The goal is to reach the top 5 in the world

AVS Global Ship Supply, Turkey's leading ship supply company, is rapidly advancing in the world market by crossing borders. Stating that they are working without slowing down to be among the top 5 in the world, AVS Global Ship Supply Deputy Country Director Doğukan Şimşek said, “We have grown 5 times in capacity and turnover in the last 5 years. We want to carry this momentum even further, both with our existing partnerships and with other partnerships we will make in the future. We are working intensively for this purpose.”

Stating that they are a company that thinks globally but acts locally, AVS Global Ship Supply Deputy Country Director Doğukan Şimşek said: “We have been in the industry since 1985 and we will celebrate our 40th anniversary next year. The most important factor that keeps us in the sector is that we are a company that thinks globally but acts locally. We have achieved significant growth in the last 10 years. By specializing in supply and procurement in different and difficult geographies, and therefore developing our staff and supply network in this sense, we are trying to provide our customers with the best and fastest service at the most affordable price in the safest way. We also have various investments. Two years ago, we signed an agreement with Nordic Hamburg, which became a shareholder of our company. With its synergy, we have expanded our customer and supplier network”.

Our target is to be among the top 5 in the world

Commenting on his company's view of the sector and its vision for the future, Şimşek said, “As a company that has come to the forefront with its visionary identity in Turkey, our main goal is to be one of the top 5 companies providing catering management and global supply services worldwide. In this sense, we have achieved a very good momentum. We have grown 5 times in capacity and turnover in the last 5 years. We want to carry this momentum even further with our existing partnerships and possible future partnerships. We are carrying out our work for this.”

All ships are our potential customers

Emphasizing that their main business is catering management, Şimşek said, “We supply all food and technical materials to ships on a contractual basis. All ships that are not contracted but waiting for supply in any geography of the world are our potential customers. We can provide this service wherever those ships are in the world. We have made some investments in the offshore sector for many years. We have started to see the return on these investments. Our staff consists of approximately 450 people. This number is increasing more and more. We act with the concept of facility services in the offshore field. We have an infrastructure that can provide all facility services such as accommodation, cooking, food service and hotel services. We are the leading company in Turkey providing services in this sense.”

We work with more than 4 thousand suppliers

Providing information about the company's global network, Şimşek said, “We are a company that has been under our legal entity for about 39 years, but has more than 50 years of experience in total. Therefore, this supply network was not formed in a day. We work together with more than 4,000 suppliers, manufacturers and consultants thanks to our long-standing relationships, the bond of trust between us and our customers and suppliers, and the international recognition that our industry provides us. The ship supply business is a sector that is very intertwined with each other in the world. We are as close to our suppliers as we are to our customers. We meet them periodically at fairs, events or meetings organized by us. In addition, we have been going through a technological structure regarding a supplier network for about a year and a half. We will put this system into operation as soon as possible. We want to reach our suppliers through a single portal and speed up the process and services even more. This portal has reached this stage with many years of experience and work. It is not an easy task.”

Fast, efficient, reliable and sustainable

Sharing his company's policy on customer satisfaction, Şimşek said, “Our philosophy as a company is to be fast, efficient, reliable and sustainable. There are certain obligations that our sector and the world markets expect from us. We make supplies that will minimize the carbon footprint. As AVS Global Supply, we have taken an initiative in the supply of these products. When we say sustainability, we should not only think of green order. We apply the philosophy of sustainability in all processes, from the production of the products we sell to their transportation to the customer, from their presentation to their recycling. Another reason for our close ties with our customers is hidden in our motto. We try to communicate with our customers in the fastest way possible. We take care to respond to requests in the fastest way possible. There is a trust and closeness that we have built up over the years. When our new customers see this trust when they reach us by reference or on other platforms, they prefer to stay with us. There are much bigger companies than us in the sector, but we have started to increase our customer portfolio in different categories both at home and abroad. This also brings us some new partnerships. Nordic Hamburg was our customer, now it is our partner. We are showing this kind of closeness. We have been utilizing technology for the last 2-3 years. We are not satisfied with just phone traffic or face-to-face meetings. We take action to hear the voice of the customer and get in touch with them, so we try to collect much more feedback. We strive to analyze our data much more properly.”

