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TURKEY
Marangoni Strengthens its Team in Turkey
Marangoni Retreading Systems has announced that Nejat Dagdemir has joined the team in the role of General Manager of its Turkish sales subsidiary, Marangoni Kaucuk Ticaret, located in Izmir. With 400,000 retreads a year and around 80 retreaders, Turkey is the sixth biggest European market in terms of the total number of retreads, and second only to Germany regarding cold retreading technology.
With the Ringtread and
Unitread lines, Marangoni
Kaucuk Ticaret has a twenty-percent share of
the domestic market; a
good level, yet less than in
other European countries. Marangoni’s Turkish sales subsidiary, successfully
established and developed
over the last twenty years
by Osman Bayik, who has
now retired, has an
administrative and
logistics function, as well
as supporting customers - comprising around 15 medium-large retreaders -
not only with sales and
technical service, but also
with numerous additional
services: sales strategy
support, fleet promotional activities, consulting on quality and productivity.
Nejat Dagdemir is a mechanical engineer who has twenty years’ experience at multinational and international companies. His career started at Mercedes Benz, and then continued at Pirelli, where for many years he held various positions in sales until becoming Business Unit Truck Manager and,
before joining Marangoni, was Country Representative in the Alliance Tyre Group.
Nejat Dagdemir’s extensive professional experience in the sale of tyres and his in-depth knowledge of the market will certainly help Marangoni achieve the growth objectives it has set and expand its presence on the competitive local market, bringing it to the level of other European countries.
Nejat Dagdemir takes over the Marangoni sales role in Turkey
“I am very happy to be part of the Marangoni team”, Dagdemir stated, “and I hope to contribute to increasingly spreading the idea that, with Ringtread, we have an exclusive product of the highest quality, which can ensure growth and profits for the end user”.
Final packing and inspection of Rekor tread
Chinese tyres, of course, have had an impact on this. Critical, in this respect, is the fact that anti-dumping legislation will end this year in Turkey and market observers are already seeing some signals as to what will happen. The fear is a price war between new tyre manufacturers and importers. Rekor is in a good position to deal with a polarisation in the retread market, as it does possess a segmented product range. The company has a licence agreement with Cooper to produce premium Avon branded treads in Turkey, and in the meantime the company has built up a network of 23 authorised Avon workshops. These are independent retreaders but they only work with Avon and Rekor’s other brands. The company’s own premium brand is called Herkul, whilst the budget sector is catered for with the Vega brand.
Algan believes that the economy will play an important role in the development of the retreading market in Turkey. At present the budget sector of the market is under pressure from low priced treads of Asian origin, many of which Algan believes are either manufactured with cheap off-spec materials or are supported by government incentives. To battle this Rekor is looking ver y closely at the service aspect of its offering. “We believe fleet business will develop in Turkey,” says Algan. “Retreaders, which are able to help reduce the costs incurred by fleet customers will end up winning the business of these fleets. There are already a number of big fleets in Turkey with PPK contracts, and we are aiming for this type of customer. We are trying to gain a foothold in the market at a higher level by placing an increased emphasis on our overall
package and providing services. We don’t want to be competing with the budget brands.”
Rekor supports its retreader partners by providing customers with a fleet monitoring system and the support of mobile service vehicles. The company also offers a number of tailor- made formulations for special applications, an area which Selahattin Algan feels is important. “There are many customers willing to pay the cost for good application- specific tread patterns.” An example of this is the OTR sector, which Rekor entered in
2008, starting from scratch, and where the company can produce custom-built compounds according to the demands of users.
Rekor also supports its dealers with a range of accessories including blades and envelopes, although the company has made the strategic decision not to enter the machinery sector, pointing out that Eskisehir based Akar Makina is well positioned to supply retread equipment to the market. Rekor, of course, will be neighbours of Akar, when the company moves to its new facility.
24 Retreading Business