Philology

The Industry
In the Turkish design and printing market, most companies were selling similar programmes
and software products as many effectively represented the same global companies.
Therefore, the most important differentiation points for these companies were the quality of
training for the customers and their technical and support services to customers. Customer
relationship management was extremely important for these companies given that their
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businesses were in an industry reliant on high technology, and where customer loyalty
determined the success of the company. There were only a few companies in the Turkish
market but Blue&Green had a strong competitor – Blue Sky Technologies – which was selling
the same design programmes and digital printing software to the textile industry, as well as
other design programmes for the furniture industry. Consequently, customer relationship
management strategies, quality of staff training and technical services, and the expertise of
the sales personnel were playing an increasingly important role in this competitive
environment.
Blue&Green Design Technology Company
Blue&Green was founded by Serkan Keskin, Hakan Usta, and Ozan Kahveci in 2001 to deliver
design programmes and digital printing software to the textile industry, as well as providing
training and technical support for customers. When Bulut was hired in 2016, Blue&Green
was a small but growing company with 10 employees and its 3 founding managers, and she
noted that it was mostly run with an entrepreneurial spirit. Even though there were no clear
structures and divisions, each founder focused on different areas. Keskin was listed as the
general manager of the company in official documents and had strong connections in the
Turkish textile sector. Usta was responsible for financial issues, while Kahveci dealt with the
technical parts of the software and the relations with the global companies they were
representing. Although the founders shared responsibilities, the lines between their duties
were not so strict and they all made major decisions together. Therefore, there were no
clear divisions in the company. In effect, there were two main categories of staff – the three
founder managers and the ten employees who had oversight of sales and assisted the
founders in all other business matters. Most of these employees were engineers with
expertise in design programmes and digital printing software products. These engineers also
worked as the sales force of the company. They generally worked in teams, according to
their areas of engineering expertise. Since the company had customers from different cities,
the sales engineers had to travel a lot and work outside of the office. There was no evidence
of a hierarchy between employees, so all of them were effectively responsible to the
founding managers. Business had been good and staff numbers had been predicted to
increase, but competition was also getting stronger.