The Success of the CANiK Ecosystem Relies on Protecting the Brands
Gençay Gençer, Business Development and Corporate Communication Manager of SYS, highlighted that the key to success in the sector is branding and protecting the brand, saying, “If you invest in the brand and protect it, the brand will protect you in times of crisis.”
Gençay Gençer, Business Development and Corporate Communication Manager of SYS, highlighted that the key to success in the sector is branding and protecting the brand, saying, “If you invest in the brand and protect it, the brand will protect you in times of crisis.” Gençer became a part of SYS family after 20 years of service in the Turkish Naval Forces Command, and he shared what led to the development of the CANiK ecosystem and the successes it achieved for CANiK News readers.
CANiK News: Mr. Gençer, could you please tell us about yourself? You have approximately 20 years of experience in the Turkish Naval Forces, and you’ve been working at SYS for over 4 years now.
Gençay GENÇER: I began my journey in the Turkish Naval Forces in 2000 when I entered military school, and I started active duty in August 2002. Throughout my career, I’ve served in various roles, including as an operator (team personnel) and instructor at the Turkish Naval Special Warfare Command (SAT). I’ve also undertaken various consultancy and observer roles in different countries. In 2019, I decided to transition to the private sector and joined the SYS group of companies. Since then, I have been serving as the Business Development and Corporate Communication, Manager for SYS.
CANiK News: After your service in the armed forces, why did you choose to work for SYS?
Gençay GENÇER: First and foremost, I’d like to emphasize the importance of vision. It is the most important thing for me. You can buy many things with money, but you can’t buy vision. Given my background and training, I’m accustomed to performing analyses. During my military career, I was deployed to several countries where I performed long-term analyses. I’ve also conducted similar analyses for SYS. In 2019, SYS was one of the youngest companies in the global firearms market. When I looked at their past achievements, I saw that there was a significant vision behind their work, and honestly, it greatly impressed me. I believed that I could satisfy my inner drive for challenge and embark on a series of adventures at SYS. The history of the Aral family and their past endeavors also show a consistent theme: vision and pioneering achievements. I felt the same vision when it came to firearms. These factors played a significant role in my decision to become part of the SYS family.
Branding Efforts Were Made
CANiK News: What did you do first when you took office?
Gençay GENÇER: When I took on my role, in early 2019, we began by formulating a series of plans to fulfill the strategic projection set by the top management for our company’s activities. At the core of these plans was the idea of creating an ecosystem. In that landscape, it had been projected years before my arrival that the existing products alone would not be sufficient to bring the envisioned future to life; there was a need to diversify our product range. In line with this projection, we planned the future of our existing products and brands, and we laid the foundation for our ecosystem. In this structure, alongside our flagship brand CANiK, we considered creating new brands and companies, and we initiated trademark registrations and company formations. We established brands such as CANiK Store, MECANiK, CANiK Tech, CANiK Academy, CANiK News, CANiK Team, CANiK Smart, CANiK App, and even MECANiK Coffee. We launched an initiative in early 2020 to establish UNIROBOTICS as a subsidiary. In the meantime, we initiated discussions for the acquisition of AEI Systems. We built our brands to cover products, accessories, training, and anything else we needed.
CANiK News: How do these subsidiaries and brands within your ecosystem relate to each other?
Gençay GENÇER: In our current structure, CANiK manufactures firearms. CANiK Academy provides training, both online and on-site, and can perform every kind of training our clients may need, even in conflict zones. MECANiK caters to optical sights, clothing, and other accessory needs. UNIDEF and UNIROBOTICS offer support for the integration of firearms into platforms. The goal of establishing the SYS ecosystem was precisely this. For example; to deliver a half-million-dollar 6 × 6 vehicle, you need a machine gun worth several tens of thousands of dollars mounted on it. Without the vehicle’s armament, the entire project would be delayed. For years, our industry stakeholders faced this problem. Procuring a simple machine gun from abroad, due to permission processes and product waiting times, would sometimes take up to 36 months. Today, when we receive an order, the products can be ready in as little as 10 to 45 days, depending on the specifics and the amount required. In short, we have created a system that works like clockwork by structuring our ecosystem and positioning our brands correctly.
