkey. • In the new world, Turkey is importing ‘data’. Turkey’s data should be kept in Turkey. Entrepreneurs should be supported with relevant legislation.
cheap. He also added: “Every sector must include our sector to increase its effectiveness in the future. In the new era, entrepreneurship will be very important. There is supposed to be very efficient tax legislation. There is an opportunity for the revival of the Turkish economy. Today, physical assets are being virtualized. The new world currency is ‘Data’. Unfortunately, in this new world, we are importing
data. Let’s keep the Turkish data in Turkey. We can help entrepreneurs if we regulate the relevant legislation. We have to create the Turkish clouds in Turkey. Now, we need to have the new currency in Turkey!” Demir told that: “We will live in a world where the sensors and resources are optimized. Now, people fish with drones in the oceans! We need to analyze the future of the value chain and invest accordingly.”
No transformation, no future!
DİA introduces the cloud to the SMEs Creating the business world and related dynamics from scratch, digitalization inspires companies and institutions in our country; however, we can say that we are moving more slowly than the world in general. DİA, conducting digitalization studies in order institutions and companies to raise awareness, especially on cloud since 2004. DİA’s most recent studies, operating industries and Turkey’s approach towards cloud are the topics discussed with DİA General Coordinator Süha Onay. He stated that: “As DİA, since 2004, we carry out projects in an online platform especially for SMEs’ needs on financial management, accounting management, e-government solutions, retail and e-commerce management. We bring together the cloud computing pros with the technologies we develop as
DİA and try to help SMEs improve their business. With broad range of solutions we offer, we serve to all SMEs in general, however thanks to some of the modules we develop, we are able to offer solutions on a sectoral basis. We appeal to different sectors such as service management, hotel and restaurant management and distributorship integrations. Apart from this, we help companies and institutions on e-government solutions. We offer solutions to our customers such as e-billing, e-archive, e-book being completely integrated to GİB. Our customers, therefore, without any need for an integrator, can benefit from these services through DİA. As it is a rising trend of recent years, we also support our SMEs in the field of e-commerce. With much lower cost, we provide SMEs to create e-commerce platforms in one day.”
MUSIAD announced the Technology in the Future report; including topics such as Turkey is preparing to 2023, the difficulties in the transformation process, what needs to be done. MUSIAD Information Technologies Industry Chairman İhsan Taşer stated that: “Our goal is to grasp the new world, new business models, new markets, new industries, new economy shaped by the digital transformation and the impact of these for the future. In addition, we wish to provide the transformation to be people-centered, peace-building and welfare increasing in accordance to the ethical principles of society. Relevantly, the first thing to do is to increase the share of R&D expenditure in GDP to 3%. Innovation based information technology vision of the state should be extended to all stakeholders, starting from the bureaucracy and should be transformed into a culture.” İhsan Taşer emphasized that the cloud, mobile, big data technologies and evolving social networks trigger the digital transformation and added: “With the digital transformation, the culture of
doing business in the world is changing. Before experience, human assets based on the merits are gaining importance as well as fair leadership instead of management. New ideas generated by the right people come forward. Contract manufacturing is leaving its place to new and high quality products and creating the customer value by being customer-focused becomes indispensable. Industry 4.0, cyber security, internet of things, mesh infrastructure, 3D printers, deep learning, and new types of sensors are the concepts of the digital era. These concepts will reshape the telecom, transportation, education, health, energy, e-commerce and e-government. Platform-based solutions emphasizing the ‘us’ economy instead of ‘me’ economy will come to the fore.” “New business areas will emerge” According to Teşer, these technological developments rapidly change the global norms and lead moral and legal perspectives to be requestioned, opening new horizons for social sciences. He
also added: “For example, new business areas emerge such as taking the information, the vast majority of it belonging to individuals without violating the privacy of individuals, anonymizing them within the borders of the law and creating models out of it that the public would benefit from. In the new era, many professions and business models are expected to change radically. Turkey should also be prepared for these sociological changes.” “Turkey should prioritize the production of valueadded technology” İhsan Taşer stressed that Turkey, acting with the aim of entering the list of the world’s top 10 economies, should prioritize the production of value-added technologies to achieve this target. Taşer stated that the most important aspect of the new economy is an integrated model, this model will make manufacturers a part of the structure and in this new scheme, Turkey may take a place with its existing knowledge and young human resources potential as a valueadded manufacturer.
The latest IT topics to be discussed Vector Information Technologies organizes the fifth ICT Smart Update event on May 25, in The Seed, Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Zebra being the main sponsors, with the “Make IT Easy” concept. The event will be supported by the major sectoral organizations and NGOs. Journalist M. Serdar Kuzuluoğlu will be participating as speaker
and Mobilsiad, Information Technologies Association, Turkish-American Businessmen Association and Great Place to Work Institute will support the event. Hitachi will be the gold sponsor, Sota, Panasonic, Altis, Trinoks and Armada will be silver sponsors and Samsung will sponsor the prize draws with its new products.
BTHaber will be the main media sponsor of the event and representatives of local and global technology companies, major players of the public sector and managers of the local and multinational companies adding value to the economy will come together and share the updates of the sector with the participants.
Retail must provide digital transformation According to BMD, Vodafone and PwC’s ‘Turkey Retail Report preparing for the future’; Turkey will employ additional 675 thousand people for the digital transformation of the retail sector. Prepared by BMD, Vodafone and PwC with the aim of one of the most important sectors of Turkey retail’s sustainable development and growth
prospects; ‘Turkey Retail Report preparing for the future’ is announced. The report sets out the main issues and areas of development of the retail sector, evaluates mega trends affecting the retail sector in Turkey and in the world identifies the main exchange areas of the retail sector and the road map. Three separate disciplines being branding, consultancy and technology
consist the report and it takes up the role of a guide for retail companies which would like to prepare for the future. Prepared based on the evaluation of the leading retail companies of Turkey, ‘Turkey Retail Report preparing for the future’ was introduced at a meeting by BMD Chairman Sami Kariyo, BMD Vice President Jaklin Güner and Vodafone Turkey Executive Vice President Engin Aksoy.
Vodafone applied its Digitalization Index BMD member enterprises, which has already been applied on SMEs, large enterprises and municipalities so far. In this context, BMD member firms’ digital scores were calculated through face to face interviews with senior executives. There were 93 questions asked in 4 categories being “Digital Services”, “Digital
Operations”, “Digital Technology Platforms” and “Information Security”. The companies’ average digitalization score was 63% and the section scores were 62% for digital services, 63% for digital operations and 62% for digital technology platforms. Digitalization Index will provide 101 solution suggestions for retail companies in order to improve their digital skills.