C. Utku ARAL, General Manager of SYS:
“The firearm designs we make under CANiK brand inspire many global brands, even much older companies than us. In addition to designs we made, brands and even the special color configurations we create are copied, or rather, imitated.”
CANiK is among the leading companies of the sector with its products, brands, production volume and export successes. Behind all these successes lie approaches, processes, and strategies that can be described under “quality”. In this interview, prepared by Engineer MSc. Zeynep Karel, Mentor and Business Excellence and Management Systems Consultant, interviewed C. Utku Aral, General Manager of SYS regarding these approaches, processes, and strategies.
Zeynep KAREL: Mr. Aral, CANiK produced hundreds of thousands of pistols every year. These are highly demanded by military and law enforcement, along with being exported to many countries like the USA, which is the largest firearms market in the world. I think an excellent quality approach is vital to produce products like pistols that require reliability, security, and performance in these production volumes and to satisfy all your users. Can you please explain your quality approach? What kind of structure and method did you use? What are the management systems you build and execute?
C. Utku ARAL: As you have shared, making a product industrial is as much important as designing the product. What makes CANiK as a successful firearms manufacturer are the followings: determining the needs by user persona, designing the products that meet these needs, producing these products in high quantities in mass production, and offering the best logistical support as our products are standardized.
Our company only had an R&D Design Staff and R&D Prototyping Workshop in 1998, when we started being active in defense industry. We only worked on product development, prototyping, and qualification activities for 2 years. At that time, there were no connection apparatus, advanced cutting tool system, gauge and manufacturing infrastructure driving for industrialization in Türkiye, we had to carry out all these works in-house. Of course, this meant that we had to invest in the staff what would specialize in the relevant areas from the get-go.
To commence manufacturing licenses and permits processes, we first completed Facility Security Clearance Certificate processes. Then, we built a quality management system for International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards. Again, in early 2000s, we started investing in enterprise resource planning (ERP) and we also built a quality management system in line with AQAP-2110 requirements.
At that time, now that no private company was allowed to produce long barreled firearms in Türkiye, we decided to be a partner with the largest Turkish defense company, MKEK. During that period, the most important milestone for this partnership was to provide service for another user other than the ones we were designing and us getting and to be audited by an external organization.
Then, we started producing for Turkish Aerospace and Roketsan and commenced more advanced quality processes. We started applying for the quality requirements for AS9100 in a very short period of time.
We also took an important decision last year and started rebuilding our ERP infrastructure on Microsoft FO / Dynamics 365. We are among the very few Turkish companies with such a comprehensive ERP infrastructure. The reason why we are investing millions of dollars into this infrastructure is the opening of our new factory in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the end of 2022 with a production volume of 150,000. Thanks to our new ERP infrastructure, we will be able to manage human resources and finances from a central point even though our facilities are at various geographic locations.
Zeynep KAREL: What kind of differences do production volumes create in quality systems?
C. Utku ARAL: The biggest difference between small arms and other defense products is that small arms can still be sold to civilian users and thereby being produced in larger volumes.
CANiK has a production volume of 450,000 pistols and 2,500 machine guns per year in its factories in Türkiye. As far as seen from these figures, the quality management for pistols and machine guns cannot be the same. CANiK uses serial production methods aimed at high production volumes for its pistols, however, we use as much CMM, photonic and robotic measurement systems as much as possible for machine guns. For the methods used in pistol production, calibration is crucial and even the smallest problems in measurement devices can lead to large losses.
A Brand Whose Products are Followed and Imitated
Zeynep KAREL: How did the developments you have mentioned affect your company culture? What were your priorities when you were first determining your strategic goals and targets, establishing your corporate ethics, and then managing them?
C. Utku ARAL: As CANiK, we took great strides in becoming a global brand since 2010. These steps were successful with God’s willing and gave our staff a confidence boost. The success we gained in the USA, the bids we won around the world and the contracts we signed also increased the trust of our partners to us.