Of course, these are long-term endeavors. It takes time for products to take shape for a new company. For us, this period is just under 5 years, and we are very happy with this. Our global competitors are well-established companies. Fighting them in their homeland would take many years, so we chose to expand the front. By shifting the front to the fields, that they have never dominated, we made breakthroughs in these areas. With the energy and motivation these successes gave us, we have focused on dominating the market, and we have done so. But where we are now is not a final destination. This is an endless journey for us. Looking at the numbers and the reactions we receive, we can tell that we are on the right path.
Unexpected Moves from Mold Breakers
CANiK News: How did you make an impact on SYS’s business development and corporate communication activities with your experience in the armed forces?
Gençay GENÇER: My job is to manage, organize, and motivate people, and to accomplish that, there must be a goal. I believe that my experience in strategy, analysis, and observation has made my work easier. On the other hand, the brands we have created are the result of our work in the first quarter of 2019. Of course, establishing a brand and giving it a name is not the end all be all. To flesh it out and make it worth something, you have to put in maximum effort and build it one brick at a time. Before joining SYS, I had served in more than 40 countries, so I had a network across the entire world. Moreover, I knew the thought processes of the brands, companies, and institutions in the defense sector worldwide, as well as the thought processes of the people who run them. I can predict how the other side will react more or less, when creating a product or entering a business with risk factors. In SYS, we have developed an identity that breaks the mold and we have taught ourselves to make unexpected moves constantly. I would also like to remind and emphasize that the reflex to do the unexpected was ingrained in our company’s culture long before I took office.
Pandemic Crisis Transformed into an Opportunity
CANiK News: Right after you started at SYS, the pandemic and its effects took over the world. However, SYS’ activities never stopped. While many almost put their businesses “on hold” for months during this period, why and how did you continue?
Gençay GENÇER: Crises create opportunities. We’re not saying this; many important commanders, business people, and scientists throughout history have said it. In fact, we focused on how we could turn the crisis that started with the pandemic into an opportunity. We immediately presented our action plan to the Defense Industry Agency (SSB). Subsequently, we started organizing our suppliers. Phone calls, video conferences, whatever it took, we did it. When the shutdowns and lockdowns started around February 2020, especially in our biggest market, the United States, we organized everyone we had contact with overseas. Despite all the restrictions, we invited our teams in America here, and we went there as well. We worked for weeks without leaving our hotels. We laid the foundations for our new products through intense efforts. When everyone stopped, we didn’t, and we broke sales records, especially in the US market, and invested what we earned in R&D and various technologies.
At the end of 2018, we signed the contract for the 12.7 mm Heavy Machine Gun Project for Platforms (PMT 12.7 Project) with the SSB, and we utilized the pandemic period for the development of this weapon. We also created our own accessory program in the meantime. We committed to a lifetime warranty for our accessories, and the sector responded positively. No matter where you are, we highlighted the fact that CANiK will be there for you when you have a problem with our products.
We anticipated a decrease in sales with the end of the pandemic, and we tried to compensate for that by launching a new model in early 2022, and we were successful again. Especially in the US market, our competitors saw reductions in their sales figures between 40–60 percent, while managing to keep our decline around 18 percent, and I’m happy to say that we are above our pre-pandemic sales figures today.
CANiK News: Your export figures have been turning heads in the last few years. How do your branding efforts contribute to your export activities?
Gençay GENÇER: It is impossible to see the results of our efforts immediately in our sector. Building up brand awareness to a certain level takes time, and then maintaining that level also requires additional effort. If you searched CANiK on a search engine, there were only 56,000 results in 2019, but today, there are 12.7 million results, with a difference of several levels of magnitude.
Let me give you an example… There’s the Rugby World Cup in France. One of CANiK’s markets is South Africa, and they really like us, they are really big fans. To honor them, we created the “Limited Edition Rugby SFT” series, which is not just a special edition pistol, it’s a first in South Africa and worldwide. Now, Rugby National athletes want to place orders. It’s not about selling a special edition gun; it’s about investing in the CANiK brand. Because if you invest in the brand and protect it, the brand will protect you in times of crisis. We saw this very clearly during the pandemic period as well.
