“Our goal is to bring value-added services to Turkey globally.”
Serdar Özkan, Co-Founder of Deka Technology, says, “When organizations work with a provider, both time management, quality of work, and customer satisfaction are at a higher level because they have done similar projects before.”
Deka Technology was developed by four partners to satisfy some of the needs of businesses by delivering professional and manageable services to corporations. Serdar Özkan is also one of the founders.
Deka Teknoloji is divided into four business units: software, database, analytics, and infrastructure. The company, which specializes in turnkey software projects, is also a member of product development teams, offering a variety of processes and software for the web and mobile platforms. Serdar Özkan, the company’s Co-Founder, and I went over Deka Technology and managed services in depth…
“Our mission is to bring value-added services to Turkey on a global scale.”
Our co-founders are all engineers. We set out to provide value-added expertise to our partners and clients. Deka Technology operates the software requested by organizations on the software side through a process that we work through with their teams from start to end. Our second focus is on databases. We serve as a unit that we developed to support firms’ database systems and carry out some of their database projects, and we provide database support. Analytics is our third focus. We operate all operations here, especially now that data is so crucial, from making sense of the data to putting the end-to-end data into dashboards. We manage a number of analytical reports in which businesses receive data, translate it into the formats they require, and construct decision support systems. On the reporting side, we also administer the big data unit. Finally, on the infrastructure side, we begin with system management and then assist businesses with cloud technologies and DevOps, particularly container architectures. In 2023, we hope to increase our workforce to approximately 100 people. At the same time, we wish to complete more projects with our current customers and provide value-added services.
We collaborate with enterprises not only in Turkey, but all across the world. We also provide these services in the Netherlands, Germany, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Moldova. This year, we intend to deliver value-added services to Turkey on a worldwide scale.
On the managed services front, there is a lot of interest. At the end of the day, CIOs can’t keep up with everything, so they prioritize the initiatives that will make a difference. In this context, what do you believe IT managers should look for when selecting a managed service provider?
Deka Technology aspires to be a sincere partner while working with IT administrators. As a result, I advise IT managers to select a provider with whom they can truly collaborate, cooperate, and understand their own objectives. Second, I advise them to select a company that has been involved in other projects or has seen diverse industries in terms of capacity and expertise, and that they believe will give a specific added value to their organization in this emphasis. Third, they should select providers from within the industry who have sat on both sides of the table. Starting with a provider who knows the dynamics and concerns here, in my opinion, is critical for IT managers to be able to communicate the sensitivities in their organizations. We are attempting to take the same route as the corporate sector. This was critical for us.
One of the common misconceptions about managed services is that they save money. What are your thoughts on this?
I absolutely agree with this strategy since when a business signs up for a managed services solution, it has already prioritized specific KPIs and SLAs. As a result, it allocates the obligation to the company with which it will collaborate and attempts to deliver the services obtained around this responsibility. When CEOs try to handle this within their own organization, they risk losing both time and money because the individuals they work with may not be capable in that sector. They may also have issues with continuity or good work management. When they engage with a supplier, however, time management, quality of work, and client satisfaction are all improved because more than one such job has already been completed. We become more cost effective because we can do more than one job with comparable profile firms.
Is there a certain industry you prefer?
We do not specialize on any one industry. When we first began out, this was a major red flag for us. We wanted to make our engineering side value-added rather than sector-specific, so we have customers in insurance, banking, telco, and FMGC. I can say that we collaborate across industries, especially because we focus on providing technology. To be honest, we don’t have a sectoralized product. When we design a product, we attempt to make it generic and applicable to all industries.
Do you have any experience with cyber security?
We have not yet unified the cyber security side, but because security is a critical problem among our clients’ needs, we have a small team working on it. Because cyber security has become extremely valuable on both the web and mobile fronts, we also offer services such as code security, particularly to our software customers. Every year, we add additional units, and increasing our security muscle is one of our 2023 goals. Security will be a department that works in tandem with all of these departments.
IT firms that have grown in Turkey no longer fit into their shells. What do you believe should be the best path for a Turkish IT company to develop internationally?
I feel that Turkish engineers are quite successful, and that the job they perform here may be exported. However, the most difficult challenge here is maintaining contact with the outside world. To tackle this problem, it is vital to create links in some way, because organizations outside prefer to deal with local teams. Companies in Turkey desire this as well, although the issue is more pressing outside. Turkish businesses must overcome their aversion to collaborating with local teams. In this area, we used the following methodology: we began our foreign assignments with easier tasks. First, we sought to reassure them that with smaller projects, they saw us as if we were on trial. We gave companies trust by doing little work, and in exchange for that confidence, we began to take on larger jobs. There, we reinforced our ties. Some of these contacts were invited to Turkey. They saw Turkey, our offices, and the people who work there. As a result, we enhanced our faith even more.
The second major concern is language. This is a dilemma that every business faces. We’re also attempting to teach our buddies new languages. We have acquaintances who are very qualified and do excellent work, yet they may struggle when conversing with foreigners. As a result, my advise to organizations that want to do business abroad is to first enhance their employees’ foreign language skills, because one of the first things that business partners abroad look at is whether we can truly set up issues and whether they can understand us. As a result, they find it difficult to be persuaded. In short, the more you develop your employees’ foreign language skills, the better. Technology has already evolved into a universal language. Although they technically speak the same language, it is critical to be able to adapt to the language they speak, improve English, and communicate effectively with them. If they achieve this, they will be able to do some business abroad.
What do you hope to accomplish as Deka Technology by the end of 2023?
Our main objective is to grow our foreign volume. The reason for this is because I want Turkish enterprises to become more well-known. I want them to be acknowledged and renowned not just in Turkey, but also throughout the world. Turkish people, in my opinion, are really intelligent, competent people who do their jobs properly. Our goal with this approach is to expand into other countries. In the Turkish market, we are seeing a positive trend. We intend to be a company that continues to increase that trend and customer happiness, as well as to gain new clients and increase our business volume with existing customers. Finally, I believe that businesses exist because of their people. I want 2018 to be a happier year for my colleagues, and I especially want it to be a year in which we can bring young people into the field and create new jobs.