This made us an actor that is followed by many others as well as one of the leading players. The firearm designs we make under CANiK brand inspire many global brands, even much older companies than us. In addition to designs we made, brands and even the special color configurations we create are copied, or rather, imitated.
Today, leading accessory, coating and optics companies develop products specifically for CANiK. For example, Cerakote developed a color named “CANiK Rival Grey” in line with our demands and does not sell that color to any other user. Besides, many companies that produce holsters, compensators, suppressors, and flashlights develop special products suitable only for CANiK.
CANiK has strong and resilient ethics. We never tried to take shortcuts. We advanced one step at a time, but we advanced steadily. The most important of our company values is honesty. We have never taken on a project we couldn’t or wouldn’t handle, so that neither us nor our country would lose time or valuable resources. We never even consider doing anything illegal in our bids. We never spoiled our company strategy by entering a project that was not in line with our company strategies, even if that project was commenced by Defence Industry Agency (SSB).
Zeynep KAREL: I always include the points you have touched in all my quality trainings. Fundamentals are crucial and subject matter expertise is again, very important. The foundation must be so good and solid that it does not collapse or break down with your additions, and on the contrary, grows stronger. Walking slowly but steadily in your expertise makes you strong, sustainable, and stand against the test of time, along with helping you create a strong brand. All this becomes the strength of your brand.
We see every single firearm you develop and produce contributes to the success of CANiK in the sector. In your road to success, what were your obstacles and what were gentle stretches of land?
C. Utku ARAL: We have a strategy department in our corporate organization. This department follows the defense industry trends around the world and determines future needs. It takes part in various workshops across the globe. Of all our production, 95 percent is aimed at export markets. In other words, CANiK is not a company that centered itself around Türkiye’s needs.
To give an example regarding product development; we first applied to develop a 12.7mm machine gun to SSB in 2012, together with ASELSAN. We did not demand any financial assistance in this application and then we started Manufacturing Permit Certification process from Ministry of National Defense. We had to wait until SSB commenced the project in 2017 and we did not involve any projects other than a project for pistol procurement where we received a Call to Tender. We managed to sign the contract regarding the 12.7 mm heavy machine gun project, a part of our strategic outlook, in 2018 with SSB. After this long process we completed the design, qualification, and industrialization processes in 3.5 years.
The success we had in pistols led to great expectations for machine guns, both from us and the end-user. We worked tirelessly to go above and beyond the expectations. Not only our R&D staff, but also quality control, production engineering, digital, business development and integrated logistics staff made important contributions to this project. We developed not only the firearm, but also developed all the accessory, optics, and integration solutions a user may need at the same time.
Our subsidiaries, UNIDEF and Unirobotics, invested significantly into the integration of this gun into land, sea, and air platforms. Active-Balanced gun Mount, BOMBUS Gun Pod, Twin Air Defense Mount projects are all coming to their conclusions.
The Brands Offer International Competitive Advantage in Market
Zeynep KAREL: Apart from your CANiK brand, do you also have other brands like MECANiK? Will your branding strategies continue?
C. Utku ARAL: We are implementing a very strong branding strategy. With our approach, we can easily compete with the most prominent brands around the world. We create specialized brands in that regard, for example, our CANiK brand focuses on final products like pistols and machine guns. Accessories, tactical shooting, and armorer training among others are all under different brands. Working like an independent company, each of these brands has their own staff. Therefore, we can delegate our strategic aims to relevant brands and achieve those goals.
Our brands so far may be listed as CANiK Store, MECANiK, CANiK Tech, CANiK Academy, CANiK News, CANiK Team, CANiK Smart and CANiK App.
Zeynep KAREL: CANiK comes forward as the export champion for pistols in the sector in recent years. What differentiates you from others in your export efforts?
C. Utku ARAL: Actually, our export success not only covers pistols domain but also small arms and light firerams as a whole. According to the data from Turkish Exporters’ Assembly (TİM), Türkiye’s exports reached to $225,367,676,000 in 2012 increasing by 32.9%. Defense and aerospace sector increased their exports by 41.5 percent compared to the last year, showing a performance above Türkiye’s average. CANiK, according to the 2020 data of the Defence and Aerospace Industry Exporters’ Association (SSI), won the “Largest Exporter” award in the small arms category.
