INTERVIEW: ROY ROBSON continues its Invest in Turkey with Malkan
World-renowned German menswear brand ROY ROBSON, carrying production of suit in the Aegean Free Zone in Izmir, established their 3rd band with MALKAN again.
Roy Robson, which is established Berlin, Germany in 1922 as a small store in the city, especially a well-known brand in men’s clothing in Europe, began in 2008 to expand its production investments in Turkey. Approximately at the end of 5 years that doubled their production capacity, Roy Robson is planning to commission a new additional building in 2014 to main factory building which is located in Aegean Free Zone.
We have received opinions of Timur Sengezer, company’s CEO in Turkey, related to the topics.
Can you introduce yourself Mr. Timur?
I was born in Germany and grew up there. I completed my studies in Germany. My main occupation is electronic mechanical engineering PLC programming. However, I improved myself on garment industry thanks to my passion for fashion. I worked at many clothing companies as an executive. I started my career with, still a famous German clothing brand, Hugo Boss in Turkey in 1999.I worked as an executive at the company until the end of 2003.And I founded my own consulting firm in 2004.I brought Roy Robson to Turkey in 2008 and made convince to do the production here. Still, I am working as Roy Robson’s CEO in Turkey.
How did you convince to Roy Robson come to Turkey?
Roy Robson is a conservative company established for 90 years. Roy Robson gives importance both material and high quality standards in workmanship. These standards have to be met. Their production sites spreads over countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. In Turkey, there was no problem as the quality of workmanship. Turkey had a serious present garments which is long-standing infrastructure. Moreover, Turkey, compared to European countries, has cheaper labor. Particularly in the production of tailor-made suit, Izmir is cut out for this. Roy Robson prefers to use the German brand in production of machinery and equipment. However, especially the German brand machines and ironing equipment are getting very expensive investment in Turkey. At this point MALKAN MACHINE appeared to help us. Producing high technological level of the ironing equipment and perfect mold compatibility, it wasn’t very difficult for me to make convince Germans. It was enough asking a simple question to you; “Why buy a more expensive one while I could buy the same quality with the cheaper one?”
All around the world, especially big European firms insist using their country equipment’s brands on the firms that produce their goods. I suppose it was not easy for you to convince a German brand to include in cooperation with a Turkish brand. Could you please mention a little bit about this situation?
Yes, there was a feasibility study that spread over 2-3 years before we started our production in 2008.During this period, Roy Robson was very insistent in choosing especially German brands ironing equipment that has been using in other factories for years. However, I was counting on Malkan since used to know and witnessed their successful work. I was sure that they would also have confidence when they saw with their own eyes. For this reason, we had made a series of visits to Malkan for 6 months with Roy Robson’s quality manager, models and a team composed of technical responsible. We examined many critical press machines’ technical competence, such as forms and programming. Roy Robson was eventually convinced that Malkan’s machines could be used technically. There was no problem from a financial perspective. The only one left was relying on that tests and work samples had to show the same success in the ordered product. Malkan didn’t disappoint us.
Could you tell us a little bit of Roy Robson?
Roy Robson collections offer you a life style that developed in center of Luneburg for your business life and your daily activities. Preparation of products, workmanship and the quality of the mold are really paid attention at our product management and design department. In our product high-quality fabrics that prepared by well-known fabric company are used. Roy Robson all employees in the company’s production centers guarantee standards of quality in suits and jackets. Roy Robson’s total worldwide production network is 7,300 employees and 1,153 sales points. Products, produced in Turkey, begin with Poland, Germany, Bulgaria are exported to 42 countries including the Far East. There are currently 650 employees in our factory here. With additional factory investment the number of employees will up to 850-900 in 2014.
The new factory will produce again suit?
Yes. In fact, the project was supposed to manufacture shirt, but as the production quality in Turkey has been very high, compare to our factory that located in other countries, caused to increase, with a strategic decision, production capacity of suit in Turkey. We started with a capacity of 650 units’ suit at the first production in 2008.Currently we have reached 1300 suit per a day. Our goal is to remove that number to 2,000.Of course, during this period, we shouldn’t compromise the level of quality that we have. Malkan encouraged us to target those important considerations. Malkan, with qualified engineers and technicians, enable us to reach our goals. Malkan uses high quality products and world-renowned electro-pneumatic components. Programming capability of the machines allows us to capture quality in production easily and to minimize processing time. Above all, Malkan is very successful that required mold revisions and updates to adapt our models to changing fashion trends. You don’t need to seek another alternative with mentioned services; Understanding of turnkey service concept, limitless educational support and after-sales support services. For this reason we will prefer again Malkan products for the third band
Why did you choose Izmir for production?
As I’ve said before, Izmir has got a serious potential human resources and very important in the production of suit. We don’t have problem of finding qualified staff. We have many companies in Izmir that contract manufacturing to world famous clothing brands. As we prefer a local brand, Malkan, for our ironing machines, it causes that these firms also get in business with Malkan on new investments. We give reference to them. So the money is staying in our country. Therefore, in this respect it is a service to our country. Meanwhile, I’m originally from Izmir.
What would you say about the situation and market expectations for the year 2014?
Since we worked 100% as export, periodic troubles of domestic market do not affect us so much. However, Turkey did not live a very serious crisis thanks to economic stability in recent years. I hope; we will continue our investments as we planned without too influence from the warm atmosphere of politics.
