Supplier Search in Turkey

Turkey has a great potential as a sustainable supply source with its strong manufacturing industry offering a high variety of different products. Procurement from Turkey can offer you great advantages:   

• Customs union with EU
• Logistic advantages for your supply chain because of proximity to Europe 
• Lower minimum order quantities than Asia
• Strong agriculture and food industry; ranks 1st in Europe’s and 8th in the global agricultural economy
• World’s 15th and Europe’s 5th largest automotive manufacturer. Production facilities of 30 global suppliers from top 50 are present in Turkey and there are more than 430 tier-1 suppliers in the country
• 4th largest export industry of Turkey is machinery, accounting for 9% of the total exports with more than 16,000 active local & international companies 
• 2nd place in plastic production in Europe
• 5th largest paint producer of Europe
• World’s 8th and Europe’s 2nd largest crude steel producer 
• Textile & ready wear constitutes nearly 16% of Turkey’s total exports together with the raw materials 
• Furthermore, there are many other strong producers in niche segments

Main export products of Turkey in 2019 are motor vehicles, machinery, iron & steel, ready wear, precious stones, and metals with Germany as the top export destination.

There are many export-oriented companies in Turkey that are motivated to establish international relationships, especially to overcome the challenges that Turkey has been facing with the depreciation of Turkish Lira over the recent years.

If you decided that searching for alternative suppliers in Turkey is the right strategy for you, we can provide you many advantages. 

• Exploring the potential suppliers in the Turkish market in a fast & systematic way to ensure that the best candidates are located
• Pre-qualifying the suppliers according to the criteria provided by you such as their infrastructure, technologies, organization, logistics etc.  
• Putting the pre-qualified alternative suppliers directly in contact with you 
• Capability to search any products – no matter how technical they are – with our consultants that have engineering backgrounds
• Giving more insight to your sourcing process with our cultural guidance as we understand different business mentalities and have knowledge of the local markets
• Supporting you as a trustable local partner, interpreting the hidden messages beyond price offers and give you the local insight
• Navigating you through the complex negotiation process in Turkey
• Being locally available for you in any support that you might need in the future on demand for example as an hourly service

• Understanding the required products, in detail and with technical specifications
• Clarifying pre-requirements for selecting the right suppliers, such as process technologies, machinery park, automation needs, production capacity, number of employees, availability of engineers, required experience etc. 
• Making the long-list of producers in Turkey according to the given criteria
• Contacting the long-listed companies to verify their contact data and clarify the required pre-qualification criteria 
• Evaluating the suppliers and short-listing the suitable ones
• Sending technical drawings & specifications together with brochures & other available documentation to the suitable suppliers and asking for quotations including prices and delivery times 
• Visits to the premises of the potential suppliers and face-to-face interviews to ascertain in-depth understanding
• Negotiation of prices and conditions
• Support for the production and controlling of the samples
• Additional local support during company visits and also afterwards

Client Situation: Our European client is an expert in sheet metal processing offering a variety of products from individual parts to whole system constructions. Rather than increasing their production capacity, they considered to source parts from Turkey from a supplier than can produce at the same quality level. In addition to the sheet metal parts, they were also interested in parts produced by casting and forging.

Project Scope: The kick-off started in the premises of our client with a comprehensive training of the products, the production processes, and the company. The ideal sourcing partner criteria for the long-list of candidates has been determined as:

• Having the required production technologies: CNC punching, CNC laser cutting, press brake, threading, drilling, reaming, rounding, welding (TIG, MAG, MIG / spotwelding / stud welding), grinding, brushing, and trimming
• Export experience to West Europe
• Up-to-date and young machinery park

Separate long-lists for sheet metal forming, casting and forging have been prepared. There were more than 30 companies listed for the initial review of our client. After various contacts by email and phone to learn the details, prequalification of the long-listed companies has been completed. In addition to the detailed analysis of their production technologies, export experience and machinery park details, additional criteria such as production capacities, foreign language capabilities, number of employees, turnovers, certificates, and experience in transport of special products have also been analysed.

There were 12 companies chosen suitable for further evaluation that were fulfilling majority of the initial requirements. Technical drawings and specifications for 5 sample products were sent to the attention of the candidates. We collected their feedback regarding their interest and capability. Price offers were collected from 5 of these companies as raw material costs, labour costs, and total ex-works prices.

Offers of the best 3 companies were selected and they were asked for production of paid samples. These samples were observed and controlled during the market visit that we organized and accompanied.

Result: One supplier has been chosen based on the product quality, timing, communication, technical capabilities, and location. Production & export of second samples after completing the required modifications were finalized by our guidance. We continued our support until their cooperation became routine. This supplier also coordinated the sourcing of casting parts from another supplier in Turkey.