Effective use of technology is an important topic

Stating that they attach great importance to the use of technology and digitalization, Şimşek said, “We have not only invested in digitalization and technology utilization on the customer side. We also have investments and transformations on the operations side. We use the Microsoft Dynamics platform, which provides an end-to-end ERP system in our operations. AVS is a company that has been using technology for many years and trying to promote it. We are at a time when we are trying to figure out how to integrate artificial intelligence, which is now a reality in the world, into our own lives. We utilize Microsoft's Copilot application in this field. We continue on our way with applications that analyze all our data for us and add speed and power to our business with its guidance. We really take initiatives that many companies do not take. Our investments in technology will not be limited to these. AVS will not only be a company that provides supply services in the future. AVS will turn into a company that provides technological services in about 10 years.”

Future targets

Providing information about the company's future goals, Şimşek said, “Our primary goal is to be among the top 5 largest supply companies in the world. We are the leader in our own country and we want to strengthen this situation with investments such as warehouses, technology, human resources or investments that will meet different needs. We aim to multiply our power by establishing our own centers in different geographies and acquiring the world's important supply companies. We have the necessary infrastructure for this. These are works that require time and budget. Considering the current conjuncture of the world, we are very meticulous in making such moves. These are not obstacles to reach the target. I believe that we will achieve these goals only with the trust of our customers and the cooperation of our suppliers.”

Wars have an extremely negative impact on the sector

Stating that the wars in the world affect the sector negatively, Şimşek said, “As it is known, there are wars in different geographies of the world. These wars sometimes come to a point where they can hinder international transportation. There is the Israeli-Palestinian war. Because of this, some Arab countries have closed the routes that are used intensively. There are some interventions on ships passing through there and this has changed the international transportation routes. It is really hard to predict where the world will evolve now. Every day there is a new development, but we see that certain points never change. We have achieved a good momentum, especially in our Greece office, and we have plans to build on this momentum to look for new opportunities in the Far East, especially in Singapore and China. We are thinking of opening an office in the Philippines. We do not see these as new markets. We will only make these moves to further strengthen our weight in the market. We are already good at a certain level in Europe. Although the fact that our partner is a German company and that we have had good suppliers in Europe for many years has kept us from being physically there, our Greek office is very old and we continue to provide services from there. We are also strong in South America. We have no new plans there. For the moment, we find it more appropriate to focus on the Far East.”

We started being environmentally friendly long ago

Explaining his company's policies on environmentalism, Şimşek said, “Although environmentalism seems to be a new trend in the world, it has been on the agenda for many years. They say if you want to change the world, start with yourself. That is why we made a very simple move many years ago. We moved our business cards to digital. We do not use paper printed business cards. We use NFC enabled business cards. We used to use maybe millions of business cards in a year, but after that move, each of us uses a single business card. This was one of the most important moves for sustainability. We are also trying to eliminate paper printing in our own operations by using technology. All our files are stored online. We get digital signatures. Thus, we also act within the framework of the Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK). When there is paper printing, you cannot track where that paper goes. We are going through such a transformation within ourselves. You will see in our operations and new projects, we will create environments where our customers can grow their own products. In land projects, we try to use food products that we grow ourselves in our own kitchens. By doing so, we reduce costs and create environments that all people can benefit from. We attach great importance to vertical agriculture. We want to apply this on ships as well. When they grow on ships, their costs are also affordable. We have included paper-based cups and plates in our plans, and we give these to our customers who request them. We are the only supply company in the world that produces and fails projects on these issues. We have obligations in this sense. This is how we approach our customers under the name of sustainability projects.”

“We carried our experience to the field of education”

Stating that AVS is a company that has achieved many successes considering that it came from scratch, Şimşek said, “We have a maritime school called Ekol Denizcilik. We have carried the experience we have gained over the years and the service we have provided to the sea to an education area. We want to train qualified personnel for the sector. We ensure that the knowledge we have turns into concrete applications in the sector. The fact that a large international company is our partner shows our success in our business. Customer satisfaction is the key factor in our work. I think it will be a great opportunity for them to work in a company that is very suitable for understanding the transformation in the transformation journey that both the company, the world and the digital world are on. I would like to emphasise that this is an important opportunity and I would like to state that our door is always open to everyone. Because our philosophy and speed is our main point of difference. Our door is open to everyone who sees themselves suitable to work here.”