Sakura TakanoEndeavor in Turkey
I arrived in Istanbul with a vague expectation to work for a Turkish entrepreneur, Emre Mermer, who started a butcher shop and steakhouse restaurant in 2004 and 2007, respectively. From my previous travels to Turkey, I anticipated a lot of historical sights juxtaposed with modern amenities, friendly and heartwarming people and great food. I was sent a business plan written by Emre, staff at Endeavor Turkey and PriceWaterhouseCoopers consultants and asked to start thinking about creating an operating manual for the company to help professionalize the business for growth. This business had a story—college educated ex-finance and banking man goes back to his family roots in farming and opens a world-class butcher shop and steakhouse, teaching Istanbul-ites how to do meat. I sent materials related to Kyotofu New York, a Japanese dessert café I’m involved in, to share best practices related to operations and financial management as well as a few years of restaurant knowledge and experience. Food and restaurants are my passion, something that I’ve been able to maintain during my off-hours in the corporate world, and I’m ready to go international!
Emre, on my first day in Istanbul, met me with “Nice to meet you, Sakura. Are you hungry? Have a steak.” This is not your average steak, nor is it an overpriced steak from a top New York City restaurant. This is real meat, properly cared for on Turkish farmland, carefully selected by the best butcher in Istanbul, aged for at least one month, seared atop local charcoal, topped with French Maldon sea salt and meltingly robust and divine. The whole process is done with passion and this is what Emre is trying to share. My experience with this steak was unique, unforgettable and addicting. I knew I was one step closer to nirvana.
Despite this romantic vision, I was here to work. I learned about the dry-aged meat process, the butchery and restaurant businesses in Istanbul, and the history of Turkish tastes in the first few days of working. Gathering knowledge and asking questions, I reorganized facts to see what role I would play in this world. As I asked more and more questions, I uncovered that the financial aspects of the business had not a priority until now. The business was doing so well that Emre and his management team were not concerned with segmented cost of goods sold or inventory cycles—the business ran itself—but as plans for expansion became a reality, these issues started to matter. I was appointed the task of sorting out the inventory system and using this information to develop the capability to evaluate the business’ operating performance and to forecast for new restaurant openings. This was a far cry from producing an operating manual like I had initially envisioned, but I’ve learned that rolling with the punches, especially exciting ones like this, is the way to go.
At the outset, I’ll admit I was really curious as to how working for a small-scale gourmet butcher shop and restaurant in Istanbul had anything to do with Social Enterprise. I soon found out that Dukkan is as a meeting place for powerful and influential people in business, arts, music and politics, an employer of 30 people from both good and bad neighborhoods and an example of how a local Turkish business can have a global reach. Emre’s passion for providing the best for his customers and treating his staff with respect has created a community of people with warm, full stomachs eager to share their experience. It was part of my job to help them replicate this across Istanbul, a sprawling city of nearly 15 million people.
Journal 2:
Work is progressing well. I have finished a wastage analysis on the dry-aged beef (on average 50% of a rack of t-bone either evaporates or must be cut away!) and started to press Emre and the management at Dukkan to consider refining the operational and financial metrics of its 3 divisions. Currently, there is no way to discern segmented cost of goods sold (hence product line profitability) for the wholesale, butcher or steakhouse businesses and this poses a crucial problem for their expansion. Without this, Emre will not have detailed data on a product’s performance (he was already surprised that the profitability of the dry-aged was not as high as he thought) or see when a unit is underperforming. I recommended a few solutions - investing in a simple but effective purchasing and accounting software package, reorganizing the inventory system and hiring or making it someone’s responsibility to ensure recording of the businesses’ progress.
As this is an organically grown family business grown, I understand why up to now this hasn’t been a focus—the business is profitable enough to run itself. But as Dukkan expands into new markets and regions, having an unquantifiable understanding of the business could be dangerous and lead to misjudgment or lost opportunities. This expansion is fully underway and I will be starting a new project related to strategic planning next week. There is also talk of a trip to Germany to explore the highly successful organic and bio-symbiotic farming practices in the farming region outside of Munich. This is being arranged through Mehmet Ali Babaoglu, the Chairman of Endeavor Turkey’s Board.
