WIN-World of Industry as the leading manufacturing exhibition of Turkey and the Eurasia region brought on its 20th anniversary four important sectors together.
Organized by Hannover Messe Bileşim Fuarcılık A.Ş. on March 21-24, 2013 at the TÜYAP Fair and Convention Center, the WIN Automation gathered "Industrial Automation", "Electrotech", "Hydraulics & Pneumatics" and "Materials Handling" industries under a single roof.
The exhibition was visited by 75,802 sector professionals of whom 3,036 came from 77 different countries. The fair was held on 30,610 square meters net area with the attendance of 1,765 companies in total.
General Manager of Hannover Messe Bileşim Fuarcılık A.Ş., Alexander Kühnel, shared the success of WIN Automation with Azernews.
By Gulgiz Dadashova
Istanbul, Turkey
Azernews: WIN fair has successfully started bringing together companies representing quite an interesting industry -- Automation, Electrotech, Hydraulics & Pneumatics and Materials Handling sectors. Taking into account the growing interest in this show, what is your estimation of its success?
Alexander Kühnel: First of all, I hundred percent agree that this show is successful. To evaluate the show, if we look at the development, it is unbelievable, it's wonderful. But it is a result of the good hard work, good research, professional work and partners.
If we are talking about partners, this is of course press work, we need to cooperate, we do need the press as well as the press needs us. Therefore, we are cooperating, and I think just looking at the last 4-5 years the level of cooperation with the magazines and newspapers has become more and more professional. Everybody is giving something in and everybody is taking something out of such projects. This is how it should be, it's a win-win situation.
If we speak about the reasons for that success, I can mention a few columns; first, as I said, team, second, international network -- the Deutsche Messe has representatives in more than 100 countries of the world. That helps us to more or less cover all the regions of the world.
The third column is not only our efforts, but also in cooperation with headquarters we are always exchanging ourselves. What does it mean? We do have the same show topic around the world - in China, India, Russia, UAE , US - some of the shows are here, and some of the shows are there -- and where we organize these shows we do collect our experience and do exchange our experience. So, worldwide we can approve ourself -- good things in Turkey might help our friends in Russia, or those coming from China and Germany, and Germany might help us to improve. So, this is another column of success and I think one of the main topics is that you need to listen to your customers. We are not the market, we are offering those functions for the market to promote themselves. Therefore, you need to listen to your partners like associations, because they are represented in the market. You need to listen to them, to follow them. The life cycle of the products, as well as the products in the service industry are limited. But there are always new topics coming out. So, this is achieved in cooperation with your partners, and magazines, newspapers, you need to listen, to feel it and then you need to prove yourself and offer what they want.
Q.:Seeking new markets is always a challenge. How will WIN be helpful to business people to achieve this goal?
A.: If we do look at the WIN fair and count those exhibitors who have their mother company outside Turkey, we do have around 45 percent international exhibitors. So, that means 23 countries around the world are exhibiting here. They can find, they can show themselves here. In other words, that means that the world is more or less here.
The Turkish market is very strong in the fields of automation, electrotech, materials handling. So, just showing them here and combining it with WIN...our task is to provide customers here. This is how business is done. For example, we are organizing more than 50 buses coming from the industry zones located all over Turkey. Tonight the interested from far away Anatolia began to arrive in the fair, and after the show they will be taken back. So, we are caring for professional visitors -- those who are really interested how we can touch them and how we can contact them. We are in contact with our partners like associations, they give us contacts to those industrial areas and we send them invitations, we offer the buses and bring them to the show. We also bring people from other countries and if you ask how we do find out from which countries to invite, I can say that we ask our customers what are the target countries for them, where they need contact persons and if there is a trend or tendency for, let's say, Azerbaijan, Russia or any other country. Then we include those countries or country in our hosted buyer groups. So, we are matching requests and the needs of exhibitors, customers.
Q.: Could the show attract new countries in terms of both exhibitors and buyers this year? Could you specify countries and major participant companies?
A.: If you just walk around, if you do start with the automation show and look into the show you can see 'who is who' there. The top exhibitor companies of the world, including Siemens, ABB, etc. , the companies leading the automotive industry are there. That fits as well to other shows, for example, to Hydraulics & Pneumatics, where Bosch, Festl, the world and top Turkey players are represented. We are covering all of the market leaders, I can say. And if we look at the Materials Handling show, we have signed a long term contract with the Turkish ISDER (Materials Handling, Storage & Industrial Equipments Association) and now all the market leaders are with us.
Q.: What was the role of WIN in the development of the Turkish industry?
A.: It's really interesting. Turkey has set a target for itself -- to be among the top ten industrial nations in the world by 2023 and for sure they can do it. And how can they do this?
They need to promote Turkish products around the world. Turkish companies know that being the exhibitor on the trade show is the most important column of the portfolio of the market mix. So, they are really going around the world to promote their products and they are doing it in a very good and very professional way. This is a big advantage for us, as we are offering that platform where they can promote themselves. And as I said, not only in Turkey, because we are also in China , India, Russia, US, and there they can promote their products. Within Turkey, with the WIN Fair we are offering a good platform for these sectors. We are the number one and if we can offer that industry our show to promote them, join the show and reach the target, then it's a big portion on our side and we are glad to be that. So, we can help them to be successful.
Q.: What makes this show unique from the previous ones? Which new sectors will be represented in this show?
A.: This year we mark the 20th anniversary, we started with WIN Automation 20 years ago and we are now number one.
Also, as I said, because of the cooperation with ISDER, we now can give the materials handling sector the importance that it should have. Now we can showcase the importance of this sector and we will increase its share as well. We had a small baby and now it has grown.
This year we also have a new topic - renewable energy in the energy sector. Around the world renewable energy will become more and more important, because our conventional energy resources are limited. Increasing the share of renewable energy in the show is one of the targets. Renewable energy is one of our main topics and we are focusing on this, as this sector has much potential.
Q.: WIN also provides a platform for business people, scientists, academicians, politicians and journalists to come together for an exchange of ideas. What is your expectation from the Industrial Events Summit?
A.: We are organizing this summit together with our partners and this is a kind of know-how transfer. The companies use that forum to introduce themselves, using it as know-how transfer from the research department to the industrial area. For many exhibitors and visitors such a summit is an additional argument to join the show. For example, at the booths you can see the goods that need more detailed explanation on how they work or the reason behind it, what is its purpose. The summit helps to exchange the experience and ideas, so it is an added value to the show and vice versa. The exhibitors and visitors of the show as well visit the summit. So, this is an ideal combination.