We increased our exports by 40 percent in dollars in 2021 and were awarded as the “Biggest Exporter” in Small Arms category again. We were happy to see ourselves in top 10 lists in all categories of defense exports and being the only arms manufacturer in these categories.
I can say this success resulted from our vision and our structuring in line with this vision. Export have been the focus of CANiK’s strategy from the first day of work. Türkiye’s small arms and gun demands are limited in numbers. Today, all required projects have been either commenced or completed regarding small arms in our country. In this regard, exports gain more. In the near future, developments on medium caliber guns will be more crucial. These kinds of guns seem to constitute significant foreign dependence issue for our country, especially on the land, sea, and air platforms we product and export. Of course, we are currently working on resolving the issue.
Zeynep KAREL: International competition is very intense of your sector. How do you position your company among global market?
C. Utku ARAL: In defense industry, it is not enough to only develop the products. One must create brands and show its presence to compete in all markets. Therefore, we will continue to design new products and fulfill the requirements of being an international brand in the upcoming period.
We are investing significantly in our digital infrastructure in this regard, to add important capabilities like online sales channels and various applications. We are doing these investments for our international markets rather than only domestic market.
We have 3 “CANiK Store” and more than 10 “CANiK Corner” stores in Türkiye. Our “CANiK Store” and “CANiK Corner Plus” sales areas will be in all chain stores in the USA. We will hold a marketing event in France named “CANiK Tour” this year as well. Like we did in 2021, and we will be able to get together with our clients in all shooting ranges. CANiK was the main sponsor for the IDPA European Championship, to be held in Italy in November 2022. In addition, we have an intense social media campaign titled “Choose Your RIVAL” in the USA. In this campaign, influencers who are interested in tactical shooting or sports shooting will be taking a difficult but safe shot using a SFx RIVAL model pistol and then through their social media channels challenging their rivals or people whom they wish to see taking the same shot.
In addition, we created a limited-edition collection firearm series titled “CANiK Signature Series” consisting of certified concept models in 2021. We also launched “CANiK Creations” with Cerakote, making the first 3D designs on one layer of coating with lasers in the world. In the SHOT Show fair, held January in this year, we sold all our yearly capacity for this product in the first day of the fair.
The factory we will be building in West Palm Beach, Florida will be one of the most modern small arms factories in the country. While we will be widening our product line-up thanks to this factory, we also increase our logistical score in the American public bids, and hopefully we will make a strong entry to the American public sector.
Regarding to machine guns, we created a firearm that surpasses all other competitors around the world in performance. We completed all required accessory and integration needs for this gun as well. Now, we are doing our best to start a new era with our electromechanical solutions.
With our smart firearms efforts under “CANiK Digital”, we will make significant improvements to the usage of firearms, both in civilian and security sectors. Our solutions will have features that has never been offered by other companies.
In short, we like competition. Let the others worry!
CANiK Will Grow with Right Strategies, Products, and Investments
Zeynep KAREL: In the period we live in, we are experiencing and will face great changes all around the world, especially accompanied with the pandemic. Of course, this affects customer demands, and these demands change and progress rapidly. When we consider your international business experience, what kind of a roadmap awaits CANiK? What can you share about your foresight to make your successes sustainable and what you desire to accomplish?
C. Utku ARAL: The pandemic has shown that the crisis can turn into an opportunity in the defense industry, as in every sector. For these cases, one must always need an action plan when the first signs of the crisis appear. As we forecasted that we would experience hardships due to the pandemic, we were the first company in the defense sector to publish a pandemic action plan. We activated various plans in customer demands as well as production and infrastructure investments. We considered pandemic and the crisis that would follow may make people feel less secure and this would create an intense demand in civilian firearms market. We also forecasted now that public procurement would also slow down, we focused on civilian markets. These foresights allowed us to reach very important sales figures.
