Digital Business Summit was held on 13 December 2021 by Marmara University Women's Studies Application and Research Center in Economic and Social Fields (ESKAR). Important representatives of the business world attended the Digital Business Summit.
At the "Digital Business Summit" organized by ESKAR and moderated by TRT Speaker Mehmet Çelikyay, Renault-MAIS General Manager, Dr. Berk Çağdaş, Arnica Chairman of the Board Senur Biçer, Ariş Pırlanta Chairman of the Board Kerim Güzeliş, İmes Industrial Zone Chairman Kemal Akar and Economist Editor-in-Chief Talip Yılmaz attended as speakers. The opening speeches of the event were made by ESKAR Director Prof. Dr. Fatma Ayanoğlu, Dean of the Faculty of Business Prof. Dr. Hakan Yıldırım and Vice Rector Prof. Dr. Mustafa Çelen.
In her speech at the opening of the event, ESKAR Director Prof. Dr. Fatma Ayanoğlu said "Although many studies are carried out in our center, its most important feature is that it is the first women's research center in Turkey to be established and affiliated to a university. We are holding many summits and activities in order to continue this leadership in all our works and to offer beneficial works to society. In this context, we carry out social responsibility projects as well as scientific and academic research. For example, in the last 2 months, we held a workshop on the participation and employment of disabled women in social life together with the disabled student coordinator. We also organized a sports and women's summit in Mardin. Minister of Youth and Sports closely followed the results of the workshop. Today, we decided to organize this valuable panel to examine the digital transformation of businesses, the change in women's employment, the change in work-life balance, the glass ceiling syndrome and the effect of remote working in businesses, especially during the pandemic period we live in. The business functions are such that production, sales and marketing all affect each other and closely affect many factors related to our women, children and youth and their futures. For this reason, we are holding this summit today, believing that it would be more accurate to discuss the issue from a wider perspective with the representatives of the pioneers of different sectors.
After Ayanoğlu’s speech, Prof. Dr. Mustafa Çelen said, “The Covid-19 process has radically changed some things. It has radically changed the service industry. In the industrial sector, it has radically changed some processes. But we came across something new. If you had said two years ago that we would move all of our education over the internet to a digital environment, we would have said yes, we are working on this. But the Covid-19 process has now digitized education. In the same way, the media and broadcasting service industry have to a large extent involuntarily digitized. Although some of our big companies have already taken great steps in this context, I personally did not think that it would be so easy for it to be spread widely and internalized by society. Experiencing this process has given us a lot. But he also revealed aspects that need to be thought about and researched and discussed in some issues. One of them is gender equality, the role of women in the business world and its development. But it also brought up some issues that we need to think about, research, and discuss. Our university is one of the leading institutions in this regard, as stated by our lecturer Fatma Ayanoğlu before. We would like to thank Fatma Ayanoğlu, who has carried out various activities on women's studies for 30 years and contributed to the organization of such meetings.”
Senur Biçer, Arnica Chairman of the Board, used the following expressions while describing how her interest in the profession started: “With the influence of my father's being an industrialist, I had a childhood at the age of 14-15, walking around with a crowbar and a soldering iron. At home, my father would try to fix anything himself, so instead of playing with my toys, I was playing with screwdrivers. I was 18 years old when I first went to the factory, meanwhile, I was continuing my university education. What really appealed to me at that factory was entering the molding room. Even today, it seemed like a very magical world where I felt the same excitement.”
In his speech, Chairman of İMES Industrial Zone Kemal Akar stated that there are more than a thousand businesses operating 24/7 in the İMES, and that he provides all kinds of support for the operation of the factories by getting the necessary permissions from the governorship and district governorship, even during the weekend bans during the pandemic period. He added that, in this period, China's pause with the Covid process increased their export rates.
Kerim Güzeliş, Ariş Pırlanta Chairman of the Board, stated in his speech that he heard the term “online sale” for the first time when he visited a friend in the USA in 2002, that he found it very surprising that people shop without seeing and touching, and added that he started this business by learning the website in detail from that day on.
“The automotive industry has undergone a great change and transformation, especially in the last 10 years, due to the change and evolution of demand. When we take into account that there are approximately 170 usable vehicles for every thousand people, we see that Turkey is a vehicle-poor country in terms of the automotive sector compared to other countries. Even though the traffic of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir mislead us, because you see maybe 300 vehicles in Istanbul, but when you go east, this number drops to 40-50 vehicles", Dr. Berk Çağdaş, Renault-MAIS General Manager, said in his speech.
In his speech, Talip Yılmaz, Economist Editor-in-Chief, said, “What I observed at a time when everyone did not understand what was happening and experienced a great shock was that the Turkish industrialists took decisions very quickly. Some of them were prepared because they provided their technological infrastructure, but some were not ready for this process due to technological inadequacy. Despite this, we returned home very quickly. Those who had to go to work returned to the businesses, those who were not required adapted quickly to this job with remote work. I think the most important reason for this is that the Turkish business world can take a decision very quickly and implement it very quickly. In that sense, it was admirable.”
The program ended with the presentation of a plaque by Prof. Dr. Mustafa Çelen and Prof. Dr. Fatma Ayanoğlu to the participants.
