Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

TOBB President Hisarcıklıoğlu, who explained that they have organized 78 events in 26 provinces under the title of Technology Meetings so far, said, “We have reached over one hundred thousand entrepreneurs and SMEs. We have enabled them to keep up with their digitalization and the rapid transformation that is taking place. Our main goal in organizing these events was to catch up with the dizzying speed of digital transformation. We have entered such a digital world that we can sell goods from one end of the world to the other. This is a terrific opportunity for entrepreneurs. No need to go anywhere anymore. You can go to the village of Australia with a button. It's a great advantage, an opportunity but also a threat if we don't use it well. It's a $20 trillion market. 7 billion people are at the tip of a button.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu, emphasizing that the size of the e-commerce sector was 42.2 billion TL in 2017, when they started these activities, said, “In 2021, with the effect of the pandemic, we discovered e-commerce and together it was 381 billion TL. In other words, our e-commerce volume has increased almost 10 times in 4 years. When we compare it compared to the previous year, it has increased by 69 percent. After Covid-19, the trend towards e-commerce continues without slowing. e-Commerce has become a habit for the consumer who started shopping on the internet. They can easily buy the best quality goods at the best price from where they sit. Therefore, we have to move products and services to the digital environment together. For this reason, as TOBB, we aim to digitalize the private sector and develop a new generation of entrepreneurship. We're working on that. The TOBB Technology Meetings event provides awareness of this.”

Stating that TOBB women and young entrepreneur councils in 81 provinces provide trainings to improve the competencies of entrepreneurs, Hisarcıklıoğlu continued: “We are developing the digital infrastructure of our entrepreneurs with the world's largest global companies. We have touched hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs in Turkey with our training, consultancy and mentoring programs. We also made it cross borders. On the one hand, Turkey's e-commerce volume broke records, while on the other hand, the e-commerce volume exceeded $ 2 billion. But we still have a long way to go. For this reason, as TOBB, we are launching the cross-border e-commerce campaign. We are taking our companies with e-commerce capacity and experience to the next league. We provide training, consultancy and guidance services to ensure their access to developed markets, especially in America and Europe. With the project we started this month together with the Association of American companies, our entrepreneurs who have been successful in the American market will guide you and transfer their experiences to you. Our consultants will be offering a wide range of services from logistics to storage, from marketing to product promotion. In addition, with the cooperation of Amazon Turkey and our Ministry of Commerce, we will be offering the e-commerce portal that we will announce very soon.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu, pointing out that the most valuable land in the world is mobile phone screens, said, “The important thing is to be able to take up space in this land. You have to grab the land from here. All the work is here now. So how can we take part in the mobile phone screen. So here's the whole point. Your company or product will either have a mobile application or you will definitely take part in the developed mobile application. Mobile applications provide great convenience to consumers. You all use it. You are all aware of this. The advertising share that digital media received last year was 51 percent of the share of the entire advertising pie. Consumers are now shifting to the virtual environment and the process is now ongoing. So entrepreneurs need to be there. You should definitely move your business to the digital environment.”

Stating that it was necessary to establish a website in order to exist in the digital world in the past, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Now our new digital universe is the Metaverse. What we call the metaverse isn't just about virtual reality and glasses. Now retailers are selling by opening a virtual store. It organizes events in the metaverse universe. Dangerous professions are taught in virtual reality. But for the Metaverse to truly be an economy, we need to integrate it into payment infrastructures. This can only be possible with the infrastructure of the blockchain. Blockchain applications entered our lives with Bitcoin. Then many other crypto assets came out. However, smart contracts are made with these crypto assets. At its simplest, the infrastructure of problems such as collateral in exports is maintained. According to IMF data, Turkey is the country that trades on crypto exchanges the most in the world. But we don't use this platform to generate work. Unfortunately, we have very few blockchain initiatives. In other words, we are not the producer of these technologies, but the consumer. We need to think more about the production leg of this technology. The metaverse is not a tabloid issue, it should become one of the basic elements of our economy.”

After his speech, Hisarcıklıoğlu met with TOBB Turkey Software Council President Ertan Barut and TOBB Turkey Creative Industries Council President Ata Kavame.