Havelsan organized the 1st Workshop on Product Evaluation and Cooperation Development on 31 October - 1 November to evaluate indigenous solutions in the Command Control and Defence Technologies field. In the workshop held at the Havelsan facilities, bilateral product evaluation negotiations with the companies as well as various presentations were made on the activities planned for the upcoming period.

During the opening ceremony of the workshop, Havelsan Company’s executives, representatives of the registered companies and sectoral press members were present.

Havelsan Operations Vice President Alper ŞEKER: “In JSF Project, we will initiate the Logistics Information System Installation next week.”

The Workshop started with the opening remarks of Havelsan Operations Vice President Alper ŞEKER. ŞEKER stated that in line with the vision identified for the future, they were in close cooperation with the Presidency of Defence Industries for the efficient utilization of resources, avoidance of duplications and establishment of a structure that would match the potentials of the companies with their own capabilities and added: “One of our greatest objectives in this Workshop is to cover a distance and avoid starting from scratch by using your potential as well as Havelsan’s competence and especially its experience with customers. We have over 1,600 employees, yet when we include our eco-system, the aforesaid figure reaches over 5,000 employees. Therefore, we claim that we would achieve it especially when we bid for a tender in a foreign country. We believe that if we could proceed with this vision, we will be able to make our mark in major projects within a short period of time. Within the next month, we will launch an activity related with the installation of the logistical information system in NATO’s JSF Project, which is a 50-year long project. We are aware of the fact that we could not achieve it alone. Thus, the number of our employees will increase further; you may consider this as a new vision. We endeavor to avoid assuming the work in your areas and therefore decreasing your shares in the industry as much as we can. We aim to take part only in the critical and specific projects. Besides these we have never been in search of any project that may block your progress and we do not intend do that in the future. My expectance from you is to express yourselves as much as you can during this Workshop. Our engineer colleagues would surely ask certain questions and express their certain wishes. These may challenge you on certain occasions, yet one needs to be challenged in order to mature the products. We should keep in mind that we are one of the associations that is closest to the customers. There are many projects we obtain through direct procurement. Therefore, we are clearly aware of the requirements. I believe that my colleagues will be able to identify the shortages in the studies you accomplished. We identified our expectations from this event to be that of an effort to mature the products and to reach the targets as soon as possible without underestimating any other work.”

ŞEKER: “We signed new agreements in Qatar, Oman and United Arab Emirates”

Underlining that Havelsan has been conducting crucial projects within the country as well as abroad ŞEKER added, “Recently, we had a joint venture with the Royal Family in Oman, we signed contracts there with a major company. In Qatar, we signed an initial agreement with a counterpart similar to the Presidency of Defence Industries in order to establish a Joint Venture. Also, in Qatar, a cyber security company will soon be established with the participation of our partners who are also the members of the assembly. In the recent period, as you may also know, our relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were not that good. However, with the contribution of the recent developments, we signed a special contract with the members of the Royal Family at Abu Dhabi. We have very strong sales channels abroad that enable us to reach our targets swiftly. We wish to avail such markets to you as well. Havelsan is at the same time an integrator company; therefore, I believe that we will be able to rapidly take action at the point of integrating the products in our system with the existing system. Again, I wish you all a fruitful Workshop” and with these words he concluded his speech.

Havelsan R&D and Engineering Group Manager Zafer ÖZKAN presented the activities as the Command Control Defence Technology unit and their expectations as follows: “With 500 colleagues, we are working at the Deputy General Directorate of Command Control Defence Technologies. We aim to fulfil our country’s requirements, primarily that of the Turkish Armed Forces in command control and Defence technologies fields, to generate indigenous solutions to that end and carry out our activities in this line with our business partners as much as possible. And we also wish to increase this further as the resources and time are limited. Therefore, we need to achieve major accomplishments in a short period of time; and we cannot achieve it alone. Within our eco-system, in case there are any products, generated solutions or any resources that may support us in anyway within the companies with whom we are business partners then we shall proceed with them. To this end, we are working on how to improve our processes in order to use our internal sources effectively while striving to improve our mode of operation as well as our organization. Quite recently, we restructured the engineering organization within the Deputy General Directorate of Command Control Defence Technologies in order to increase and prioritize reusability and productization. Without doubt we will not quit being a project company yet in accordance with a resolution we adopted as Havelsan three years ago, we have a new target of becoming also a product company. We accomplished a few business eco-system gatherings and learned about the competencies and products of our companies at these events. Then we evaluated those companies and then we took the products developed by your companies and assessed them based on their match with the products in Command Control Defence Technologies fields and organized this Workshop. Therefore, we need to work on productization and reusability, reprocessing while reutilization and reduce the error ratio as much as possible while utilizing all the available competencies in our eco-system altogether. The thing we should strive to achieve throughout this Workshop may be the products you manufactured, they may be your activities with the potential of productization. We will assess these points with our expert colleagues. We may use a certain product as it is within our grand solution. Or, we may suggest your companies to transform one of your capabilities into a certain product or we may ask to use your certain products within some of our products. Technically, we expect this from this Workshop. Nearly 50 of my colleagues will be in constant touch with you at various groups and tables. And we will try to be in the business as much as we can. I hope we will be able to execute a Workshop that is efficient for all of us.” 

Havelsan Secretary General Mustafa EGELİ noted that a great distance has been covered up to this point in the Defence industry yet there are many points to be achieved while underlining that their competitors are moving rapidly. EGELİ continued: “When I started working in this company in 2001, the number of Havelsan’s employees was six hundred. As of today, the number of our employees easily exceeds three thousand. Although, in line with the resolution of our executives, we thought of ways in achieving more within our eco-system without increasing the number of employees further and developed strategies accordingly. There were not many things on the table when we started to lay the foundations of this business eco-system. There were merely ideas on paper, yet we built a system within nearly two years. Now we believe that we are more capable of explaining it to our subcontractors and business partners.”

Pointing out the fact that the major companies in Turkey executed very critical activities in Turkey yet quite powerful rivals awaited them once they opened up to foreign markets, EGELİ said, “It is not easy when the political approaches of the countries are at stake. We are striving to obtain certain things from these areas. At this point, the most appropriate way of becoming successful is manufacturing high quality products. We need to balance the price and quality quite well. We endeavor to achieve this as Havelsan. We have directives on procuring the most appropriate product instead of the cheapest one. Why do we monitor companies and categorize them during our joint activities? We do this to let them develop themselves and to enable their advance. We have A-B-C class companies. Sometimes we work with an A class company and in certain cases we may easily collaborate with a C class company depending on the risk, cost of the business. We do not adopt an approach on working with the company with the least expensive bid. Today, with the B2B meetings we will conduct, our colleagues will determine ways of creating a better synergy with you.  

Upon the completion of the opening remarks, the group photograph was taken and then the bilateral product development negotiations were launched between the companies. Following this Workshop on Command, Control and Defence Technologies fields, the workshops on Information and Communication Technologies and Training and Simulation Technologies will be conducted within this year.