Tütüncü: Leaders Must Wear More Than One Hat at a Time! | Transforming Leadership Summit 2023

Dear guests, I am happy to be with you at this important meeting. I greet you all with respect and affection. The main theme of the summit is transformed leadership. We live in a time where change and uncertainty are absolute. I listened to many valuable speakers throughout the day, and there were very important talks about today and the future. I also want to share with you the leadership of transformation in today's era of multiple crises, from the perspective of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Especially when describing the period we are in, we use different definitions and concepts. Actually, these concepts existed yesterday, they exist today, and they will always be ahead of us. Looking at the past, in the historical background of industrial transformation, there were great changes that either realized this transformation or were expressed as turning points, from the discovery of water and steam power to unmanned technologies. While we were talking about Industry 4.0, cyber and physical systems, today we are talking about a brand new world where unmanned technologies enter our lives, Industry 5.0. The industrial revolutions that began in the 18th century undoubtedly transformed societies and affected the entire world. As a social structure, the development process starting with hunter-gatherer society continued as agricultural society, industrial society, and information society. Today, we are experiencing a new period where the globalization and rapid evolution of digital technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and robotics are causing social changes. In other words, Industry 4.0 is a data-driven revolution using technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud systems, while Industry 5.0, also known as Society 5.0, is a technological revolution that will take this period further. The important point I want to emphasize here is that it took more than 1,700 years for social structures to transition from hunter-gatherer and agricultural society to industrial society and the Industrial Revolution. The Second Industrial Revolution lasted 200 years. Then, before 100 years passed, a new wave of transformation began towards the Third Industrial Revolution. Today, it has become almost impossible to talk about a specific period. Especially with the pandemic period, the pace of change has exceeded expectations. However, unfortunately, we still cannot see widespread transformation in our country, as previous speakers also said. Futurist Ray Kurzweil's prediction in 2001 that we would see 20,000 years of progress in the next 100 years became much more meaningful during the pandemic, because in this period, change turned into a process we experienced simultaneously all over the world. Opportunities and threats are together. Excuse me, it is possible to say that concepts and conditions are changing together and even becoming more difficult. In short, no matter which metaphor we use to express this period, in a classic saying, the only thing that does not change is change and transformation itself. While change happens every day, transformation can take centuries. While change starts at a single point with the factors that trigger it, it is impossible to express transformation in a single dimension. While change remains more limited, transformation is an irreversible process in many areas and dimensions, just like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Looking at today, in recent years, we have been dealing with and struggling with variable, uncertain, and complex dynamics in every respect. It is not possible to limit these difficulties to just a few years. Looking at the last 10 years of the business world, we can see that the rules have changed and the playing field has been restructured. We are in a multiple world dominated by paradigm change. Multiple crises, multiple uncertainties, and multiple competitors actually represent a world we are not used to. In this world where opportunities and threats coexist, it is of great importance to read and analyze this paradigm change very well in order to shape the future. In other words, in such difficult periods we are going through, we need to increase resilience against crises, make our business models flexible, adapt to new conditions, and accelerate decision-making and implementation processes. We are talking about a paradigm change. Paradigm change, synergy, digital transformation—we are all very familiar with these concepts in the business world. Today, these concepts were repeated many times. All these concepts also appear frequently in our strategies that define our present and future. However, each of these is a process that is easy to say but difficult to understand and realize. In this period of uncertainty, determining our direction, making decisions, and even taking steps is not easy at all. First of all, leaders need to wear multiple hats at the same time. For example, while preparing our business for the future and managing transformation processes, on the other hand, we have to ensure that our current operations continue with high performance. Therefore, in a business world dominated by such uncertainty, while trying to do our job in the best way today, we must also manage change and transformation. So how? While finding answers to our business, we need both our way of doing business and the systems we use to be open to this change in order to respond to changing questions. Structures that closely follow change are turning to more flexible structures, agile organizations, and fluid strategies instead of permanent investments and structures in order not to be negatively affected. On the other hand, unfortunately, there are structures that do not foresee the future, do not dare to make necessary changes, do not get involved in the process, and disappear. Management genius Peter Drucker defined this period very well with a saying: 'In turbulent times, the greatest danger is not the turbulence itself, but to act with the logic of yesterday.' So what will we do to not continue with the logic of yesterday? We have to open a wide space for new gains among our memorized patterns and learned reflexes. With this approach, we must say goodbye to some of our habits and experiences, transform some according to the needs of the day, and carry some to the future in the same way. If we cannot manage and make our business efficient today, we cannot have the resources to grow and transform it. On the other hand, if we only focus on today, we may be too late to respond to the conditions awaiting us in the future. Today's business world is going through multiple crises and changes, while also experiencing a painful transformation process. In the past, leaders mainly struggled with issues like financial growth or