Orsiad Journal interviewed with Classen Group’s Turkey Sales Manager Mr. Levent Bahtiyar Ceyran and learned more about this worlwide successful company.
Orsiad: Can we get brief information about your company?
Mr. Levent Bahtiyar Ceyran:Classen company is currently Europe’s most modern laminate flooring producer. At the same time, it’s the only company with a patent for its own locking system which designs and produces its own paper, and it’s capable of implementing locking systems. For example, what we call as the digital print system does not have any limist regarding color, pattern, or design. You come with the product you want and we design and print this product completely on paper, and produce the classic parquet. This way, we have become a unique company that’s free from sticking to the terms of another paper manufacturer. Currently we offer this system to the leading companies of the construction market in the world.
The current production capacity of our company is 90million sq.m and 75million sq.m of this total amount was produced and invoiced in 2013. Our expectations for 2014 is to produce and sell a total of 90 million sq.m flooring.
Orsiad: Can you tell us more about your products?
Mr. Levent Bahtiyar Ceyran:We have a goal of reaching 900-950 colors and decors when our plans will finalize. We can design products according to the demand and we have no limit. So when the customer comes here with a color and pattern, there’s no way he/she would not be able to find what he/she is looking for. This is our ultimate goal and we want to provide it.
In fact, our German-made laminate flooring imported products are our greatest advantage! As everyone knows about the local industry, the R & D departments of domestic companies determine a single collection for every 2- 3 years and presents it to its dealers. By this way, even if they are renewed, everybody still gets the same collection and same colors. It decreases the power of competitiveness and minimizes the chance of sales at the market. What we do is to create personalized collections of individual brands. When a distributor comes here and likes a color, we can offer him 40 alternatives. Currently no domestic producers can supply such a process.
Orsiad: What are your goals for 2015?
Mr. Levent Bahtiyar Ceyran:Our biggest innovation in our products is NEO which is the water resistant laminate flooring. In Turkey when someone talks about water resistant flooring, they come up with the idea of LVT. But LVT is not hardwood. Yes it’s water resistant, but is only a high quality plastic. It’s the more luxurious and more advanced version of vinyl, pvc roll or pvc tiles. On the other hand, our product NEO is completely water-proof laminate flooring with a lock system. So what’s the difference between NEO and LVT? While LVT is made of 100% plastic, NEO does not include any plastics! This means when you are left closed in room with LVT flooring, you breathe gas. Sıch a thing can never happen with NEO. Even though color options are limited, there are more than 30 types of tiles and patterns. And we are proud to make this statement that NEO is the first water-resistant laminate flooring in the world.
And if we want to talk about our goals related with the market, we can say that our biggest development for 2015 is our new office where we can exhibit all of our manufactured products. Our purpose here is to open the way of cooperation with our existing distributors. Our existing distributors and sub-dealers need to know very well of Classen and its unique products. It’s hard to gather a team of 100-150 people and take them abroad in order to introduce all of the products. Therefore we opened an office here and make it easier and more advantageous. With this new office, our distributors can also welcome their sub-dealers, introduce the products, have meetings and be notified instantly about the latest developments. We think of this place as a kind of laboratory and common office area for our dealers. Even though we opened this place for Classen, in fact it’s also opened for them.
Other than these developments, we had a new collaboration with METRO YAPI EGGER. It was a start in 2014 and we plan to make bigger jobs in 2015. We also continue to work with YILMAZ YAPI. We keep working together with our oldest dealer company SERILEN HALICILIK. If everything goes well as we planned, our aim is to take 10% of the market share.
Orsiad: Anything else you would you like to add?
Mr. Levent Bahtiyar Ceyran:Classen has great plans and goals for Turkish market. In fact we are moving slowly. But in the end we aim is to share 10% of the market. And then we want to make Classen name as the number one brand when we talk about laminate flooring. For this purpose, we continue our investments in production as well as in sales and marketing. We only work with the best and want to reach every point. We want to maximize the level of brand awareness.