Levent Hatay
Dr. Levent Hatay has a Doctorate of Engineering degree in Operations Research from Southern Methodist University. He has a professional career spanning 25 years in leading companies such as Texas Instruments, American Airlines, Koç Holding, Aygaz, Altınyıldız, Vestel, G2M, 1v1y.com and across different sectors such airline operations, textiles, electronics & white goods, retail, food service logistics and e-commerce.
He has extensive education and experience in building systems utilizing operations research and systems optimization. He has implemented optimal decision support systems to run efficient operations to maximize profitability and reduce costs. He was the General Manager and Executive Committee member of Vestel, a 3.2 billion USD electronics and white goods manufacturing conglomerate, in charge of Turkey, CIS and the Middle East.
After ten years of managing Vestel’s widely distributed sales and marketing company with 1.000 stores and one of the ten most recognized brand names in Turkey, he became the CEO of G2M, a fast-growing private-equity owned food-services company in Turkey.
He started his own Management Consulting Company in 2011. As a shareholder, he managed a fashion (flash-sales) e-commerce website 1v1y.com for 18 months to a company of over 2,5 million members. He also serves as a shareholder, an active board member or an advisor for leading companies such as Tırsan, Ekol Logistics, Miranda, APS Textiles, Simfer, 1v1y.com and unnado.com.
He has also held board positions in leading non-profit and sector associations such as:
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RVD (Turkish Advertisers Association),
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TBV (Turkish Information Systems Foundation),
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KALDER (TurkishQuality Association)
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TUSIAD (Turkish Industrialists and Businessman Association).
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Change management is a structured approach to shifting/transitioning organizations from a current state to a desired future state.
Levent Hatay has been responsible for implementing change management in three leading companies in Turkey.
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Merged the sales organization and the after sales service organization of Vestel to effectively manage 1.000 dealers and 400 service centers.
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Completely restructured Vestel Marketing Company’s organization and introduced operations management and reporting systems recognized by international auditors as “best-in-class” in Turkey.
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Merged electronics and white goods service centers of Vestel to increase customer satisfaction.
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Between 2000-2006, transformed the sales distribution system of Vestel from 8 wholesalers, 2.500 mixed dealers and 80 exclusive stores to 1.200 exclusive Vestel stores.
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Grew net revenues of the Vestel Marketing Company from 138 million USD in 2000 to 850 million USD in 2006 with full P/L responsibility.
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Grew G2M over 50 percent from 340 million TL to over 500 million TL in less than a year.
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Established a new “Business Transformation” plan for G2M that included over 100 new projects.
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Revised the overall organization of G2M and sales management structure.
Formed the Operations Group in 1996 that included production planning, IT, purchasing, inventory management and human resources.
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Marketing management is a business discipline which is focused on the practical application of marketing techniques and the management of a firm's marketing resources and activities.
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Improved the positioning of VESTEL brand in Turkey. According to the Nielsen top-of-mind brand awareness study, Vestel was the seventh most recognized brand in Turkey in 2006.
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Launched the B2B2C Vestel website (first in the sector) to sell Vestel products directly to consumers through the dealer network.
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Implemented a new IT infrastructure to track retail sales on-line and to make quick management and campaign decisions.
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Managed the company with its 1.000 store network in one of the toughest periods for the sector against Far Eastern producers and Big-Box retailers and protected Vestel’s LCD market share leadership in Turkey.
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Created REGAL brand by clearly defining a different distribution network, pricing system and branding. Grew Regal brand to over 8 percent market share in white goods sector against formidable brands.
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Conducted the re-branding of G2M brand (corporate and private label packaging).
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Designed a new pricing structure for G2M’s 10.000 products to improve gross margins.
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Managed domestic sales, marketing, export marketing, and product development totaling 85 million US dollars per year at Altınyıldız.
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Introduced one of the first CRM (Database Marketing) efforts in Turkey and formed the customer database which included demographic and inventory information for over 450.000 Aygaz customers.
OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
Operations management is an area of management concerned with overseeing, designing, and redesigning business operations in the production of goods and/or services. It involves the responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient in terms of using as few resources as needed, and effective in terms of meeting customer requirements.
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Implemented a logistics distribution optimization system at G2M with significant savings in transportation costs.
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Implemented warehouse manpower planning optimization at G2M with significant reduction in overtime.
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Transportation planning system at Vestel was optimized using Manugistics and later Solvoyo Optimization System
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Based on modelling, closed warehouses in Adana, Ankara and Istanbul and moved to a single warehouse to optimize overall cost to the company.
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Optimization model was used to minimize transportation costs of over 800 product types from the central warehouse to over 1.000 stores around Turkey.
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Implemented a planning module for yarn-dyeing operation to significantly increase on-time performance of the factory.
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Developed the production and distribution optimization model for Aygaz's 16 filling plants and 1.200 dealers for 900.000 tons of LPG per year where initial testing indicated logistics savings of at least 2 million USD per year.
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Coordinated the development of Long-Haul Crew-Scheduling System in conjuction with American Airlines Decision Technologies, IBM, Georgia Tech which produced estimated cost savings of nearly 5 million USD per year for Federal Express.
