re:retail: Getir Kurucu Ortağı Tuncay Tütek ile COVID-19 ve tüketici taleplerini değerlendirdik!

Hello, everybody.

In our re:retail program,
which we have prepared as Vispera

to address the change
in the fast-moving consumption

and retail industries,
our guest this week is

Tuncay Tütek, Founding Partner of Getir.
Mr. Tuncay, welcome.

Thank you, hello.

Hello. In general, there can be a lot of
classifications when you look at

individuals and companies.

But there are two main groups.

One of them is those who are born digital,

and the ones who experience
digital transformation.

Getir is one of the
digital born companies.

It's all digital, it's actually a company
born into the environment.

Due to the COVID-19, the changes
that will occur over the years

are taking place within months.

We can call this an accelerated change,
a transformation process.

During this process,
during this accelerated change process,

can you share with us
the determining factors

for your company's success?

Of course. Maybe it would be better
if I started out like this,

if there are still people who don't know
the truth about Getir

or who don't know the difference.

So let me just briefly try to
put it in a couple of sentences.

We can say that we use it intensely
as the Arıksoy family.

Thanks, maybe the follow-up
might not know.

Getir is a mobile phone application
that brings supplies,

mostly grocery products,
to where you are in just 10 minutes.

It was born like this.

Subsequently, it was an application
that brought the foods

between 20-25 minutes in its own category.

So we had an app that showed you
the dish, showed you the picture,

showed the courier coming in,
and came straight to you.

In doing so, he did this
as a technology company,

not as a technology-assisted company.

We consider ourselves as a
70 percent technology, 20 percent retail,

and now we can say food and carboy,

and 10 percent logistics company.

What has the pandemic changed
in our lives?

Getir is already a leading company
in the field.

It's not like there was
a company like Getir

in the world and we copied it.

It's like...

This is usually what happens in Turkey;

a model operates abroad,
then becomes a hit,

often cloned in Turkey
or in our geography.

It's called cloning.
That's a Turkish replica of that business.

Getir is first in the world.

No other firm before Getir
dreamed of bringing in goods

in 10 minutes.

When we first shared this idea
with our partners,

they said, "It's enough for us if it came
the next day,

in hours, or 45 minutes."

And we said;
it's "almost now" in English.

We want to create an emotion that gives
the feeling of "almost now."

They asked if we asked
the customers and the consumers.

We said "no, no need to do that."

If iPhone asked the customers whether
the new phone should be a dial-free phone,

they'd probably say,
"no, I'm happy with my BlackBerry,"

there was Nokia that time,

or "I'm happy with my Nokia."

I actually have
15 years of FMCG experience

in brand management and marketing.

My life has been about telling Turkey,
the region, and the world

why something is wrong
with consumer tests.

But I didn't want to test the Getir model.

Because there are three main founders;

Nazım Salur, Serkan Borançılı and I.

It was a model that
all three of us believed in,

and we were born as a "pure tech" company.

What happened with COVID?

Getir was ahead of its time, as I said.

And while we were going ahead of our time,
COVID-19 made it...

"Yes, it's really important.

Why would I go to the store,
and take risks?

The product should come to me,
there's a curfew anyway."

There were a lot of people
who couldn't get out.

Over 65, under 20,
then it's went down to 18.

There were some people
with chronic diseases,

they shouldn't be out there.

Suddenly, Getir was a necessity.

As you said,
it seemed like a futuristic idea,

and suddenly it became
one of the basic needs of life.

Very successful, in fact, the most
important feature of an entrepreneur is

to invest in
or take initiative on these issues

based on his/her feelings.

It's a situation where there are people
who don't believe in it,

and many entrepreneurs
face it from time to time.

Of course, the success
you have accomplished

has been a remarkable achievement.

As you mentioned,

it is common for an application

to be cloned from a foreign country

to Turkey.

Doing something undone
seems like an extra success.

Of course, with COVID,
other concepts have come into our lives.

And we can say that with the COVID,

we have this new normal
concept in our lives.

Of course, that term,
what is new normal in Turkey,

what was the old normal,
how close they were,

or how far; these questions are debatable.

But there's this new normal
concept in the world.

What do you think it is?

What are your insights on technologies
that will support your business processes

during this period?

It's actually...
It's not like there was the "old normal",

and after COVID-19,

we've gone to the "new normal".

It's actually a new normal every day.

If I remember correctly, the first case
in Turkey was on March 11.

The axis of work has changed
every day since March 11.

What's going on here is this:
People's feelings change every day.

So, first of all, after the first case,
the number of cases grew.

Then they stopped at a rate.

We started to watch the world.

After that, unfortunately,
deaths began to occur.

We suddenly started to get used
to the deaths.

We get happy if we see
that it's 20 or under it,

but when we had the first loss,
we were deeply shaken as Turkey.

