Closing 2023 with a turnover of 529.5 million euros, Mars Logistics, one of Turkey's leading logistics companies, targets 15% growth in Euro terms in 2024.
Continuing its sustainable growth since its establishment in 1989, Mars Logistics continues to grow and be a pioneer in the logistics industry with its investments and corporate culture. Stating that they are targeting 15% growth on Euro basis in 2024, Garip Sahillioğlu, Chairman of Mars Logistics, said that they will continue to offer the best solutions to their customers in an integrated manner with road, rail, air, sea, storage and insurance services.
Sahillioğlu announced the points they will focus on
Stating that they have one of the youngest and largest fleets in Europe with 4,000 self-owned vehicles, Sahillioğlu said that they plan to invest 70 million Euros for the fleet in 2024. Explaining that the focal points of 2024 are railway and electric tow truck investments that enable sustainable green logistics and the development of domestic distribution channels, Sahillioğlu said, "In 2024, we plan to strengthen our railway lines, increase the number of trips, open new lines and increase the number of self-owned wagons, which is currently 180. With our processes, which will also include our electric trucks, we will completely transform our intermodal transportation into green logistics and bring our carbon emissions close to zero."
Stating that domestic distribution channels grew 170% last year, Sahillioğlu said, "With the growth of our business volume, we opened 8 new storage and distribution centers in 2023 to use only for domestic distribution channels operations. We plan to open 7 more warehouses in 2024."
52 thousand m² warehouse on the Asian Side
Explaining that they will open a 52 thousand m² warehouse on the Asian Side in 2025, Sahillioğlu said, "We aim to improve the processes of our customers throughout the supply chain. We offer various warehousing services such as single customer or shared storage organization, export loading platform, cross loading platform, distribution center in our logistics centers or in our customers' own warehouses." Stating that they provide bonded and duty-free warehousing services and domestic distribution services on an area of 253,833 m² in 27 logistics centers, including warehouses used for Domestic Distribution Channels operations, Sahillioğlu concluded his words by saying, "We continue our work for our 52 thousand m² Asian Side warehouse, which we will put into service in 2025."
"We passed the 250 thousand threshold in the number of international transportation trips"
Stating that they achieved many numerical successes with their business volumes in 2023, Garip Sahillioğlu said that they closed the budget year in March and said, "We passed the 250 thousand threshold in the number of international transportation trips. We closed 2023 with a turnover of 529.5 million euros. Throughout the year, we served nearly 8 thousand customers from different sectors. 44% of our business volume was in the automotive and sub-industry and 23% in the textile sectors. The first three countries we transported within the scope of exports were Germany, Spain and France."
Investment in technology continues
Garip Sahillioğlu provided the following information on in-house activities: "In order to meet our ever-growing capacity across the country, we have continued to develop constantly in-house. With the awareness that the way to achieve this is through technology, we have accelerated our investments in this field. With hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), we have ensured data integrity and increased performance by using software-defined systems that combine all elements of the data center such as storage, networking and management. In this way, we gained flexibility and started to save money in many areas. We also developed applications that we can give digital instructions to our drivers. In the coming period, we also aim to focus on efficiency by reviewing operational processes and to concentrate on technological investments. While our research and development (R&D) activities in our Technopark office continue in this direction, we are conducting studies for our own applications in areas such as software, cloud computing, cyber security infrastructures, and developing artificial intelligence-supported applications."
Sustainability report published
Underlining that they carry out their logistics activities with sustainable policies both for the continuity of their success and for a more livable world, Garip Sahillioğlu, Chairman of Mars Logistics said, "We published a sustainability report for the 2020-2022 period. In the 3-year period, we included energy efficiency studies in our action plan at Hadımköy Logistics Center and commissioned the LED transformation project in lighting and lithium ion battery conversion projects in our electrical equipment. The number of customers for whom we carry out regular emission reporting is increasing exponentially in 2023. We will continue our investments in the installation of electric vehicle charging stations and Solar Power Plant (SPP) investments in our facilities with a focus on sustainability." In addition to publishing a Sustainability Report in 2023, the Company systematized its efforts to efficiently manage energy resources, improve energy performance and neutralize energy-related carbon emissions with the ISO 50001 Energy Management System certificate as a result of energy efficiency analyses and energy management practices, Mars Logistics, which has certified its renewable energy with IREC and has been ranked above average in the SRD assessment by Crif Turkey for two consecutive years at level B in sustainability performance, continues its sustainability efforts such as Hadımköy Rooftop Solar Power Plant project, energy efficiency projects, zero waste management and rainwater project in every area of the company.
Human Resources projects are always on the agenda
Stating that human resources practices and activities are always on their agenda, Sahillioğlu said the following about the projects they have developed for employees: "We will continue to implement the Training Development Project, Orientation Development Project, Rotation Project and Employee Welfare Projects we offer for our employees. While our OHS Awareness Raising Activities continue in the same way, we have also implemented the QR Code Application in Periodic Controls, Ergonomic Risk Analyses and Red Zone Application in Forklifts."
"We will increase women employment in all areas of the company"
Stating that the 2,850-person expert staff continues to work to increase women's employment, Sahillioğlu emphasized the Equality Has No Gender project they launched in 2021 and said, "We carried out studies in the field of gender equality with our Equality Has No Gender project we launched in 2021. Apart from these studies, we have set one of our goals to increase women's employment in the logistics sector, which is known to be male-dominated, with our 'Female Employee Ratio Target 30% in New Employment' article that we added to our strategic planning." Stating that at the end of 2020, before the addition of the article, the rate of female employees in new employment was 19%, Sahillioğlu said that this rate increased to 34% by the end of 2023. "In 2024, we updated this article as 'Increasing the rate of female employees in new employment by 10% compared to the previous year' in order to make it realistic and achievable." Sahillioğlu said that they included women in the Mars Driver Academy project established in 2021 and underlined that there are currently 30 female truck drivers, including academy graduates, and concluded his words as follows: "We believe that change begins within us first. We will continue to work for gender equality and we will increase women's employment in every area of the company every year, and we will spread the change by starting from within."