Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

Faik Yavuz said that in order to reform the public administration, only legislative changes are not enough, qualified human resources and service-oriented working understanding are needed along with change in legislation.

Emphasizing that change in public administration is not easy, Yavuz said, “Another element of change in public administration is consultation and common sense. During change, it is very important to listen to those who will be affected by change, to consult with them and to design the right policies and strategies by analyzing needs correctly. At this point, the importance of umbrella organizations such as TOBB and professional organizations such as Chamber-Exchanges is once again revealed. As TOBB, we work closely with public institutions and organizations both in many boards and commissions, as well as in the preparation and implementation of strategy documents and action plans. We communicate with the public through many different channels. Experience has shown that the stronger the public-private consultation mechanism in the policy design process is, the more effective the resulting policies are. That's why we need public-private consultation much more than before, especially at this time. As long as we develop an effective consultation and discussion environment, we will have established a solid understanding of quality in the public sector.”

Faik Yavuz stated that the theme of the public administration quality symposium this year is to 'shape the future': “When we look at quality studies from the past to the present, we come across a very important subject: data and analysis of data. Shaping the future is about analyzing data. We look at data in many analyses such as customer satisfaction, performance of our employees, sustainability of the supply system and try to benefit from the data in the decisions we make. It is now very important to measure the effects of public incentives and supports with impact analyses. With the impact analyses, it became possible to identify the disruptive aspects of incentives and supports and make a new design. We follow other studies in public administration in this direction with interest. One of the studies carried out in this context, which we believe will act as a framework for data, is the 'National AI Strategy Document' carried out by the Presidential Office of Digital Transformation. With this document, I think that awareness will increase in the creation of value from data in the public and private sectors, and with the strategies drawn here, data will become a more important agenda item.”

Referring to the Easy Export Platform developed by the Ministry of Trade, Yavuz said, “When carrying out foreign trade, a large amount of data is produced both from declarations, logistical documents and from the nature of trade. When this data is examined in bulk, a great value emerges. Our Ministry of Commerce recognized the opportunity here and established the Easy Export platform and made the Smart Export Robot, which offers market proposals to SMEs, available to the private sector. With the Smart Export Robot, hundreds of thousands of rows of data obtained from exporters' historical data and different data sources are processed instantly and made into a SME-specific market proposal.”

Faik Yavuz said that a small change in the public sector can affect other segments in a much larger way, and is a guide for other segments.

Yavuz stated that many other stakeholders plan their own change by looking at the change here, “However, it requires time and patience. On top of all this, human resources are needed. Qualified human resources are not enough; the resources need to work in harmony. In fact, the key to quality in the public is acting as a team. The most important way to act as a team is to strengthen communication. Today and for the next 2 days, we are organizing the Public Quality Symposium where knowledge and experiences will be shared in order to improve the quality of management in the public and achieve institutional excellence. With this symposium, we aim to spread experience and increase knowledge.”