In the twenty-first century, the ability to connect to family and friends halfway around the world is so easy it’s almost taken for granted. Technology has advanced so quickly in the last two decades that it’s nearly easy to forget the days when you could only make a phone call from a landline, and the internet was only a pipedream. While the first mobile phone was invented by the Motorola company in 1973, it wasn’t until the late 1990s and early 2000s that phones became small enough and cheap enough for the average consumer to start buying them.
Mobiltel was one company in Turkey that was quick to realise the potential of mobile phones and how to capitalise on their use. Started in 2001, the company is now one of the biggest sellers of mobiles and smartphones in the country. It is an authorised seller of all of the big names in phones today: Apple, Blackberry, HTC, Huawei, LG, Microsoft Devices, Samsung, Sony, and ZTE.
Yücel Kubanç was appointed CEO of Mobiltel in 2011. Having previously worked for other telecommunications companies in Turkey such as Motorola and Vodafone, Yücel has a wealth of experience in the industry and was appointed to lead the company through a period of change and professionalisation. While the company had done well and expanded in the 10 years since it was established, it was decided that the culture needed to change. ”We’ve been through some important changes. We’ve changed the culture within the company. The culture had to change and this is why I was brought on, Yücel says.”