TPT May 2023

INTERVIEW

Azak Tool Technologies

n What are your short, medium and long term goals?

With the support of our group company’s 39 years of experience, we know the best ways to meet the needs of customers in Turkey and around the world. Therefore, we keep sufficient stock of raw materials to ensure fast turnaround and much shorter delivery times. We also plan to continue developing processes by working directly with our customers. The test unit, which will be set up in our company’s laboratory and not available to any other manufacturer, will enable us to observe and develop our saws using cutting-edge technology, and will offer advanced cutting opportunities. This is an important step in the research and development process for both our company and the cutting tool industry as a whole. We are ready to make a significant difference in the market with our quality. In order to achieve this, we first supply our raw materials only from selected European manufacturers. Secondly, we control the quality of our products at every stage of production with our fully equipped laboratory that we mentioned earlier. Despite the pandemic situation affecting the whole world, we created both an important domestic sales network and exported our product to 55 country markets in a very short time. In this process, one of the points that makes us most happy is that we have become the constant supplier of our customers in both domestic and foreign markets. In parallel with our production investments, we continued to expand our sales and marketing activities around the world. In the periods when the pandemic measures limited us in terms of marketing, we reached our potential customers both through our database, which was created through the fairs we attended before the pandemic, and via telephone or online video conferences. Since we plan to export 70 per cent of our production, we attach great importance to participation in international fairs held in Turkey and in different parts of the world. The main ones of these fairs so far have been: Fabtech Dubai, Tube Russia, Tube India, Tube Düsseldorf, Saw Expo Augsburg, Metal Expo Istanbul, Maktek Istanbul, EMO Hannover, Fabtech Chicago, Maktek Istanbul and Metalexpo Istanbul. In addition to our current sales and marketing activities, we continued to build our worldwide network with the right partners to carry the Azak brand to the first place in the cutting tool market. n What is the current state of your business and investment following the pandemic?

Our initial primary goal was to produce HSS circular saws. In this regard, we have already reached an important point in the domestic and foreign markets. As the next step, we planned to continue our investments in the field of cutting tools by starting the production of saw body, TCT circular saw, tissue cutting blade and circular cutting blade product groups. We made the necessary process investments to be able to produce these product groups, just two years after the serial production of HSS circular saws. In this context, we produced the first TCT circular saw blades and log-saw cutting blades and successfully conducted their trials with important end users in the country. In the medium term, we plan to expand our worldwide presence and network by establishing collaborations with the right and reliable partners. In parallel with this, we aim to further improve our product quality. In addition to our sales, we want to improve our after-sales technical support and quality with the concept of certified sharpening service. To ensure this, we plan to create and authorise Azak certified sharpening service points worldwide. In this context, we opened our first company, Azak GmbH, in Germany in September 2021. We planned to significantly increase our market share in Europe by 2022. Through Azak GmbH we are able to sell directly to our European customers during 2023 and we have a significant stock area in the European region. In the coming period, we plan to establish similar Azak structures in other important markets of the world with the same perspective. As it has been so since its establishment, Azak Tool Technologies continues its investments by receiving consultancy services from experts who had worked in leading companies in Europe for many years. With this perspective and knowledge, we are planning to become a company that produces a large cutting tool portfolio in five years.

Azak Tool Technologies sales@azaktool.com www.azaktool.com

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MAY 2023