You are Elif Demir, Managing Director of Marmara Beyaz Eşya's appliance plant in Gebze, outside Istanbul, eighteen months after a German group bought 80% of the company. Its Chief Operating Officer has just told you that almost none of its know-how has reached the plant, and that you have twelve months to show movement or be replaced. Your first working session, on Monday, must decide why.
The situation
Marmara makes dishwashers and small kitchen appliances: ₺11.8 billion of revenue a year (about €330 million) and 1,400 people at a single plant. NordHaus Group bought 80% of it for its low costs and its access to Middle East and North Africa markets, on the premise that Marmara would absorb NordHaus's production, quality and product-development methods. So far the integration has consisted of translated manuals and a shared intranet.
The scorecard the COO brought on 9 March: 14,000 defective parts per million against a group standard of 3,500, a gap that costs about ₺290 million a year in warranty claims; productivity 35% below the group benchmark; 22 months to bring a new model to market against 14 at group plants; and an EBITDA margin of 9% against the group's 13%. The know-how that matters most, balancing assembly lines and engineering supplier quality, sits with four NordHaus engineers seconded to Gebze. Most of the supervisors who would have to use it came up from the line and have never worked inside NordHaus's systems, across a gap in language and in how work is done.
You have spent seventeen years at Marmara, from supply-chain analyst to Managing Director, and you have the confidence of the founding family, which still shapes the culture from the boardroom. For the year you will have €2.4 million and 600 days of the seconded engineers' time. If the year brings no visible convergence, NordHaus will fly in a team from Stuttgart, and the first seat it fills is yours.