GÜLŞAH TEPE - Yükseliş Elevator 
Foreign Trade Specialist

Could you  inform us about the organization of your company in Turkey and around the world? What would you like to state briefly about your principle business activity?
As Yükseliş Asansör, we are the leader company of the sector with our innovative policies and we carry out our leadership in Turkey beyond the borders of our country. Thanks to  our decent partners in Turkey and around  the world, we put our signature under important projects. We have been progressing with our main target for 43 years  that we set out with the goal of quality production and customer satisfaction. We started this adventure with elevator door and car manufacturing and we continue by offering complete package elevator solutions. Currently, we have served 61 countries in the world and we are adding new countries to our portfolio every day. We have opened representative offices affiliated to our company in various countries of the world. Thus, we aim to maintain our dominance in the market and reach new markets more easily.

Can you tell us about the new products added to your product and service range and the changes you have made to your existing products?
We have started mass production for gearless elevator motors, a product that we have been working on intensively and which constitutes a large part of the third stage of our factory. We will soon add it to our product range and offer it to the service of users. We are also developing our designs according to the needs of users and changing trends in our existing products such as elevator cabins.

When we ask you, which would be your most ambitious product in terms of production quality and competence?
As Yükseliş Elevator, we stand behind the quality and competence of all our products. I would say that our most ambitious products are our elevator doors and cabins since our company, entered the sector with the production of doors and cabins, founded in 1980. Both our door and cabin products and other products we never compromise on quality and we aim for our designs to catch the era. We bring a new dimension to the classic look with our original designs.

How would you define innovation?
Innovation is a term used especially for innovations made in the field of technology. We reveal our innovative aspect by fully understanding the needs and wishes of the customer and reflecting this to the product and getting maximum efficiency from the products. Keeping up with the technology and the requirements of the age is very important in the elevator sector same as the other ones. The era we live in makes this innovation compulsory. Innovating companies go beyond the standards and make a difference. With the awareness of this situation, we are developing our production volume and technology day by day by innovating.

Could you give us information about the current R&D activities in your company and your R&D depatment?
In 2020, Yükseliş Asansör completed and put into use our third stage construction, which includes an elevator test tower, administrative offices, elevator market, R&D center, showroom and motor factory. Our tower, which currently has a height of 110 meters, is the highest elevator test tower in Turkey. With this tower, we have started to test elevators at two different speeds, 2.5 and 4.0 m/s. When our R&D studies for 6.0 m/s speed are completed, we will complete the assembly and commission it. We currently have an R&D unit. In the new phase of our factory, we aim to become the leading R&D center of our sector by cooperating with universities and increasing our R&D studies.

How do you evaluate the impact of your company’s R&D operations on sales and export figures? 
We can say that the new projects carried out by the R&D department recently have had a positive impact on sales and export figures. With the dynamic structure and mass customization production strategy of our company, we are able to meet the flexible demands of our customers through our R&D activities in addition to standard products.

Could you tell us how you evaluate the R&D culture in Turkey and the current state of public R&D incentives? 
Ever-evolving technology and globalizing world conditions have required countries to take an active role in R&D activities. What has been observed recently is that there is a direct correlation between the increase in R&D activities and productivity. R&D is the most efficient way to increase production, and when this efficiency is reflected in daily life, society goes one step further. Many countries from Asia to America have seen the benefits of R&D activities and have seen fit to invest more in this field. In Turkey, we have started to give due importance to R&D studies and integrate them more into our lives. Incentives provided by institutions have a positive impact on this development. In addition to large companies, SMEs in Turkey are also taking initiatives to improve their R&D activities. In the future, the initiatives taken now will be recycled.

When the initiatives of our important brands in the elevator industry, R&D is a somewhat neglected area. What is your opinion about this? What are the reasons for this and what is your suggestion?
R&D activities have a critical place for every sector today. However, most companies in Turkey have only recently started to realize the importance of this issue. Day by day, companies have started to open R&D departments. Recent technological investments in Turkey show that the country has started to give serious importance to R&D studies. Yükseliş, with its investments in technology, is one of the important brands in the elevator industry that has been engaged in R&D initiatives. The main reason for neglecting R&D studies is to act with a short-term perspective. Even though R&D efforts may create a serious cost at first, in the long run, these efforts will increase profitability with value-added products and services. Government support is important for innovative development. More permanent solutions can be put forward by giving more incentives to companies to open R&D centers. In these centers, company and competitor analyses should be made, projects should be produced, , teams should be formed for these projects, production should be started and the accuracy of the production should be determined by conducting tests. I believe that when these steps are done, we would become a more creative and productive society.