New Horizons March 2018 | Page 17

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The Synthesis Report is completed within the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) Project, which is being implemented to define the obstacles in front of economic efficiency and to determine the solutions. The report was prepared to contribute to policies aimed at increasing the productivity in the manufacturing industry in Turkey. The findings of econometric analysis of the survey results and the data obtained from various activities such as in-depth interviews and surveys with companies, global value chain analyzes, international analysis, thematic and sectoral workshops draw attention in the report.

Productivity and innovation attract customers

According to the survey results, big companies stand out more productive and more innovative than small companies. The number of long-term customers of productive and innovative companies also increases.

Digitalization is on the agenda of companies

The results also show that subjects such as digitalization, information technology, automation and compliance with Industry 4.0 are on the agenda of companies. A significant number of the companies interviewed said that the main deficiencies according to foreign competitors are the lack of information and communication technologies and automation.

Productive firms say technology, unproductive ones say financing is the most important problem

The most important differences between productive and unproductive companies arise in terms of financing problems and inadequacies of suppliers. Compared to the unproductive companies, the productive ones think that both problems are less important and they see the lack of technology infrastructure as a bigger problem. This situation is considered as the result of the insufficiency of technological activities of firms in the manufacturing industry of Turkey.

Companies wait for support

The report also includes various demands and expectations of the companies. Among these requests, in which requests for government support hold the majority, some demands come up such as making state support and application processes simple, trust based, related to productivity performance, and providing local software developers to develop solutions in areas where the companies need them.