We were evaluating this increased demand, started with pandemic in 2020, would subside by August-September 2021. We planned launches of new models in August 2021 to ensure that our sales figures would not falter. Bringing the right product at the right price to the market was a crucial step for this, and we read the user trends well. Hence, the market showed signs of slowing down in September-October 2021, but with METE series pistols we launched in August we managed this slowdown without losing any sales and we continue to do so.
We launched many projects in the pandemic period regarding small arms, from personal use to security forces. We also completed our 12.7mm Heavy Machine Gun Project in this period as well, we received orders, and we are delivering this gun as of this moment.
Our greatest differentiator in this period was our passion for investment. In pandemic period, we managed to increase our investments and our employment figures, and our investments only speed up towards 2022. We will continue to add new investments to increase our value in the sector’s exports, expand employment, and as such, boost the added value we provide to the sector. CANiK USA is one of our long-term investments. We will enjoy the fruits of our $25 million investment for our factory in Florida and add a further 150,000 to our production volume, reaching 600,000. We will also conclude our $13 million academy investment in Türkiye in the next two years. In the next 5 years, we will finish our large-scale investment in Samsun, bringing all our infrastructure together and complete the integration between departments, leading to a more efficient production potential.
Zeynep KAREL: When we take a look at organizations that enjoy immense success, we see a purpose that inspires, a vision that excites, and a strategy that brings results. When I listened to your answers, I thought you were being a prime example for the definition we see in the EFQM Model.
Creating sustainable value stands on different legs. The plans of the organization regarding the present and the future may sometimes run in parallel or simultaneously, depending on the business. The organization designs the value and its creation, determines the complete experience with the communication and presentation of the value, and applies these. If an organization is to be successful now and, in the future, and sustain success, it must achieve two important conditions at the same time: successfully managing its current business while managing the changes both inside and outside the organization, to maintain the organizational success. I saw this in you. CANiK prepares for the future and designs and executes what it must do for the present successfully. You have internalized these points very well. I am sure all your executed activities for creating a sustainable value and future along with your successes both in Türkiye and abroad will inspire all our readers.
As John Ruskin said, “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.”
I thank you and all your staff for this enjoyable interview.
We would like to thank Zeynep KAREL and C. Utku ARAL for taking the time to answer our questions, and providing us with such valuable information.
Zeynep KAREL: Mr. Aral, CANiK produced hundreds of thousands of pistols every year. These are highly demanded by military and law enforcement, along with being exported to many countries like the USA, which is the largest firearms market in the world. I think an excellent quality approach is vital to produce products like pistols that require reliability, security, and performance in these production volumes and to satisfy all your users. Can you please explain your quality approach? What kind of structure and method did you use? What are the management systems you build and execute?
C. Utku ARAL: As you have shared, making a product industrial is as much important as designing the product. What makes CANiK as a successful firearms manufacturer are the followings: determining the needs by user persona, designing the products that meet these needs, producing these products in high quantities in mass production, and offering the best logistical support as our products are standardized.
Our company only had an R&D Design Staff and R&D Prototyping Workshop in 1998, when we started being active in defense industry. We only worked on product development, prototyping, and qualification activities for 2 years. At that time, there were no connection apparatus, advanced cutting tool system, gauge and manufacturing infrastructure driving for industrialization in Türkiye, we had to carry out all these works in-house. Of course, this meant that we had to invest in the staff what would specialize in the relevant areas from the get-go.
To commence manufacturing licenses and permits processes, we first completed Facility Security Clearance Certificate processes. Then, we built a quality management system for International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards. Again, in early 2000s, we started investing in enterprise resource planning (ERP) and we also built a quality management system in line with AQAP-2110 requirements.
At that time, now that no private company was allowed to produce long barreled firearms in Türkiye, we decided to be a partner with the largest Turkish defense company, MKEK. During that period, the most important milestone for this partnership was to provide service for another user other than the ones we were designing and us getting and to be audited by an external organization.