There were curfews,
there were restrictions,

we had supply problems.

We worked in the office
for three to four days,

from the 11th of which,
I believe, Tuesday,

we were at the office until Thursday,
when we closed the office Thursday,

it should be March 13.

We sent chairs to their homes,

so that they can work comfortably,
so they can work the way they're used to.

Then, like early June, there was
a return to the offices again.

So I'm in the office right now,

and we're back in the offices
with a masked life,

and I'm not wearing one because
there's nobody around me now.

So we're going through a lot of stuff like
that 1.5 meter rule right now.

There's 450 people
in the company, the office.

We want 100 to 150 people to come.

Services are arranged according to them.
We change many things day by day.

That's why we can't talk about one normal.
We're talking about the second wave.

It's been talked a lot about
in news programs, everywhere.

We hear it so much that

my ears are about to bleed.

Second wave, this, that.
But it's coming.

We actually live a "new normal,"
every day, sometimes hourly.

Because it is very important
to count seconds for a company

that operates within 10 minutes.

We are a company that counts
seconds, minutes and hours.

We can launch a campaign within hours,
close and open a service.

We react so quickly.

There's no definite definition
for "new normal,"

but like I said,
we thought it'd take longer,

home delivery came right into our lives

with Getir and its 10-minute deliveries.

Right. Getir really is
a technology company.

It was about 10 years ago, and I said,

during a keynote presentation,

it looked a little bit
more utopic for that day,

"All companies will be
technology companies."

And in the audience were pharmaceutical
companies, chemical companies, banks,

energy companies, technology companies,

different portfolios,
different profiles, industry companies.

Indeed, companies have become

technology companies
in the following 10-year period.

Because companies that use
some of the emerging technologies

that make sense of data,

such as artificial intelligence,
artificial vision, image processing,

or blockchain, have taken the right step

towards becoming
real technology companies.

How do you see the benefits
that new technologies,

including artificial intelligence,
artificial vision, image processing,

the Internet of things, can bring
to your industry in the new era?

Would you share these with us
if you have examples?

Right, well, at first, software is
very important as a technology company.

You code something,
that coding is very important,

and it's important that
the machine self-manages

when it's encoded and the starts to work.

So here's the thing,
of course, you know it,

let me try and explain
that for the viewers.

After you created a code, you create
an algorithm with that code's data,

and instead of the people who coded,

it starts to make decisions.

Our job is actually very expensive.

Why is it?

I was talking to someone
from abroad today,

through teleconference.

"What is the essence of your work,"
he asked, he didn't know about Getir,

he hasn't been in Turkey in a long time.

I said the essence of our work is that...

Let me just give you
an example from Istanbul.

We're in six cities now,

but we have
150 small warehouses in Istanbul.

What that means is,
when you open up the application,

I'm actually showing you
a stockpile of a warehouse

that I can get to in a 10-minute circle.

So, after getting information from data,
"what will I suggest to you,

what will I do a discount,
what will I show as a campaign,

who's going to buy that same product,

which kind of information
I'll give to that store,

where I'm going to set up that warehouse";
I collect these types of information,

and the system starts to self order

and make its own decisions and suggest,

how many couriers will be in a warehouse.

This is the element in our business.

What we're doing,
what we're dealing with a lot,

one of the things that
we're most interested in

during this period is
the safety of our couriers.

There are approximately
4 thousand couriers in the system,

we have 4 thousand couriers
through our dealers.

For the safety of these couriers,
we're following from their mobile phone

how much they use their motorcycles,

how long the braking time is,

how fast they're going,

each and every one of them.

And here we are a start-up,

but we're slowly
beginning to be a skill-up.

We're a scaled company right now.

We're working with a start-up,
which is smaller than we are.

Because I need this
technology development.

So instead of actually going out
and checking out friends in the field,

we do that from the panel,
we go there when we need to

and have our one-to-one conversations.

We say, "You speed up here,

you made a wrong turn here,

that's why, this is your score."

If somebody is constantly going bad,
we tell them farewell.

We weren't selling red meat
and white meat before the pandemic.

And then they got asked and searched
and we started selling them.

These are products that require
great attention for shelf life.

We have them
in our cabinets at +4 degrees,

constantly looking at the BBD control.

But we thought we have to make sure that

the warmth of our cabinets
is constantly clear.

So we started a project.

Right now, inside all our cabinets

which we have about two thousand
+4 degrees cabinets.

We put heat sensors
in two thousand cabinets.

We track how long
did those cabinets stay open

or stay closed,
or if there are sudden fluctuations.

These are actually two of
the biggest examples right now;

we get the motorcycle
and the vehicle to talk to me,

and the cabinets to talk to me.

We're not just
developing technology for nothing.

We're developing if we really need it.

