We connect to the world with one integration!

He says that they invest in technology and human resources for this goal. He adds that they will move in this direction in 2023 as well. Özkal said, "Our motto for the new year will be 'single integration'. We will connect our customers to the world with a single integration."

All over the world, before Covid, there was already a digitalization trend that had already started both in our social lives and in the business ecosystem. In some sectors, technology was being updated faster and the digitalization trend was spreading faster. Examples of these are telecom, banking, marketing and production sectors. In some sectors, such as the retail and wholesale trade sector; Digitization was spreading relatively slowly. As we all know, due to its social effects, the Covid period has had an accelerating effect on the spread of digitalization, automation and integrated systems. As a logistics company that serves our customers, many of whom are companies operating in the retail and wholesale trade sector, and offers supply chain solutions, we have experienced the effects of Covid on digitalization at its very center. In this period, I think it would not be wrong to say that the sector players incurred the cost in a sense and understood the strategic importance of the supply chain, while at the same time confronting their weaknesses in this area. As Arvato, we are a company that has been devoting as much or even more to our software and hardware investments to our software and hardware investments, as well as our physical investments such as warehouses and equipment, which are indispensable for the logistics industry, since the day we were founded. That's why our motto in this field has always been: "We are not a logistics company with good technology. We are a technology company that knows logistics well." In summary, as a company that worked intensively on digitalization before Covid, I can say that customer demands have increased with Covid. While we packed 4.5-5 million orders per year in 2018, we reached the level where we packed 20 million orders annually as of 2022 with the demand that accelerated with the pandemic period. This makes us happy for today and this potential causes us to make our investments with confidence for the future. Making a difference with technology As Arvato Turkey, we transformed our strengthened IT team into an R&D center in November 2019 and produced many software and logistics engineering projects.

Today, we have a strong R&D department consisting of nearly 50 software, hardware and business analysis experts, and a project management team called the Project Management Office, all of whom are engineers, and who call their work "logistics engineering" with this confidence. This is where the understanding that we make a difference comes from. In fact, the software solutions we produced with our internal resources on the R&D side started to turn into digital products after a point. For example, SLOT, the warehouse management software we have been using while serving our customers in all our facilities since 2019, is written entirely with our internal resources. In the same way, we serve our customers with the Control Tower team consisting of more than 40 customer representatives with the slogan of one price-one service, by using the network of cargo and distribution companies that we have integrated thanks to the distribution management system we call Arvato DMS, which is unique in Turkey and whose software is made with our internal resources. Thanks to our Click&Collect mobile application, Arvato DOT, which is also owned by us, we support our customers to deliver online orders from their stores to consumers. In short, although we are a logistics company at heart, we are happy to see that we make a difference in the sector by offering technological solutions suitable for the needs of our customers and that our services are appreciated by our customers in this respect. 2023 STRATEGY In fact, I can say that we made our plans for 2023 two years ago and started at the beginning of 2021. As you know, the side where digitalization goes in the business world is "headless" and "SaaS running" software applications. On the other hand, we were aware of two important trends that would become increasingly important and widespread in the retail sector, where most of our customers operate. These are expansion models with cross-border e-commerce with omnichannel applications. These business ideas and technological trends inspired us to create our new app, which we call Omniens. We have an extremely strong staff in this in-house venture project. This is a team of about 20 people in total, consisting of technical and business units. At the head of the technical team is Çetin İnkaya, who has established and managed the technology units at Arvato for many years and is also part of our management team. Ayşe Gedikli, who takes responsibility for the sales, marketing and dissemination of Omniens, has many years of experience in the retail sector and uses the experience and synergy she brings from the other side of the water. We are entering the market ambitiously in 2023 with this omnichannel product, which we launched very recently, in the last quarter of 2022, and of course, we plan to continue our investments to make this product a leader in the market. CEO'S FOCUS AREAS When it comes to digitalization, there are many areas we are proud of. However, we are a team that always thinks about how we can do better, how we can respond to the needs of the sector in the most efficient and rapid way. In this sense, my first priority in the digitalization journey is to enable retailers who have adopted omnichannel applications to perform end-to-end order management. This includes all end-to-end B2B and B2C processes such as logistics, warehousing, order preparation, return management, transportation and cargo processes. But what is important here is that as Arvato Turkey, our priority is to provide the services within the scope of our own business model by making a difference in the sector by using our technological infrastructure and knowledge. My second priority; I can say that it is to continue to invest in cloud technologies based on my vision of building a fully scalable structure. Omniens is the first fruit of this vision and I aim to build a growing formation around a business model that will grow from here. I am talking about the goal of being a platform with many micromanagement panels from product management to customer management, from order management to return management, from supply planning to warehouse management system, and also with advanced analytical reporting and dashboards. We laid the foundations with Omniens and our goals in the new year are to move forward in the light of this vision. Although it is left to the end, I can say that it is another extremely important priority of mine, or rather my 2023 motto; "One integration!" To enable our customers to connect to both our Turkey and global Arvato ecosystem with just one integration. In this way, I believe that we will truly remove the boundaries for our customers. We can remove both the borders between countries and the borders of the technological infrastructures used separately!

How does Omniens make a difference?

MULTI-CHANNEL: To describe briefly, Omniens is an order management system where customers can fulfillment their orders from multiple sales channels by using a large number of stock locations and defining order rule sets according to their needs.

SINGLE POINT: In this way, users can sell their products in many sales channels, namely marketplaces, their own websites, mobile applications or stores, by making product management from a single point. At this stage, they really save time and labor.

STOCK MANAGEMENT: On the other hand, after defining a large number of stock locations on Omniens, they can orchestrate their stocks on the basis of sales channels and according to their own needs, while increasing their stock efficiency, they regain the sales they previously missed due to the volatility in availability.

EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT: If you consider that stores have started to become fulfillment points just like warehouses, I can say that Omniens will meet the needs of many brands, especially since it is a model where it is charged only based on usage, quickly and without investment costs.