A Global Defense Company with Turkish Owners Headquartered in Türkiye
CANiK News: We’ve noticed that your marketing activities for your brands also contributed to promoting Türkiye and the Turkish defense and aerospace sector significantly. What can you share about this?
Gençay GENÇER: This is one of the founding principles of SYS. Our Chairman of the Board, Zafer Aral, always insists on conveying the message that we are a global defense company with Turkish owners, headquartered in Türkiye. I’d like to emphasize the word “global” here. We are one of the few companies with production facilities on three continents. Therefore, we consider that we represent not only our company but also our country with every step we take. We organized a company event in Türkiye after IDEF, bringing our American sales managers to Türkiye for the first time. They saw Istanbul, they saw how beautiful it is, and now they say, “There is history, art, and culture here.” We created shared values with them, in a sense. They saw Samsun, our facilities; they got to know us better. We can see that they now look at Turkey and SYS in a very different way. This is the power of promotion and marketing.
24 Hours Not Enough
CANiK News: Why did you decide to consolidate both business development and corporate communications under one roof? Isn’t it challenging to manage the business development and corporate communication activities of so many brands?
Gençay GENÇER: Inherently, our background is rooted in manufacturing and R&D. Naturally, in the initial stages of our establishment, all functions were concentrated under the general manager, and this did not change as SYS grew until a new restructuring towards the end of 2018. In that restructuring, these duties started to be divided among people. A decision was made to manage business development and corporate communication processes from a single department, and I took on this responsibility. Apart from these roles, marketing and brand management is also a part of my and my team’s responsibility. Right now, I wear many hats, and sometimes the pace can be quite exhausting, on the other hand, knowing all the processes also helps the work progress quickly. We can make decisions very quickly. We talk to the top management for 5–10 minutes every morning; we sift through the possibilities and decide what to do within 3 minutes. If needed, we always seek support from expert consultants, and we never hesitate to do so.
However, I must say that there will soon be an organizational change, to ensure the system is not centered around a single person and that it can fulfill the requirements brought by our current growth. We will strengthen our core, and we are currently working on this with our consultants. They will propose a new structure to us, and accordingly, we will strengthen our team. Right now, our only challenge is that the day has only 24 hours. If there were 48 hours, it would be enough.
CANiK News: How many countries is CANiK operating in today? What are the top 5 countries?
Gençay GENÇER: I can say that the top 5 countries are the United States, South Africa, France, Poland, and Pakistan. We will also establish a presence in Germany and the Czech Republic. We sell to 70 countries, including Indonesia, Panama, and Brazil, among others. Through our marketing and business development efforts, we are working tirelessly to add new countries to this list.
Intense Fair Schedule Ahead
CANiK News: You are attending many business fairs, both in Türkiye and abroad. What kind of fair schedule do you have ahead of you?
Gençay GENÇER: So far, we have participated in SHOT Show, Enforce Tac, IWA, HuntEX, NRA, and IDEF. We are currently attending MSPO in Poland and shortly after that, we’ll be at DSEI in the United Kingdom. We will be both Turkish and British at DSEI, as this fair marks our first participation in a fair in the United Kingdom alongside AEI Systems. Following that, we have AUSA in the United States, marks Defense & Security 2023 in Thailand, and Milipol in France. We also decided to participate in EDEX after the political winds shifted in Egypt.
I would like to touch on IDEF a little bit. We had a team of 70 people working at the fair, going full throttle from the early hours of the day until late in the evening. We temporarily moved our office to the fair for four days, and although it was tiring, it was a very productive exhibition for sure. We are celebrating SYS’ 25th anniversary and UNIDEF’s 10th anniversary in the 100th year of our Republic, which made this IDEF very special for us as a “global defense company with Turkish owners headquartered in Türkiye.”
CANiK News: You made a difference against your competition with bilingual corporate publications like CANiK News, can you share what kind of strategy is behind this initiative?
Gençay GENÇER: What we want to do is create a memory, a journal with CANiK News. This magazine will never be a publication with a profit motive, we simply open a window to our company with it. The magazine is sent to many places, both in Türkiye and abroad. Soon, CANiK News will have a live podcast studio where we will broadcast various podcasts. We also have plans to have people from different countries create content in their own languages for those coming to Türkiye. SYS’s dynamic nature and innovative outlook make our work in business development and corporate communication easier.