teamwork, but today they are trying to overcome multiple challenges like the crises of our world: inflation, geopolitical tensions, climate changes, energy shortages, labor shortages, changing employee expectations, difficulties arising from uncertainty in cash management, increasing cyber data risks, and more. Looking at our own sector, there are many elements threatening the sustainable future of food. Resources are rapidly decreasing. Population growth, along with increasing needs, difficulties in raw material supply due to the climate crisis, disruptions in the supply chain, increasing migrations, loss of biodiversity, and the inability to achieve the desired trust in biotechnology are among the important factors causing the depletion of resources in our world. Along with this, our stakeholders are also changing. Employee expectations are changing. It is no longer just about salary, meals, and social security. Change continues in every area, from our employees' search for meaning in their work to flexible new rights they can choose, from educational opportunities to working models. Diversity and inclusion, social and environmental sensitivity are becoming critical priorities. Our customers' needs are also changing. Consumption habits, tastes, lifestyles are changing. Shopping venues are changing. Multi-channels are coming into play, and even our customers are changing. Business models are changing. Ways of doing business, with the effect of digital transformation, processes and patterns are changing. Competition is changing. This reality brings many uncertainties to the agenda. While our playing field expands and grows within the constantly changing structure, it can also get out of our control. The ecosystem is changing. Expectations from you are changing first. Stakeholders value companies that take actions beneficial to themselves and society. Instead of large groups, local initiatives, NGOs, and local platforms are gaining importance with the effect of digital tools. The element of trust is becoming even more critical. Today, profound changes are only possible for companies by maintaining a dynamic balance between gaining trust and achieving sustainable results. To achieve differentiating sustainable results, it is undoubtedly possible with a fluid strategy that is courageous, human-centered, and incorporates technology. As a holding company operating in two important areas like food and retail, in addition to real growth in financial performance, we aim for sustainable and developable success with a corporate ecosystem that contributes to creativity, innovation, and efficiency, where our stakeholders act in an environment of trust. We evaluate our priorities behind our strategy as a triangle of efficiency, digitalization, and people, and we aim to create value together with all our stakeholders in these focus areas. Today, we have to consider efficiency in every step we take. Based on our waste-free company model, we develop effective methods to prevent waste at every stage from harvest to consumption, with the awareness that we have a transformative role in the wide ecosystem we impact. We prioritize implementing digitalization not just for the sake of digitalization, but to provide concrete and measurable contributions to business goals. We focus not just on doing things digitally, but on how we can do our business differently. We make our processes suitable for digitalization and adopt acting with a data focus. In other words, in addition to making the data owned by our holding and companies integrated and accessible—and we have a company within our holding for this—we prioritize making data-driven decision-making a part of daily life and producing value from data, together with our leaders. One of the most important competitive advantages today will be directly proportional to the ability to make data-driven decisions, make data a part of daily life, and succeed in producing value from data. And at the last corner of the triangle, we say people. We work by putting people at the center, caring about cultural change, and also caring about the psychology of the organization. Yıldız Holding has grown on these lands for 75 years and today is a global holding operating in one part of the world. Success is of course not a coincidence. We have always been open to learning and even relearning. The secret of this is that change and transformation exist as a culture in our company's DNA. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience this personally. While working at various levels of Yıldız Holding for 25 years, I personally experienced this transformation. With inspiring leaders and teams, we worked to make each day better than the previous one. As a basic motto, we said each day must be more efficient than the previous one. During this time, of course, even though the world changed, there were things that did not change for us. First, we never gave up learning from development and from each other. Second, we always put collaboration at the center. We did not shy away from sharing knowledge and helping each other. Third, we celebrated our success with our employees. Without ever losing our 'make happy, be happy' understanding, which acts like a compass ensuring we all move in the same direction, we maintained our sustainable success by drawing strength from Yıldız Holding's global values. In the future, we will continue to create value for all our stakeholders, especially our customers and consumers, together with them, to develop by putting people at the center, and to increase social benefit. It is clear that we are not going through an easy period. Especially being able to manage uncertainty, adapt to new conditions, make data-driven predictions, and accelerate decision-making and implementation processes are very important. As Yıldız Holding, we aim to be a company that manages change, not one that is affected by these changes. We know that in the food and retail sectors we operate in, we have a responsibility that affects a very wide ecosystem. Giving the deserved value to the trust placed in us and the responsibility we carry is possible with the right actions. Leading change is not just about a company perspective, but about creating value within the ecosystem, for stakeholders and society as a whole. Success is possible with collective consciousness and action plan, together with collaboration. Therefore, I want to conclude my words with a quote from John Doerr, author of the book 'Measure What Matters,' which I believe expresses this collaboration very well: 'Ideas are easy. Execution is everything. And winning is a team sport.' I believe this meeting is a very valuable platform for sharing knowledge and experience for all participants. I want to once again express my thanks and congratulations to the 'Nasıl Bir Ekonomi' team, who had great efforts in realizing this summit. Good evening.