What we did was; we actually took
the "digital tip" into our system.

Because people don't have
much cash anymore,

they don't want to hold the cash.

Our technology department,
software developers

activated the digital tip
in about five days.

We're always listening to the client;
we didn't at first,

but after we got it out,
we're listening to the client now.

We look at what we need.

Delivery at the door
became a great necessity.

We started delivering
while the door is closed.

We did that development.

We started something
called the "loyalty box."

We've been involved
in this project together

with Istanbul Governor's Office.

So we started building
tape systems in our central storage.

But after we started this tape system,

our central structures got so big,

we begin to go in end-to-end tape.

The product will be placed at one end;

we're now moving to a self-assembly system

to get the product to a small warehouse.

If you don't stop me, I'll keep
telling you more, so I'll cut it here.

We'd like to hear everything on your mind.

So, let me summarize,
whatever the business requires,

we're trying to find an answer to that

with technological developments.

Since we have a software team inside,
we are able to work at this speed.

As our business is fast,
our team needs to be very fast, too.

I have a question under a head title.

Since you are part of an
online shopping application

and a service,
you keep the inventory instant.

If the product is in stock

and is available for purchase,
someone buys it,

and as of the time they buy it, you drop
the product from your inventory.

But there are different regions
in Istanbul.

I am sure that different products
are sold more in different regions

or there is a need for more.

It's true.

An optimization for this;

because doing this with the optimization
and different methods

are one of the most fundamental things.

It can be important to
improve customer service

and improve productivity

in the back.

Can you say anything about that?

That's right.

It surprises me. "Cigkofte", for instance.

That's one of the products we sell.

For some reason, it is consumed more in
Küçükçekmece, Büyükçekmece and Beylikdüzü

compared to other places.

Litre of coke is consumed more, too.

While 6*250 milliliter cans of coke
are consumed by Beşiktaş,

they consume bigger ones.

What are we doing now;

We try to not break the
overall portfolio experience at Getir.

It's not like Küçükçekmece
has one litre bottles,

and Beşiktaş doesn't. Both sides have it.

But as you mentioned just now,
I'm adjusting the numbers.

While I hold 2 liters of coke and 8 pieces
of 250 milliliter cokes in Beşiktaş,

I keep 8 liters in Küçükçekmece

and I keep the stock quantity
of the "Cigkofte" there higher.

I'm managing it, of course.

We're trying not to say
"it's out" to our customers.

One of the most important things
of retail is

not to say no to the customer
who comes to the store,

whether it is "online" or "offline".

It's important to manage it well.

What Getir is going to do next?

Would it be possible for you to tell us

a few sentences about what you will do?

I can say that we'll have surprises.

We won't stay in the same place.

We're working on new services.

Although it is currently changing
on the basis of region and city,

someone who opens the
Getir application sees 4 tabs.

One is Getir, the others are;
GetirYemek, GetirBüyük, and GetirSu.

"Yemek" (Food) and "Su" (Water) are currently
not available in cities outside Istanbul.

We have very expansion goals
in these three and in GetirBüyük.

We're have goals to
greatly expand these three.

We're going to operate in new verticals,
we're working on it.

Getir has over 2 million customers.

It's actually pretty big.

If a product is found on Getir,

it means 100% availability for that city.

Today, I cover approximately
98% of Istanbul, as a population,

it actually means 98% of it exists.

I mean,

since I have a history of
old consumer products,

it is extremely difficult to
put a product on the shelf

and make it available.

40-50% availability is good,

70-80's is very good,
90 and above is perfect.

There are over 20 thousand
grocery stores in Istanbul,

and there are lots of supermarkets.

You have to be in 18 thousand grocery
stores to ensure that 90% availability.

However, I am a company
that provides 100% availability

to that product owner thanks to Getir.

Right, really successful.

Mr. Tuncay,

thank you very much
for your time at re:retail.

As you mentioned,
especially in this process,

the business world is experiencing
a really serious transformation

that we are all witnessing.

Getir is really one of the important
players of this transformation.

On behalf of myself and of the viewers,

I thank you
for the information you provided

and the topics you shared that
may be of interest to everyone.

You're welcome.

Yes, on the one hand, we turned
to a public business, as I said.

"Loyalty Box"...

It's also very successful.
Thanks for that, too.

Thank you, we have special services
for people over 65 years old.

We made a cooperation with Turkcell.

For the first time,
we received orders by phone,

we made discounts for doctors

and healthcare professionals,

and over the age of 65;
and made special campaigns for them.

Cast one's bread upon the waters.

but there was
a public service expectation.

A responsibility was entrusted to us.

We tried to pull it off, let me say so.

I am proud to do this job

with Turkish companies
and Turkish software developers.

We are happy to serve
our people in this process.

We thank you very much

for all these things you do
and the services you provide.

Thank you.