Erhan Esinduy: Always for the better and further

Erhan Esinduy, Co-Founder and General Manager of Esko Group of Companies, said: "We want to get better and go further in all the services we provide. We are constantly pursuing high-tech products. It is up to us to determine what will and will not work in the sector. Our goal is to bring as many good products and services as we can to this sector."

Both our service range and the number of our customers are increasing

Erhan Esinduy, Co-Founder and General Manager of Esko Group of Companies, emphasizes that their goal as a company is to grow further and makes the following statements about the products and services offered by Esko: "We recently opened a new office in Dubai. Now we have a goal to expand it. We divide our business into two parts. There is a service side and an equipment sales side. On the service side, Esko's main starting point is shipyard representation. Today, we have a different system with China. From China to Europe, we have a large network of shipyards in Poland, Spain, Germany, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Malta and Panama. Our shipyard service is generally for Turkish shipowners. Each shipyard has representatives in different countries. We are very assertive about shipyards, especially in China, but recently we have started to provide services to the ships of Turkish shipowners working in Northern Europe. While our shipyard business was mostly in China, Poland, Spain, Germany, Romania and Bulgaria were our starting points in Europe. Then we entered the armed guard business, which was slow at first. Currently, we carry out 95 percent of the guard business of Turkish shipowners in both East and West Africa, in Nigeria. We also receive returns from foreign shipowners that we provide services through charterers. We also serve the ships of foreign shipowners. There are 4-5 world-renowned guard companies that we work with. We have come to such a point that we do not seek to represent these companies. Since the companies that mostly do guard work know our name in the sector, they come with requests such as "Can you represent us?". We started the guard business in East Africa, and now it has become very active in West Africa. Especially Nigeria. We have firmly taken our place in the market in terms of guard. Apart from that, we have supervision services that started with the pandemic. We provide inspector supervision services to the ships of foreign shipowners coming to shipyards in Turkey.

Our customers know that we will not represent a bad product

When we came to the sales sector, we started with larger equipment. We still represent an American scrubber company. In the ballast water section, that work has been completed as of the process. Apart from that, there is the Wencon product we represent. This is a Danish epoxy repair and maintenance kit... It has been two years since we started this business with the Danes. We have made progress there too. We have succeeded in announcing the Wencon brand in Turkey. It is an extremely high quality product. We are the distributor of Wencon. We keep stock. Apart from these, there are many other products we represent. After those who work with us in the guard area recognize us, they are sure that they will receive the same quality service in other products we serve. Our customers do business with us with peace of mind because they know that we will not represent a bad product in Turkey."

Our goal is to grow step by step in ship management

Stating that they have targets in management, Esinduy said, "Captain Behzat Esinduy is in charge of this area. We started to work under his experience and with the team he established. Obviously, we started to operate difficult ships. Captain Esinduy and his team have overcome this job. We will continue to grow in this field."

We need to keep ourselves updated

Underlining that the maritime sector is constantly undergoing changes in terms of regulations and equipment as well as sociological, political and economic developments, Esinduy said, "All events in the world directly affect maritime. Because 90 percent of trade is carried by sea. Naturally, wars sometimes affect the sector negatively and sometimes positively. Regulations undergo changes within the framework of accidents. Equipment may need to be renewed. For this reason, we keep both ourselves and our customers up-to-date. It is indispensable for our business to learn everything about maritime and to share all these with our customers. We offer consultancy services in this field. We stand behind every service we offer to our customers."  

The important thing is not to get representation, but to do business

Esinduy continues his words as follows; "We want to go better and further in all the services we provide. We are constantly after technological products. If they have added value for our shipowners, we constantly follow the whole market and look at the products that are coming out. Let's not forget that we are in Turkey. The perspective of other countries on these technological products and the perspective of our maritime community are not in parallel. While some countries attach much more importance to these, we do not attach as much importance to them or we can say 'we will look at it later'. The important thing is not to get a representative office, but to do business in the representative office you get. Otherwise, we can go and get 100 more representative offices. But after failing to turn this into business, we are embarrassed for the companies outside. It is up to us to predict what can and cannot do business in the community. In some cases we are successful and in others our predictions are not very accurate. Our goal is to offer as good products and services as we can to this community."

Vision of Esko Group of Companies

As Esko Marine, we provide services in many areas in the maritime field. At the very beginning, our aim was to offer the maximum range of services we could provide to shipowners in general. We set out to offer this business to Turkish shipowners. Afterwards, our name was heard abroad with the work we did. Especially in guard (protection). We have many customers abroad in this field. Our vision is first and foremost to offer our customers the highest quality work we do. Our job is to take the burden of a job related to the service we provide from A to Z from our customer and take it to the end and deliver it.