We would like to thank Gençay Gençer, Business Development and Corporate Communication Manager of SYS, on behalf of our readers for taking the time to answer our questions, and for providing us with such valuable information.
CANiK News: Mr. Gençer, could you please tell us about yourself? You have approximately 20 years of experience in the Turkish Naval Forces, and you’ve been working at SYS for over 4 years now.
Gençay GENÇER: I began my journey in the Turkish Naval Forces in 2000 when I entered military school, and I started active duty in August 2002. Throughout my career, I’ve served in various roles, including as an operator (team personnel) and instructor at the Turkish Naval Special Warfare Command (SAT). I’ve also undertaken various consultancy and observer roles in different countries. In 2019, I decided to transition to the private sector and joined the SYS group of companies. Since then, I have been serving as the Business Development and Corporate Communication, Manager for SYS.
CANiK News: After your service in the armed forces, why did you choose to work for SYS?
Gençay GENÇER: First and foremost, I’d like to emphasize the importance of vision. It is the most important thing for me. You can buy many things with money, but you can’t buy vision. Given my background and training, I’m accustomed to performing analyses. During my military career, I was deployed to several countries where I performed long-term analyses. I’ve also conducted similar analyses for SYS. In 2019, SYS was one of the youngest companies in the global firearms market. When I looked at their past achievements, I saw that there was a significant vision behind their work, and honestly, it greatly impressed me. I believed that I could satisfy my inner drive for challenge and embark on a series of adventures at SYS. The history of the Aral family and their past endeavors also show a consistent theme: vision and pioneering achievements. I felt the same vision when it came to firearms. These factors played a significant role in my decision to become part of the SYS family.
Branding Efforts Were Made
CANiK News: What did you do first when you took office?
Gençay GENÇER: When I took on my role, in early 2019, we began by formulating a series of plans to fulfill the strategic projection set by the top management for our company’s activities. At the core of these plans was the idea of creating an ecosystem. In that landscape, it had been projected years before my arrival that the existing products alone would not be sufficient to bring the envisioned future to life; there was a need to diversify our product range. In line with this projection, we planned the future of our existing products and brands, and we laid the foundation for our ecosystem. In this structure, alongside our flagship brand CANiK, we considered creating new brands and companies, and we initiated trademark registrations and company formations. We established brands such as CANiK Store, MECANiK, CANiK Tech, CANiK Academy, CANiK News, CANiK Team, CANiK Smart, CANiK App, and even MECANiK Coffee. We launched an initiative in early 2020 to establish UNIROBOTICS as a subsidiary. In the meantime, we initiated discussions for the acquisition of AEI Systems. We built our brands to cover products, accessories, training, and anything else we needed.
CANiK News: How do these subsidiaries and brands within your ecosystem relate to each other?
Gençay GENÇER: In our current structure, CANiK manufactures firearms. CANiK Academy provides training, both online and on-site, and can perform every kind of training our clients may need, even in conflict zones. MECANiK caters to optical sights, clothing, and other accessory needs. UNIDEF and UNIROBOTICS offer support for the integration of firearms into platforms. The goal of establishing the SYS ecosystem was precisely this. For example; to deliver a half-million-dollar 6 × 6 vehicle, you need a machine gun worth several tens of thousands of dollars mounted on it. Without the vehicle’s armament, the entire project would be delayed. For years, our industry stakeholders faced this problem. Procuring a simple machine gun from abroad, due to permission processes and product waiting times, would sometimes take up to 36 months. Today, when we receive an order, the products can be ready in as little as 10 to 45 days, depending on the specifics and the amount required. In short, we have created a system that works like clockwork by structuring our ecosystem and positioning our brands correctly.
Of course, these are long-term endeavors. It takes time for products to take shape for a new company. For us, this period is just under 5 years, and we are very happy with this. Our global competitors are well-established companies. Fighting them in their homeland would take many years, so we chose to expand the front. By shifting the front to the fields, that they have never dominated, we made breakthroughs in these areas. With the energy and motivation these successes gave us, we have focused on dominating the market, and we have done so. But where we are now is not a final destination. This is an endless journey for us. Looking at the numbers and the reactions we receive, we can tell that we are on the right path.