After joining the Dukkan family about a month ago, I feel at home. My rudimentary Turkish and inventive hand gestures get me my morning Turkish tea, taxi rides and a camaraderie with the staff. My first impressions of Turkish culture and people have proved correct; the group I am around is warm, light-hearted but still focused on succeeding in business. The entrepreneurial spirit definitely thrives here. I’ve learned much, having spent some of my downtime sharing past experiences and comparing cultural traditions over raki, a Turkish spirit, and mezes. Many of the people I meet are eager to improve their standard of living through commerce, building new markets and starting businesses. Several of the Endeavor Turkey Board members and Advisors I met at Endeavor’s International Selection Panel held in Istanbul this year added that not only is entrepreneurial spirit necessary but that sharing best practices and networking are areas that Turkish entrepreneurs need to further develop (this year, Endeavor selected 8 entrepreneurs in Turkey, Jordan and India out of 20 finalists to join the network). I agree in concept but have yet to understand the full implications of this suggestion.
I’ve also had the good fortune of having two CBS cluster mates, Rachel and Stephanie, visit for 10 days before starting their internships at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan—my old stomping ground. We spent 3 days in the Cappadocia region, famous for its unusual limestone landscape carved by water and erosion throughout the centuries, and had a great time hiking through river valleys, climbing down underground cities where early Christians lived and meeting wonderful people along the way. Upon returning to Istanbul, they explored historical sites like the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar, and the like while I worked at Dukkan and met them in the early evening. The highlight of my time with them was the night before they left, Emre invited us all to a special dinner hosted by him and his friends. 15 Americans, Australians, Japanese, Chinese, Turks and an Armenian-Turk dined on melt-in-your-mouth steak tartare (made by a real French man with Dukkan beef tenderloin), Turkish roasted red peppers, scalloped potatoes, a lovely salad and local wine. Istanbul is truly international!
Journal 3:
Sadly, my time is nearly up. I have just returned from a wonderful trip to Munich, Germany to accompany Emre, his wife and 18 month old child, Bulent, Emre’s brother and the head of farm operations as well as Mehmet Ali to learn about organic and symbiotic farming practices in Germany. Our host, Bernward Geier, Director for International Relations at the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) and key organizer of Slow Food Germany, had a full program visiting various organic farms, restaurants and butchers over 4 days and 3 nights.
The purpose of the trip was to explore related venues to introduce the Turkish public to high quality, natural and tasteful foods. Surprisingly, the organic business has yet to take off in Istanbul and awareness is just starting to take off among the wealthier people. This could be a wonderful opportunity for Emre to bring back best practices from 30-year organic farming veterans, gain economies of scale (having cows on an organic farm enables meat certification and provides really nice fertilizer for various crops) and reinforce his reputation as a pioneer of bringing high quality food to Istanbul’s growing middle and upper classes. It was an amazing trip and I am still full from all those sausages!
Internationally, I couldn’t have left Istanbul at a better time. There was a brief gun shooting scare at the American Embassy in Istanbul the morning I left for Munich and political tensions have risen significantly as prosecutors are attempting to debunk the current ruling party. The conflict seems to lie in the debate of whether or not the AK party is trying to religiously influence the secular government too far. Security is up and it has nothing to do with the recent cries of joy when Turkey made it to the EuroCup semifinals a few weeks ago.
The last project I worked on was hugely successful! After getting current operational and financial measurements in order during the first two thirds of my internship, Emre asked me to explore models for their second location, to open this fall. The issues covered everything from operational logistics (central or separate warehousing?), concept development (burger shop or high end steaks again?), financial forecasting (estimated sales/day), among others. During my last week with Dukkan, I presented along with the other management team these ideas to Emre and capped my internship with a strong framework for them to move their business forward. I sincerely felt that I made an immediate impact working there this summer and feel a strong bond with the team, Emre and his family. I already have plans to revisit Istanbul next summer to show my sister around!
For more on the works fellows did with Endeavor, visit Julio Giraut's journals.
