Atasay’s CIO Bahadır Kumrallar, who will breathe new life into e-commerce with Atasay Pos, which they will launch soon, says they are progressively nearing retail 4.0 and adds, “We started the digital revolution internally!”
ATASAY’s narrative, which began in Denizli in 1937, continues to this day as one of the most important retail brands. With its designs and collections, Atasay, which has the largest shop network in Turkey in the jewelry sector, draws attention as a major retail player.
Atasay’s IT chief, Bahadır Kumrallar, opens his address by discussing the company’s digital transformation and highlighting that they are also technology leaders. Bahadr Kumrallar is a retail professional with years of experience. He had key positions in major corporations such as ok Marketler, Boyner, and Kiğılı. Atasay now has complete control over his technologies.
Atasay CIO Bahadır Kumrallar claims that the organization has always followed technological developments and that when he arrived two years ago, the digital transformation of his institution had been completed by a quarter. “We aspire to move this development to a better position, to achieve a level that is integrated with the dynamic structure of the retail industry, and to complete 70 percent of our digital transformation in a short period of time,” Kumrallar added. We have a SAP project that we are about to complete. Because Atasay has a solid infrastructure in this regard, it will be easier to place the development goods that we will place on it. Strong infrastructure enables IT managers to deliver a more comfortable vision, allowing business to grow more quickly and effectively.”
“Using a global system like SAP is quite beneficial.”
Acting with the ambition of a worldwide brand, Atasay plans to expand in European brand cities such as Germany and France following Dubai, Qatar, and other Middle Eastern countries. At this stage, the fact that a brand with an international vision supports the brand vision of IT infrastructure and SAP systems in accordance with international standards is a critical and useful factor.
Kumrallar also claims that they have developed a BI system and are receiving reports in real time, and that they have improved the customer experience with the CRM systems service at the customer service point. “We seek to maximize the consumer experience with our investments in technology,” Kumrallar stated. At this point, we are taking critical steps. If a customer purchases a product that has a problem, the problem can be investigated from the store all the way up to the highest manager in the organization. In the background, this system is regularly fed and strengthened through investments in order to deliver the best customer experience. Atasay’s most essential value is the service it delivers to its consumers. By systematizing things, we as the IT team are speeding up processes and increasing the customer experience.”
“Using a global system like SAP is quite beneficial.”
Acting with the ambition of a worldwide brand, Atasay plans to expand in European brand cities such as Germany and France following Dubai, Qatar, and other Middle Eastern countries. At this stage, the fact that a brand with an international vision supports the brand vision of IT infrastructure and SAP systems in accordance with international standards is a critical and useful factor.
Kumrallar also claims that they have developed a BI system and are receiving reports in real time, and that they have improved the customer experience with the CRM systems service at the customer service point. “We seek to maximize the consumer experience with our investments in technology,” Kumrallar stated. At this moment, we are taking critical moves. If a customer purchases a product that has a problem, the problem can be investigated from the store all the way up to the highest manager in the organization. In the background, this system is regularly fed and strengthened through investments in order to deliver the best customer experience. Atasay’s most essential value is the service it delivers to its consumers. By systematizing things, we as the IT team are speeding up processes and increasing the customer experience.”
“We have developed a data warehouse and utilize it to manage our procedures.”
Kumrallar explains that they have constructed a data warehouse in Atasay and that by uploading all data to the data warehouse, all procedures such as reporting, analysis, and auditing are done in a relatively short period, which allows management to make choices more quickly. Kumrallar highlights that the most valuable business outcome is to correctly store the data and deliver the finest service to the client, as well as to maximize the customer’s shopping experience using the inferences made from it, and places this at the top of their company goals.
In addition, Kumrallar stated that he investigated the issues of customer service, sales analysis, increasing the customer experience through technology in the store, and how we can incorporate artificial intelligence technology into business processes within the system, and that “we continue our research without slowing down.”
A system that manages all store functions.
Bahadır Kumrallar reports that new projects are on the road, one of which being Atasay Pos. Kumrallar continues, noting that using Atasay Pos, all store activities can be performed without losing eye contact with the customer: “The product may be exhibited, returned, and exchanged with this device that operates with one hand.” We intend to install Atasay Pos this year. These devices will be distributed to all of our locations. We have finished training on this system, which will be utilized by 500 shop employees. I believe we are getting closer to Retail 4.0.’
In terms of e-commerce, Bahadır Kumrallar claims that it is not entirely available in the sphere of jewelry, and that the main issue here is a refusal to supply valuable products through cargo method. “We are a brand that creates unique and value products and connects them with customers,” Kumrallar explained. Gold and jewelry products have relatively volatile pricing. It is a market that is particularly open to development in terms of e-commerce, but it is also a market that must be addressed with caution. It will grow with time, but its volume in our industry is still fairly tiny.”
CEOs of the future will be IT managers!
“We can define IT managers as the CEOs of the future,” says Bahadır Kumrallar. In the next years, IT managers will play a more active role in company strategic decisions. As a result, organizations that emphasize institutionalization in Turkey, as well as the rest of the world, are investing heavily in IT. As Atasay, we are making significant investments in this area and will continue to do so. IT managers will play an even more crucial role in this process, as they will be the ones who introduce world-integrated technologies into the business and integrate this vision into the company’s procedures from the top to the bottom.”