Unexpected Moves from Mold Breakers
CANiK News: How did you make an impact on SYS’s business development and corporate communication activities with your experience in the armed forces?
Gençay GENÇER: My job is to manage, organize, and motivate people, and to accomplish that, there must be a goal. I believe that my experience in strategy, analysis, and observation has made my work easier. On the other hand, the brands we have created are the result of our work in the first quarter of 2019. Of course, establishing a brand and giving it a name is not the end all be all. To flesh it out and make it worth something, you have to put in maximum effort and build it one brick at a time. Before joining SYS, I had served in more than 40 countries, so I had a network across the entire world. Moreover, I knew the thought processes of the brands, companies, and institutions in the defense sector worldwide, as well as the thought processes of the people who run them. I can predict how the other side will react more or less, when creating a product or entering a business with risk factors. In SYS, we have developed an identity that breaks the mold and we have taught ourselves to make unexpected moves constantly. I would also like to remind and emphasize that the reflex to do the unexpected was ingrained in our company’s culture long before I took office.
Pandemic Crisis Transformed into an Opportunity
CANiK News: Right after you started at SYS, the pandemic and its effects took over the world. However, SYS’ activities never stopped. While many almost put their businesses “on hold” for months during this period, why and how did you continue?
Gençay GENÇER: Crises create opportunities. We’re not saying this; many important commanders, business people, and scientists throughout history have said it. In fact, we focused on how we could turn the crisis that started with the pandemic into an opportunity. We immediately presented our action plan to the Defense Industry Agency (SSB). Subsequently, we started organizing our suppliers. Phone calls, video conferences, whatever it took, we did it. When the shutdowns and lockdowns started around February 2020, especially in our biggest market, the United States, we organized everyone we had contact with overseas. Despite all the restrictions, we invited our teams in America here, and we went there as well. We worked for weeks without leaving our hotels. We laid the foundations for our new products through intense efforts. When everyone stopped, we didn’t, and we broke sales records, especially in the US market, and invested what we earned in R&D and various technologies.
At the end of 2018, we signed the contract for the 12.7 mm Heavy Machine Gun Project for Platforms (PMT 12.7 Project) with the SSB, and we utilized the pandemic period for the development of this weapon. We also created our own accessory program in the meantime. We committed to a lifetime warranty for our accessories, and the sector responded positively. No matter where you are, we highlighted the fact that CANiK will be there for you when you have a problem with our products.
We anticipated a decrease in sales with the end of the pandemic, and we tried to compensate for that by launching a new model in early 2022, and we were successful again. Especially in the US market, our competitors saw reductions in their sales figures between 40–60 percent, while managing to keep our decline around 18 percent, and I’m happy to say that we are above our pre-pandemic sales figures today.
CANiK News: Your export figures have been turning heads in the last few years. How do your branding efforts contribute to your export activities?
Gençay GENÇER: It is impossible to see the results of our efforts immediately in our sector. Building up brand awareness to a certain level takes time, and then maintaining that level also requires additional effort. If you searched CANiK on a search engine, there were only 56,000 results in 2019, but today, there are 12.7 million results, with a difference of several levels of magnitude.
Let me give you an example… There’s the Rugby World Cup in France. One of CANiK’s markets is South Africa, and they really like us, they are really big fans. To honor them, we created the “Limited Edition Rugby SFT” series, which is not just a special edition pistol, it’s a first in South Africa and worldwide. Now, Rugby National athletes want to place orders. It’s not about selling a special edition gun; it’s about investing in the CANiK brand. Because if you invest in the brand and protect it, the brand will protect you in times of crisis. We saw this very clearly during the pandemic period as well.
A Global Defense Company with Turkish Owners Headquartered in Türkiye
CANiK News: We’ve noticed that your marketing activities for your brands also contributed to promoting Türkiye and the Turkish defense and aerospace sector significantly. What can you share about this?
