Beko is one of the most committed brands to sustainability, and reducing energy consumption in both products and manufacturing is an integral part of this. At the same time, the company is investing considerable energy in enhancing its global and local market role and weight, which is reflected both in the creation of a joint venture with Whirlpool and in the restructuring of its Hungarian market presence. We also talked about energy efficiency issues, the new energy and momentum that is emerging from the organisational changes in Hungary, and of course the brand’s products, with Beko Hungary Kft. Country Operations Director for Hungary, Deniz Yildiz.
Beko has been present in the Hungarian market through a distributor in the past years, but this year there has been a change in the market presence.
It has been a great development for our brand in the past few years. Both on Hungarian and European market. We grew to one of the biggest brands in term of sales volume on the European market, developed so many great technologies and best-case scenarios in terms of helping end consumers and our business partners. In this environment we feel a market as big as the Hungarian one deserves to grow as much as rest of the Europe. We want to invest into it, and we have the support of our global and European CEO for that.
Aside that we are also ready to learn and help to scale whatever approach works here to other countries, as we are in close contact with many of our subsidiaries in countries in eastern and western Europe. We were previously utilizing help of cross-countries setup team from our region, and I believe that is the correct team to represent Beko Hungary together with the local team. Beko Hungary subsidiary is up and running, we are working with a local team and support of regional team to bring what I aim at as great service for our business partners. Beko is a love brand in Arçelik, and we are happy to bring it fully to Hungarian market.
How is management evolving in the new organization?
Operation will now be fully driven from Hungary. The local team will care about business partners, the regional team will help them with every possible detail needed for the Hungarian market and additionally with implementing innovations we have tested in other counties. The support team is quite experienced, and the local part has long years of know-how as well. And it is important that together it is a very active team with a great drive to change things.
We are very eager for what we can make out of this energy while in direct contact with the market. I have worked with Hungarian market for quite some time now and previously I had worked with markets in few other countries as well, also as a part of Arçelik family. And I believe Beko products and services are a great fit for the market. Hungary is now a centre of our focus, and we work every day to make the processes of subsidiary as smooth as possible and to accommodate our business partners in best possible way.
At the beginning of the year it was announced that Beko and Whirlpool would form a joint venture. When will concrete steps be taken in this respect? Are we expecting any changes this year, or is 2024 more likely?
The fact is that Arçelik and Whirlpool agreed to transfer their subsidiaries in Europe to a new company. After these transfers, it is expected that 75 % of the newly formed company will be allocated to Ardutch B.V., which is Arçelik company and owner of Beko Hungary. That phase of transaction is expected to finish in the second half of the current year, and I am sure that dedicated teams from both sides are doing their best to make it happen smoothly. I cannot speculate about additional steps before the transaction is completed.
Currently our focus is on everyday business and maximizing the support for our business partners, which in case of Hungary means to build the support net for our partners in quality that helped us grow elsewhere. As Arçelik is set to be an agile company we are also prepared to react quickly to everything that will be needed in the short or long term, with having our business partners on top of our mind.
Beko is making serious efforts to protect the environment, including in the area of energy efficiency. What solutions do you have in place to achieve this?
Sustainability is our core value. When we were walking last year with our CEO through the streets of Budapest and listening to current factory developments and technologies prepared to save the environment it seemed like a no-brainer. Beko can offer sustainable technologies that can translate to saved money and time for our consumer. And we are very good at price performance ratio which means reasonable products that last and serve well in your home. At that moment we also started to work on our customer care process for Hungary so we would be able to help our customers to keep their products longer. As for the products themselves, we are bringing a new line of energy efficient products and food and clothes preserving technologies that we understand to be a part of the complete sustainability equation as much as proper customer care and service.
How is this reflected at product level? Any new products to expect?
Laundry is showing incredibly fast development to washing machines with 30 % less energy consumption than classic A energy class machines. We are leader in dryers in other countries thanks to heat pump dryers with low energy consumption which can take care gently about close to any type of textile – and we are bringing similar gentle technologies to our washing machines as well with AquaTech. The key is not just less consumption, but also less “wear and tear” to clothes at the same time. For the kitchen we are going in a similar direction. HarvestFresh works great to keep fruits and vegetable fresh, which might be a boring claim but in case of Beko it also keeps the vitamins for longer. And we have great feedback from the customers’ homes since the technology has started.
On the other hand, while cleaning Beko dishwashers were always ones with one of the fastest full programs on the market. To that we are adding A energy class. While baking and cooking we have a great range of different designs and technologies, including affordable pyrolysis function for cleaning, efficient steam aid and of course reliable simple to control induction hobs.
Are the any changes in production of new products?
In all categories state of art factories even as close as in Romania and Turkey are producing the appliances using recycled plastic to lower the pollution. Factories are the “industry 4.0” standard, very newly built with rigorous testing and quality control part of the robotic process. We are quite proud of having our own factories as well as the research and development teams in Europe to work with directly. And that we do with new products daily, our internal feedback cycle is always open between us and factories.
Are these appliances also available in the Hungarian product range?
Those mentioned products are part of the new range of Beko, called Beyond, already prepared with completely new design facia for Hungarian market. As we work more regionally new additions to the line are coming continuously, we are also planning to launch new additional technologies along IFA exhibition in Berlin early autumn. And we are not stopping there. Home comfort products, air conditioners, heat pumps or great coffee machines are already in our scope, and we are considering our next steps with those for Hungary as well.
There may be greater openness to energy efficiency on the part of consumers because of what has happened in recent years, but this may not be reflected in their willingness to buy or their knowledge of energy efficiency. What do you think about this?
We believe energy efficiency is something people might want to buy if it saves them money. We work with campaigns and content for shops that might help to explain just that and make it easier for everybody to see their situation and how lower energy class might help.
“We believe energy efficiency is something people might want to buy if it saves them money.”
What can a brand do to raise awareness?
We started working with calculation and comparison of energy efficient classes of products. To show people how much the difference will make in their case, how much they can save and help to decide if investing slightly more is worth for them. That currently makes sense the spectrum offered on the market in terms of energy efficiency is very broad. We hope to bring similar solution to Hungary soon as well with our sustainability communication efforts.
Meanwhile our marketing team is working with Beko on Hungarian market for past two years. They researched and worked on the best communication options, so we would be reaching end consumers quickly and efficiently. Looking at Beko brand awareness jumping up into the known brands category within a year we are sure it is possible. Partnering with business partners in communication as well is then a logical next step for us to multiply the effect.
What other support can you offer to help consumers?
Our first step is always customer care. Beko is not just a product in a box, we consider the service to be part of the package as well. Help with what customers does not know how to do, over the phone, over chat or help with solving technical issues is a priority for us and our dedicated customer experience department works on that every day for Hungary operation.