Then, we started producing for Turkish Aerospace and Roketsan and commenced more advanced quality processes. We started applying for the quality requirements for AS9100 in a very short period of time.
We also took an important decision last year and started rebuilding our ERP infrastructure on Microsoft FO / Dynamics 365. We are among the very few Turkish companies with such a comprehensive ERP infrastructure. The reason why we are investing millions of dollars into this infrastructure is the opening of our new factory in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the end of 2022 with a production volume of 150,000. Thanks to our new ERP infrastructure, we will be able to manage human resources and finances from a central point even though our facilities are at various geographic locations.
Zeynep KAREL: What kind of differences do production volumes create in quality systems?
C. Utku ARAL: The biggest difference between small arms and other defense products is that small arms can still be sold to civilian users and thereby being produced in larger volumes.
CANiK has a production volume of 450,000 pistols and 2,500 machine guns per year in its factories in Türkiye. As far as seen from these figures, the quality management for pistols and machine guns cannot be the same. CANiK uses serial production methods aimed at high production volumes for its pistols, however, we use as much CMM, photonic and robotic measurement systems as much as possible for machine guns. For the methods used in pistol production, calibration is crucial and even the smallest problems in measurement devices can lead to large losses.
A Brand Whose Products are Followed and Imitated
Zeynep KAREL: How did the developments you have mentioned affect your company culture? What were your priorities when you were first determining your strategic goals and targets, establishing your corporate ethics, and then managing them?
C. Utku ARAL: As CANiK, we took great strides in becoming a global brand since 2010. These steps were successful with God’s willing and gave our staff a confidence boost. The success we gained in the USA, the bids we won around the world and the contracts we signed also increased the trust of our partners to us.
This made us an actor that is followed by many others as well as one of the leading players. The firearm designs we make under CANiK brand inspire many global brands, even much older companies than us. In addition to designs we made, brands and even the special color configurations we create are copied, or rather, imitated.
Today, leading accessory, coating and optics companies develop products specifically for CANiK. For example, Cerakote developed a color named “CANiK Rival Grey” in line with our demands and does not sell that color to any other user. Besides, many companies that produce holsters, compensators, suppressors, and flashlights develop special products suitable only for CANiK.
CANiK has strong and resilient ethics. We never tried to take shortcuts. We advanced one step at a time, but we advanced steadily. The most important of our company values is honesty. We have never taken on a project we couldn’t or wouldn’t handle, so that neither us nor our country would lose time or valuable resources. We never even consider doing anything illegal in our bids. We never spoiled our company strategy by entering a project that was not in line with our company strategies, even if that project was commenced by Defence Industry Agency (SSB).
Zeynep KAREL: I always include the points you have touched in all my quality trainings. Fundamentals are crucial and subject matter expertise is again, very important. The foundation must be so good and solid that it does not collapse or break down with your additions, and on the contrary, grows stronger. Walking slowly but steadily in your expertise makes you strong, sustainable, and stand against the test of time, along with helping you create a strong brand. All this becomes the strength of your brand.
We see every single firearm you develop and produce contributes to the success of CANiK in the sector. In your road to success, what were your obstacles and what were gentle stretches of land?
C. Utku ARAL: We have a strategy department in our corporate organization. This department follows the defense industry trends around the world and determines future needs. It takes part in various workshops across the globe. Of all our production, 95 percent is aimed at export markets. In other words, CANiK is not a company that centered itself around Türkiye’s needs.
To give an example regarding product development; we first applied to develop a 12.7mm machine gun to SSB in 2012, together with ASELSAN. We did not demand any financial assistance in this application and then we started Manufacturing Permit Certification process from Ministry of National Defense. We had to wait until SSB commenced the project in 2017 and we did not involve any projects other than a project for pistol procurement where we received a Call to Tender. We managed to sign the contract regarding the 12.7 mm heavy machine gun project, a part of our strategic outlook, in 2018 with SSB. After this long process we completed the design, qualification, and industrialization processes in 3.5 years.
