Major change

This year, we are publishing the “Most Popular Companies in Turkey” survey for the fourteenth time. The results for 2013 are again full of important messages for the business community... For the first time in six years there has been a change at the top of the rankings. In 2013, Koç Holding, which last topped the rankings in 2006, rose four places compared with the previous year to take top spot.

Click images to see the tables.
As a result of Koç Holding’s extraordinary rise, Turkcell, which had topped the rankings for the previous six years in a row, became the second most popular company in Turkey. Arçelik moved up one place to third. So which of their companies’ characteristics did the CEOs of the most popular companies like the most? This year we asked them about this for the first time.

THE CHARACTERISTICS THAT TOOK IT TO THE TOP
After a gap of six years, this year Koç Holding is once again at the top of the list of the “Most Popular Companies in Turkey 2013”. So, what does Koç Holding CEO Turgay Durak like most about Koç Holding?

Durak notes that the group’s high business ethics, its professional way of doing business and its strong management structure have made it an exemplary corporation both in the Turkey and in the international arena. “Koç Holding’s most important priority, and our greatest pride, is adding value to our country,” says Durak, adding that the characteristic of Koç Holding that he likes the most is its “long-term, sustainable perspective”, explaining: “Continually renewing ourselves in order to do the best possible at every level of our business and giving importance to details are important characteristics that are in Koç Holding’s DNA. We are the pioneers in technology and innovation in every sector in which we are active. This is also an important competitive strength.”~

TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
The best-loved characteristics of Turkcell, which was the “second” most popular company in 2013 are its investments in information and technology, Turkcell General Manager Süreyya Ciliv draws attention to these characteristics of Turkcell, Ciliv notes that every day its 35 million subscribers prefer to communicate with the possibilities offered by Turkcell, He explained Turkcell’s best-loved characteristics as follows; “Our basic priority is to provide our customers with the highest level of experience, the most advanced technology and the highest quality communication possibilities on suitable terms, We are living in a new world which is being transformed by mobile technology.

As a result of smart devices, everywhere has become an office and our smartphones are our new business computers. For this reason, being able to manage our companies’ business quickly, from anywhere and all the time, and to be able to be in continuous communication with teams out in the field, are of critical importance in terms of operational excellence and productivity.

TEAM SPIRIT AND PASSION
There is no doubt that team spirit and working with passion have a special place in achieving success. It is these characteristics that the high level executives at Argelik, which ranked “third” in the Most Popular League this year, and Coca-Cola, which ranked fourth, most liked about their companies.

Argelik General Manager Levent ^akiroglu stresses that the reason for Argelik’s success in the popularity league is the effort, innovation, ambition and devotion to the company of its hardworking, well-qualified human resources. “This is what I like most about Global Argelik,” he says. “It has a perfect group of people whose team spirit mean that they are determined to succeed in achieving even the most difficult targets.~

I am proud to work with this 25,000 person team” Galya Frayman Molinas, the President of the Coca-Cola Turkey, Caucasus and Central Asia Division, says: “The way we work is that everyone shapes their position themselves. We learn a lot from each other. The most valuable thing is for a person to do the job they love or to love the job they do... We have an environment that allows people to do this. We have very high quality personnel, We run to work each day.”

How was the survey conducted?
1- The planning process for the Most Popular Companies in Turkey began in August 2013. The fieldwork was conducted between 2 September and 5 November 2013 using online techniques.
2- The study included sending online survey forms to 8,500 representatives of the business community. 1,502 executives from more than 500 companies completed the forms.
3-27.1 per cent of the participants in the survey were high level executives and 72.9 per cent were middle level management. 48.3 per cent of the participants were in the 40-49 age group and 39.4 per cent had been in their current positions for between one and five years.
4- The most popular company in Turkey was determined by adding up the votes of the representatives of the business community who were interviewed. For the most popular company in a specific sector, only the votes of representatives of other companies active in the same sector were counted.
5- The participants in the survey were asked to name the most popular company in their sector and in Turkey as a whole, with the exception of their own company, and those who were named their own company were excluded from the calculations.
6- As a result of the survey, the 20 most popular companies in Turkey and the three most popular companies in 42 sectors were selected. Sectors where the responses failed to reach the minimal base levels were excluded from the survey.