For GROB CSO Christian Müller, the Turkish GROB branch was primarily established for strategic reasons: "We have switched to direct sales to allow us to service our established machine base locally with qualified Turkish-speaking staff. Our new branch manager, Mr. Ahmet Kendircioglu, an employee from our former representative office, is not only intimately familiar with the Turkish engineering market, he is also responsible for recruiting qualified staff." And the objective is clear: maximize customer satisfaction and improve market share by boosting the number of machines sold. In pursuing this goal, Mr. Kendircioglu has access to machines from Mindelheim as well as Dalian.
Good prospects in the Turkish automotive market
Besides aerospace and mold construction, Turkey is increasingly becoming a car-manufacturing nation. For instance, the production of 1.4 million vehicles in 2023 has already increased to 1.1 million in the first quarter of 2024. The reason why Turkey is not yet considered a car-manufacturing country is primarily due to the lack of a genuine own brand. In 2018, a Turkish manufacturer of electric cars was established with the Turkish joint venture group TOGG, which is already holding talks with our representative office. Combustion engines currently still predominate in Turkey, although e-mobility continues to gain momentum. "For GROB, it is hugely important to be seen as a reliable mechanical engineering company in the market from an early stage", say Müller on the GROB sales strategy. GROB has already entered into successful transactions with a number of OEMs and tier 1 manufacturers in Turkey.
Four Turkish aerospace clusters
While the Turkish automotive industry is still in development, the country already boasts four successful Turkish aerospace clusters with ACA (Aerospace Cluster Association), ESAC (Eskişehir Aviation Cluster), OSSA (Ostim Defense and Aviation Cluster), and SAHA Istanbul, which bring together a total of 30 companies with 5,000 employees. Here, too, there is a diverse environment of local and international companies, some of which are already in close contact with GROB. "When it comes to the system and universal machines business, we have a good base of UM customers that we are already servicing", explains Müller. "While we are only just starting our activities in Turkey, we are very confident that we will be able to expand and strengthen our market presence in a short space of time."
In general, the Turkish engineering market is currently still heavily reliant on 4-axis machines with only very weak indications of a trend towards 5-axis machines. New projects with additional investments are currently in progress across all fields of mechanical engineering. Its new direct sales approach will place GROB in an even better position to support these projects and provide faster, more efficient, and more effective service.