The success we had in pistols led to great expectations for machine guns, both from us and the end-user. We worked tirelessly to go above and beyond the expectations. Not only our R&D staff, but also quality control, production engineering, digital, business development and integrated logistics staff made important contributions to this project. We developed not only the firearm, but also developed all the accessory, optics, and integration solutions a user may need at the same time.
Our subsidiaries, UNIDEF and Unirobotics, invested significantly into the integration of this gun into land, sea, and air platforms. Active-Balanced gun Mount, BOMBUS Gun Pod, Twin Air Defense Mount projects are all coming to their conclusions.
The Brands Offer International Competitive Advantage in Market
Zeynep KAREL: Apart from your CANiK brand, do you also have other brands like MECANiK? Will your branding strategies continue?
C. Utku ARAL: We are implementing a very strong branding strategy. With our approach, we can easily compete with the most prominent brands around the world. We create specialized brands in that regard, for example, our CANiK brand focuses on final products like pistols and machine guns. Accessories, tactical shooting, and armorer training among others are all under different brands. Working like an independent company, each of these brands has their own staff. Therefore, we can delegate our strategic aims to relevant brands and achieve those goals.
Our brands so far may be listed as CANiK Store, MECANiK, CANiK Tech, CANiK Academy, CANiK News, CANiK Team, CANiK Smart and CANiK App.
Zeynep KAREL: CANiK comes forward as the export champion for pistols in the sector in recent years. What differentiates you from others in your export efforts?
C. Utku ARAL: Actually, our export success not only covers pistols domain but also small arms and light firerams as a whole. According to the data from Turkish Exporters’ Assembly (TİM), Türkiye’s exports reached to $225,367,676,000 in 2012 increasing by 32.9%. Defense and aerospace sector increased their exports by 41.5 percent compared to the last year, showing a performance above Türkiye’s average. CANiK, according to the 2020 data of the Defence and Aerospace Industry Exporters’ Association (SSI), won the “Largest Exporter” award in the small arms category.
We increased our exports by 40 percent in dollars in 2021 and were awarded as the “Biggest Exporter” in Small Arms category again. We were happy to see ourselves in top 10 lists in all categories of defense exports and being the only arms manufacturer in these categories.
I can say this success resulted from our vision and our structuring in line with this vision. Export have been the focus of CANiK’s strategy from the first day of work. Türkiye’s small arms and gun demands are limited in numbers. Today, all required projects have been either commenced or completed regarding small arms in our country. In this regard, exports gain more. In the near future, developments on medium caliber guns will be more crucial. These kinds of guns seem to constitute significant foreign dependence issue for our country, especially on the land, sea, and air platforms we product and export. Of course, we are currently working on resolving the issue.
Zeynep KAREL: International competition is very intense of your sector. How do you position your company among global market?
C. Utku ARAL: In defense industry, it is not enough to only develop the products. One must create brands and show its presence to compete in all markets. Therefore, we will continue to design new products and fulfill the requirements of being an international brand in the upcoming period.
We are investing significantly in our digital infrastructure in this regard, to add important capabilities like online sales channels and various applications. We are doing these investments for our international markets rather than only domestic market.
We have 3 “CANiK Store” and more than 10 “CANiK Corner” stores in Türkiye. Our “CANiK Store” and “CANiK Corner Plus” sales areas will be in all chain stores in the USA. We will hold a marketing event in France named “CANiK Tour” this year as well. Like we did in 2021, and we will be able to get together with our clients in all shooting ranges. CANiK was the main sponsor for the IDPA European Championship, to be held in Italy in November 2022. In addition, we have an intense social media campaign titled “Choose Your RIVAL” in the USA. In this campaign, influencers who are interested in tactical shooting or sports shooting will be taking a difficult but safe shot using a SFx RIVAL model pistol and then through their social media channels challenging their rivals or people whom they wish to see taking the same shot.
In addition, we created a limited-edition collection firearm series titled “CANiK Signature Series” consisting of certified concept models in 2021. We also launched “CANiK Creations” with Cerakote, making the first 3D designs on one layer of coating with lasers in the world. In the SHOT Show fair, held January in this year, we sold all our yearly capacity for this product in the first day of the fair.