Gençay GENÇER: This is one of the founding principles of SYS. Our Chairman of the Board, Zafer Aral, always insists on conveying the message that we are a global defense company with Turkish owners, headquartered in Türkiye. I’d like to emphasize the word “global” here. We are one of the few companies with production facilities on three continents. Therefore, we consider that we represent not only our company but also our country with every step we take. We organized a company event in Türkiye after IDEF, bringing our American sales managers to Türkiye for the first time. They saw Istanbul, they saw how beautiful it is, and now they say, “There is history, art, and culture here.” We created shared values with them, in a sense. They saw Samsun, our facilities; they got to know us better. We can see that they now look at Turkey and SYS in a very different way. This is the power of promotion and marketing.
24 Hours Not Enough
CANiK News: Why did you decide to consolidate both business development and corporate communications under one roof? Isn’t it challenging to manage the business development and corporate communication activities of so many brands?
Gençay GENÇER: Inherently, our background is rooted in manufacturing and R&D. Naturally, in the initial stages of our establishment, all functions were concentrated under the general manager, and this did not change as SYS grew until a new restructuring towards the end of 2018. In that restructuring, these duties started to be divided among people. A decision was made to manage business development and corporate communication processes from a single department, and I took on this responsibility. Apart from these roles, marketing and brand management is also a part of my and my team’s responsibility. Right now, I wear many hats, and sometimes the pace can be quite exhausting, on the other hand, knowing all the processes also helps the work progress quickly. We can make decisions very quickly. We talk to the top management for 5–10 minutes every morning; we sift through the possibilities and decide what to do within 3 minutes. If needed, we always seek support from expert consultants, and we never hesitate to do so.
However, I must say that there will soon be an organizational change, to ensure the system is not centered around a single person and that it can fulfill the requirements brought by our current growth. We will strengthen our core, and we are currently working on this with our consultants. They will propose a new structure to us, and accordingly, we will strengthen our team. Right now, our only challenge is that the day has only 24 hours. If there were 48 hours, it would be enough.
CANiK News: How many countries is CANiK operating in today? What are the top 5 countries?
Gençay GENÇER: I can say that the top 5 countries are the United States, South Africa, France, Poland, and Pakistan. We will also establish a presence in Germany and the Czech Republic. We sell to 70 countries, including Indonesia, Panama, and Brazil, among others. Through our marketing and business development efforts, we are working tirelessly to add new countries to this list.
Intense Fair Schedule Ahead
CANiK News: You are attending many business fairs, both in Türkiye and abroad. What kind of fair schedule do you have ahead of you?
Gençay GENÇER: So far, we have participated in SHOT Show, Enforce Tac, IWA, HuntEX, NRA, and IDEF. We are currently attending MSPO in Poland and shortly after that, we’ll be at DSEI in the United Kingdom. We will be both Turkish and British at DSEI, as this fair marks our first participation in a fair in the United Kingdom alongside AEI Systems. Following that, we have AUSA in the United States, marks Defense & Security 2023 in Thailand, and Milipol in France. We also decided to participate in EDEX after the political winds shifted in Egypt.
I would like to touch on IDEF a little bit. We had a team of 70 people working at the fair, going full throttle from the early hours of the day until late in the evening. We temporarily moved our office to the fair for four days, and although it was tiring, it was a very productive exhibition for sure. We are celebrating SYS’ 25th anniversary and UNIDEF’s 10th anniversary in the 100th year of our Republic, which made this IDEF very special for us as a “global defense company with Turkish owners headquartered in Türkiye.”
CANiK News: You made a difference against your competition with bilingual corporate publications like CANiK News, can you share what kind of strategy is behind this initiative?
Gençay GENÇER: What we want to do is create a memory, a journal with CANiK News. This magazine will never be a publication with a profit motive, we simply open a window to our company with it. The magazine is sent to many places, both in Türkiye and abroad. Soon, CANiK News will have a live podcast studio where we will broadcast various podcasts. We also have plans to have people from different countries create content in their own languages for those coming to Türkiye. SYS’s dynamic nature and innovative outlook make our work in business development and corporate communication easier.
We would like to thank Gençay Gençer, Business Development and Corporate Communication Manager of SYS, on behalf of our readers for taking the time to answer our questions, and for providing us with such valuable information.
