Kurtuluş Erdem BAYRAKTAR - E&Q Lift General Manager

We listened to the founding story and goals of E&Q Lift from E&Q Lift General Manager Kurtuluş Erdem Bayraktar. Kurtuluş Erdem Bayraktar, who stated that E&Q Lift is a subsidiary of Dağ Holding that always aims to progress in pursuit of the best with its innovative perspective, success, and confidence-oriented works, said, "E&Q Lift, which attaches great importance to safety and comfort by acting with the idea of the 'effects of elevators on human life', gives confidence to its customers with its product portfolio with high-level technology at this point."

Hello, could you tell us about your foundation story and company structure as EQ Lift?
Hello. E&Q Lift, which entered the sector as the production base of Konya; is a subsidiary of Dağ Holding, which aims to progress by always pursuing the best with its innovative perspective, success, and trust-oriented activities. E&Q Lift, which attaches great importance to safety and comfort by acting with the idea of the 'effects of elevators on human life', gives confidence to its customers with its product portfolio with high-level technology at this point. In addition to these, with its environmentally friendly technologies, it reveals its respect for nature in all its productions. E&Q Lift, which carries out projects that make a difference with its expert technical team and management group, modern management approach, and consumer-based R&D studies, has a wide production network in the sector with four different product groups and three main factory productions. E&Q Lift takes firm steps forward in the sector in line with the principles it adheres to and offers a standard of living to its stakeholders rather than an elevator.

Can you give information about your product groups and services?
We started with our cabin group, door group, and panel group productions. With both our component and complete system solutions, we aim to offer our valuable assembly companies the right product suitable for their projects in the most appropriate time completely and without error. At the same time, it is very important for us that an elevator operator can reach all the materials he needs within our company. As a solution partner, we want to serve all our customers both at home and abroad within the framework of our total quality standards.  

Could you tell us about your current investments and R&D studies?
We continue our production based on the latest European standards. We work for the most suitable solutions for the projects with our design-design and production-field teams, which are very experienced and qualified in their fields. The perspective of our team aims to get the most practical and healthy result in the installation in the field as well as to design the most accurate solutions. As a result, our products are prepared in a tailor-made manner in every project, and success in this regard is possible with the correct and error-free installation of the product in the field. Our point of view, based on the experience of our team, is to see the production and on-site assembly, and even the periodic maintenance afterward as a whole. To make a difference with original designs in our cabins is to provide state-of-the-art solutions that are also environmentally friendly and will reduce assembly times, and that will use materials in the most optimum way and strictly comply with safety rules and standards. We have made robotic system integration at every stage in our machine park. This was a system that had been tried in the sector for many years but had not yet been successful. We aim to increase our shift with this system and to achieve another first in the sector. 

What will you say about your production facility, machine park, and the number of employees?
In our production area, machine power and manpower are minimized. Thanks to robotic production, we desire to build a more effective structure where the accident rate is reduced to zero and the risk is reduced. With the projects prepared according to the elevator final wells, each of them is completely tailor-made from each other, and each well is different from the planned design drawings even on-site. It requires engineering and intensive work. We have been working for a long time to integrate robots and machine parks. We've made good progress here. With our dyehouse, we prepare all our productions in the same quality and order.  

What are your goals regarding your domestic market and export activities? Can you give information? 
In the elevator sector, which we have stepped into as a Dağ Holding company, with our first factory in Konya and with the innovations we plan to bring to the sector, we aim to raise our name to the highest levels as an important value of our country in this sector as well as in the construction sector. With the name of EQ Lift, we aim to develop solutions that appeal to "Emotional Quotient" as well as IQ intelligence values, and that will satisfy our valued customers who use our productions with the slogan "Elevating Quality", that is, we increase quality, and that has brought total quality to the highest levels. We are establishing a system that will make all our customers who request products from us, regardless of where they are in the world, feel that we are always with you as a solution partner with a structure that offers the same service and service without separating it as domestic or abroad. As much as the important part of our job is to deliver the right solution on time and completely, we aim to make our valued customers feel that we are behind our product with our assembly manuals in the local language, 24/7 online technical support, and on-site supervision according to demand so that this product will be technically installed all over the world. Together with our stakeholders, with the awareness of how important our country's exports are, our target is 70 percent export and 30 percent domestic market. Not with one-time sales, but with our supplier colleagues and customers with whom we will cooperate for many years, we aim to enjoy the rise of our country in this sector and to develop continuous products and services.

When we look at the current state of our country's economy and elevator sector, where do you see the sector and your company in 10 years?
The troubles experienced globally are known by everyone, but Turkey has the power to turn this situation into an opportunity with its geographical location, entrepreneurial spirit, experience, and infrastructure. In this process, we will work hard as a country, we have a very high potential to be one of the main actors of the sector globally with many references works with added value, and even, for now, the data raises us to the top of the list. Here, we are already using our skilled workforce as well as production efficiency in the global market. We anticipate that our company will be representing our country at the highest points in this sector by supporting each other in every field with its branding, its references both at home and abroad, and its positive and rising reputation accepted by the authorities of the sector, and its peers.  

What can you list as the main developments-events affecting our sector, which you see as important for the elevator sector in 2021?
2021 was a year in which we saw that the Covid 19 process, which unfortunately affected the whole world, seriously affected our sector as well as in every field in our country. The year that started with uncertainties can be summarized as a return to the starting point of 2 years ago with the vaccine being found, trialed, administered to everyone, and the risk of reducing the risk with the positive result. The magnitude of this impact has brought it to the point of almost neglecting other impacts that were predicted and realized for 2021 in previous years. For 2 years during the pandemic, we have experienced situations where investors have stopped their current business, postponed their next planned business, and many even canceled them due to the fact that the light at the end of the tunnel could not be seen. As of the end of 2021, when the risks started to decrease, we saw the movement in the sector again as the projects that stood in the construction sector started to progress. 

- Kurtuluş Erdem Bayraktar
Kurtuluş Erdem Bayraktar, an Electronics Engineer, was born in Istanbul in October 1978. After working in the fields of iron and steel export and electronic component importation in foreign trade companies in the positions of Sales Engineer, Regional Manager, and Technical Sales Leader respectively, he completed his master's degree in marketing. Bayraktar, who later gained experience in marketing and sales, stepped into the elevator world upon the proposal of Germany-based multinational ThyssenKrupp. Bayraktar, who was in charge of the sale of special projects at ThyssenKrupp and developed his career with his experience in assembling on the construction site thanks to the project manager as well as sales, then transferred to Otis Elevator based in the USA and gained significant experience in the sector in both technical and commercial issues such as pre-sales, after-sales, assembly and maintenance with the management of large-scale projects there. Bayraktar, who continued his career as Marketing & Sales Director at Ametal with the possibility of managing more than one department, continued his career as the head of all domestic and international commercial operations in Omak Asansör, one of the most established companies in the sector in the domestic market, which makes both production and installation. Today, Bayraktar continues to serve the elevator sector as the founding General Manager of E&Q Lift, a subsidiary of Dağ Holding.