The factory we will be building in West Palm Beach, Florida will be one of the most modern small arms factories in the country. While we will be widening our product line-up thanks to this factory, we also increase our logistical score in the American public bids, and hopefully we will make a strong entry to the American public sector.
Regarding to machine guns, we created a firearm that surpasses all other competitors around the world in performance. We completed all required accessory and integration needs for this gun as well. Now, we are doing our best to start a new era with our electromechanical solutions.
With our smart firearms efforts under “CANiK Digital”, we will make significant improvements to the usage of firearms, both in civilian and security sectors. Our solutions will have features that has never been offered by other companies.
In short, we like competition. Let the others worry!
CANiK Will Grow with Right Strategies, Products, and Investments
Zeynep KAREL: In the period we live in, we are experiencing and will face great changes all around the world, especially accompanied with the pandemic. Of course, this affects customer demands, and these demands change and progress rapidly. When we consider your international business experience, what kind of a roadmap awaits CANiK? What can you share about your foresight to make your successes sustainable and what you desire to accomplish?
C. Utku ARAL: The pandemic has shown that the crisis can turn into an opportunity in the defense industry, as in every sector. For these cases, one must always need an action plan when the first signs of the crisis appear. As we forecasted that we would experience hardships due to the pandemic, we were the first company in the defense sector to publish a pandemic action plan. We activated various plans in customer demands as well as production and infrastructure investments. We considered pandemic and the crisis that would follow may make people feel less secure and this would create an intense demand in civilian firearms market. We also forecasted now that public procurement would also slow down, we focused on civilian markets. These foresights allowed us to reach very important sales figures.
We were evaluating this increased demand, started with pandemic in 2020, would subside by August-September 2021. We planned launches of new models in August 2021 to ensure that our sales figures would not falter. Bringing the right product at the right price to the market was a crucial step for this, and we read the user trends well. Hence, the market showed signs of slowing down in September-October 2021, but with METE series pistols we launched in August we managed this slowdown without losing any sales and we continue to do so.
We launched many projects in the pandemic period regarding small arms, from personal use to security forces. We also completed our 12.7mm Heavy Machine Gun Project in this period as well, we received orders, and we are delivering this gun as of this moment.
Our greatest differentiator in this period was our passion for investment. In pandemic period, we managed to increase our investments and our employment figures, and our investments only speed up towards 2022. We will continue to add new investments to increase our value in the sector’s exports, expand employment, and as such, boost the added value we provide to the sector. CANiK USA is one of our long-term investments. We will enjoy the fruits of our $25 million investment for our factory in Florida and add a further 150,000 to our production volume, reaching 600,000. We will also conclude our $13 million academy investment in Türkiye in the next two years. In the next 5 years, we will finish our large-scale investment in Samsun, bringing all our infrastructure together and complete the integration between departments, leading to a more efficient production potential.
Zeynep KAREL: When we take a look at organizations that enjoy immense success, we see a purpose that inspires, a vision that excites, and a strategy that brings results. When I listened to your answers, I thought you were being a prime example for the definition we see in the EFQM Model.
Creating sustainable value stands on different legs. The plans of the organization regarding the present and the future may sometimes run in parallel or simultaneously, depending on the business. The organization designs the value and its creation, determines the complete experience with the communication and presentation of the value, and applies these. If an organization is to be successful now and, in the future, and sustain success, it must achieve two important conditions at the same time: successfully managing its current business while managing the changes both inside and outside the organization, to maintain the organizational success. I saw this in you. CANiK prepares for the future and designs and executes what it must do for the present successfully. You have internalized these points very well. I am sure all your executed activities for creating a sustainable value and future along with your successes both in Türkiye and abroad will inspire all our readers.
As John Ruskin said, “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.”
I thank you and all your staff for this enjoyable interview.
We would like to thank Zeynep KAREL and C. Utku ARAL for taking the time to answer our questions, and providing us with such valuable information.
