Dilek Akbarpour Karaoğlan, who achieved success as a woman entrepreneur in the marble sector, told the establishment story of D-Style Marble Foreign Trade, her vision and the challenges she faced. Starting out with zero capital, Karaoğlan worked to create a quality and reliable brand in the export market. Karaoğlan, who supports women’s employment and attaches importance to teamwork, said that he tried to change the traditional structure of the marble industry.
Good things come when you believe, better things come when you are patient and the best things come when you never give up.(La Edri)
How did you decide to establish a company?
After university, I had the opportunity to work for 5 years in a marble company producing mosaics. When I left the company, which I started in the accounting department, as an export manager, I had a period of unemployment for 4-5 months.
I made many job applications during this period, but unfortunately Balıkesir was not a city with a very developed industry, especially 13-14 years ago. I was rejected from all my job applications because I had a work experience above the required qualifications. At this point, my self-confidence was actually renewed. Since I had a capacity above the jobs I applied for, the idea of doing something on my own appeared in my mind. Thus, the first steps of a company exporting marble were taken.
Could you share the establishment story and vision of D-Style Marble Foreign Trade with us?
First of all, even though I had work experience in the marble sector, I had to determine the way I wanted to specialise and progress. Of course, there were points that I needed to develop in the production and sales of dimensional marble, travertine, which is the area we are currently progressing in. Because the customer portfolio and market of the mosaic sector was quite different from our current market. At this point, I tried to determine the missing points and needs of the sector with my researches and contacts I created during my travels abroad. And I realised that one of the biggest gaps in our sector is the lack of customer relations, service and after-sales support. We are trying to do our best to close the gap in this area. I believe that the biggest key to success is teamwork. If everyone does their part properly, success is inevitable. Bringing the right team together was probably the most difficult part of my job. I have instilled in all my employees that working without giving up will bring success. I don’t know if our team is different, but I can say that fast service to customer demands, being able to bring the right customer and the right product together, keeping your word, goodwill, clean trade are the keys to success. I can say that working, being patient, taking the right risks, and enduring difficulties with a strong psychology is a short summary of my job.
What have you done to support women’s employment?
I am actually in favour of equal opportunities. We are currently managing the company together with my husband Semih Karaoğlan. He has a big role in our rapid growth in the last 5 years. Teamwork is the essence of the business. But of course, our company is an establishment where 80% women are employed. The fact that most of the sector is made up of men and it seems that only men can do this job is frankly a very disturbing issue for me. We have reflected the meticulousness, naivety and perfectionism of women to our business in this heavy work touched by women’s hands, and from this point on, success has been inevitable. I am also very happy that our strength is increasing day by day and we are working in harmony with our male and female employees.
What are the biggest challenges you face in the marble sector?
First of all, I did not have the traditional structure of the marble sector, which was passed down from father to son, and starting this journey as a woman with zero capital at a very young age was a huge disadvantage for me. I felt at that time that these would benefit me in the future, because the value of hard-earned things is always greater. You need to be fearless and courageous to always calculate one step ahead and grow. I can say that I turned my disadvantages into advantages by managing these two emotions well. On the other hand, since our company is a 100% export sales and marketing company that does not produce, we need to work depending on a number of manufacturers. At this point, making our choices very accurately and ensuring a sustainable quality with reliable, quality connections also makes us obliged to our customers. Over time, we have provided financial support to our manufacturers that we trust and walk together with, enabling them to make investments and we have grown together with the win-win policy that we always attach importance to.
What are the future plans of your company?
We have reached many points we have targeted so far by progressing on our right path, we are ranked in the tax rankings in our own city. I am very happy to contribute to my city where I had difficulty in finding a job in the past. In addition, we are among the top 5 companies in the export of dimensional marble in the Aegean region. With the responsibility of providing bread to thousands of people with their families, the biggest strategy of our company is to grow further by expanding our markets with the right quality and by standing firmly on the ground. Since we are an exporting company, our biggest goals are to provide more foreign currency inflow to our country every year, to strengthen our business relations with new countries and to deliver Turkish stone to more places all over the world.
How do you evaluate the importance of the marble sector for Turkey and the world economy?
Turkey is a wonderful geography with 35 per cent of the world’s marble reserves. I think that Turkish marble should be branded in the world while we are endowed with a large raw material reserve of the market. For this reason, we want to provide higher amounts of foreign currency inflow to our country by exporting the final product, value-added product. We also support employment by selling the products whose labour is done by us. Of course, selling raw materials would have been much faster and easier in our success story, but we have always progressed by choosing the difficulties. Now, when we present Turkish marble to the project of a famous architect in England, on the other hand, when we have our stones accepted in the restoration of the castle in Budapest castle or when we apply Turkish stone in the garden, pool, kitchen of a house in Australia or America, I realise once again that all the difficulties are worth it. And I am proud of both myself and my team.
How do you approach sustainability, innovation and quality issues in the marble industry?
Unfortunately, branding, which is the chronic problem of our country, is also encountered in our sector. I believe that natural stone resources, which we have dense reserves, are not promoted properly. While sustainability in terms of quality is an important point that all real sectors should follow, it is possible that people who are eager to sell without specialising in our sector can damage the market balance and the trust in Turkish stone.
Likewise, unfortunately, the fact that the companies with mining power in their hands leave a stable price policy and follow a different price policy in the sectoral contraction unfortunately creates a negative support for the future of the sector. In order to further develop the sector, we need to develop our teams in terms of after-sales support and customer relations with the right team. I think that we need to get out of traditional structures by giving importance to advertising and communication by establishing fairs, catalogues and websites and their infrastructure.
+90 532 585 51 95
+90 532 585 51 95