Color Service Doubles Turnover in Last 3 Years
Founded in 1987, Color Service has been operating in the textile dyehouse automation industry for 31 years. Producing automatic powder weighing systems for the rubber industry for the last 10 years, the company has also been active in the fields of cosmetics, chemicals and food.
Color Service’s main philosophy is to produce customer-specific solutions. Color Service Marketing Manager Göksun Özensoy said, “We have many solutions and machinery to meet the needs for dyeing, chemical weighing and dosing in a textile dye house. However, we make small changes in our machines for each customer, and update them according to their needs. I think this is the only way to remain in the market when you are manufacturing in Italy and facing high costs. If you try to make a high standard manufacturing, you need to compete with the Far East, which is not possible for us at all.”
Shifting to different directions for development in recent years, the company is trying to expand its marketing network by entering the global markets it has never entered before. Özensoy said, “With this secondary strategy we started in 2016, we have achieved a 30% expansion in our turnover each year. Today, Color Service is more than doubling its turnover in 2015.” We had an interview with Göksun Özensoy, Marketing Manager at Color Service, and talked about their investments in 2019.
Dye houses have a great importance for production of high quality fabrics. What are the innovations made by Color Service for the production of high quality fabrics in dye houses?
In fact, quality is important but it is more important to achieve repeating the quality. In the last 10 years, a common problem for all enterprises is the shrinking volumes, and the buyers not preferring any difference between the volumes. On the other hand, you are expected to be fast. It is not possible to meet all these expectations with a production control, that is managed by people. Whether it is a dye shop or a printing company, it is necessary to install the business memory on machines. For quality and error-free results, man needs to play the controlling role only. This is exactly what we are trying to do as Color Service. There are many factors, which influence quality or repeatability during dyeing and printing. However, apart from the dye and chemicals, they do not have any control at the end of the process. If the result is failure when you are done dyeing, you have no data to prove that the problem stems from the dye/chemical. It’s all washed and drained. After eliminating the other parameters, you think that was the cause of the problem. However, when you use automation, it is possible to prevent errors, and it to get a retrospective report even in case of a possible error.
What are the most important features that distinguish Color Service products from the other brands?
The most important features that distinguish Color Service products from our competitors are the quality and variety of products. When you offer your products that are already in varieties, you can outdo others. For this reason, as Color Service, we are mostly targeting large and medium-sized enterprises. Because we are able to work with the companies, that are willing to pay the premium brand price in return for quality product and customer-specific service.
WE ADAPT THE LATEST INNOVATIONS TO OUR SYSTEMS
What do you pay attention to when you invest in machinery and technology to maintain your competitiveness and quality?
Technology is already what we stand for. For mechanical manufacturing, electrical hardware and software; we are trying to adapt the latest innovations to our systems. When you remain in this business, there will be many people that outperform you. For this reason, you always need to think one step ahead and keep up wityh the technology. Since our suppliers of mechanical and electronic components know this, they want to introduce the new technologies to us. And we adapt these innovations to our machines.
Can you tell us about the purpose of establishing the after-sales support center? What kind of services does it provide?
With this service, called “Help Desk,” we listen to customers and remotely connect to their defective machines. Our staff, that work here, make site visits alternately, and they also have information about the new machines. In addition to these services we also provide technical support services in China, India, Brazil and Turkey. This way, we try to ensure that the time difference are not a problem for us.
What kind of feedback did you get from customers after you started the After-Sales Support Center?
The best feedback was the increase in our sales figures. Our customers, who previously bought machines from other companies since our after-sales support was not strong, started preferring us with time. This is a source of pride for us. However, as of today, we have not achieved to bring it to the desired level. We need new technical staff, since the turnover is doubled withIn a short period like 3-4 years. But, it is not easy to find such staff. For this reason, our customers complain from time to time due to delays. But we never leave them alone.
Can you tell us about your worldwide sales and support network, and the countries you export to?
Currently the biggest turnover comes from China and India, followed by Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Portugal, Italy, Honduras, and the USA. Now we aim to increase our trade volume with Pakistan, North Africa and South America.
WE START OVER IN TURKEY
What is the importance of Turkey for your company in terms of your export markets? How is the demand from Turkish companies for your products? What products of yours are the most demanded?
Turkey has been neglected for a long time. We have again devel- oped an interest in Turkey since 2016. In 2018, it finally started yielding results, but the crisis in the last half of the year slowed down the business again. However we continue working patiently to stay in the market. Currently, we have machines in the market, that are 15-20 years old or 1-2 years old. Our present turnover in Turkey has been 4% in 2018. In fact, according to the ACIMIT statistics, this rate is 30% for other machine manufacturers. We still have a long way to go.
What does innovation and R&D mean to Color Service? Can you tell us about your activities in this area?
We invest a big budget in R&D. R&D is at the core of this work. We aim to prepare the products that we expect the industry to need. Because if you start working only when the industry demands it, you will be too late. In fact, when we introduce a new product to the market, most of the time, it is found to be strange. At this point, we understand that the market is not ready for it yet. Many resulting products may eventually be wasted at the end or at the intermediate phases. This is also part of R&D. You need to do it better by learning from mistakes. Sometimes, ideas on paper work differently in real life, or cannot be practical for the user. You cannot survive without R&D. On the other hand, you should be in a good economic situation so that you can have a budget for R&D. Some companies prefer downsizing, and give up on R&D. After all, it are inevitable for them to be eliminated from the market.
Do you make technological updates according to customer demands?
Actually, this works a little the other way round for us. We try to create demand for our new technologies from our customers. As far as we can see, the technology is still very old for many companies in the textile dyeing industry. When I say this, I generalize, of course. There are also businesses, that have with advanced technology, but their number is very few.
Can you tell us about your goals and investments for 2019?
This year’s target is to increase production capacity. We are planning to increase our production by 50% by purchasing a new building. Our current facility is the largest in the world in this industry, but still it is not enough for us. We need to keep the machines in the warehouses, and then transport them before loading. We have included the warehouse spaces in the production areas. Now many semi-finished components are brought to us and are used immediately. For this purpose, we have another factory in Modena. Machine frames made of stainless steel and aluminum, and some bulky machines are manufactured in this plant. Another goal is to have more user-friendly software. For this purpose, we switched to a new electronic control structure for our machines.
Interview: Dilek Hayırlı