Let’s learn more about Tofaş Comodif Filom from our CEO

Serdar Urçar, one of the first names that come to mind in Turkey on digitalization. For many years he took part in different roles in this field. Currently, as the CEO of Comodif, once again he is focusing on going digital. Urçar believes that Comodif has a chance to achieve significant international success and become a global technology, and is working on realizing this vision. We discussed with Serdar Urçar about his new role and his goals in Comodif…

“CREATING VALUE FROM DATA”

Recently you started a new position as the CEO at Comodif. After working for major companies for years why chose to work at a scale-up?

I’ve spent significant time on the transformation of Turkey’s economy to become a digital economy in recent years. There are two major aspects of the transformation to the digital economy: transforming successful traditional companies into digitalization and having digital-born start-ups and even scale-ups in Turkey that use digital technology with quality at a global level. I came to Comodif because Comodif combines these two aspects very well.

Comodif is co-founded by Ahu Serter, President of Fark Holding and incubated in Fark Labs, the R&D-Innovation and Transformation Center of Fark Holding, one of Turkey’s most entrepreneurial group of companies. Comodif is in a tremendous renovation and digital transformation. I get to witness and contribute to this effort. Comodif is a digital born company. Comodif has a vision, achieving significant global success and becoming a global technology. At Comodif I get a chance to contribute to this journey.

In which field does Comodif operate?

Comodif is a technology company that collects data from any moving vehicle and creates value for the end-user. This value is created based on certain user scenarios and it can be for both individual and commercial users, ie, different user scenarios. For example; smart vehicle management for individuals, fleet management for companies, vehicle sharing solutions for both individuals and companies, predictive maintenance applications especially for companies with large fleets, and also, smarter risk management based on driver behavior and pricing scenarios such as data analysis and report generation based on data for insurance companies. Our goal is to be the technology company that collects data from mobile devices and vehicles and creates value with this data through end-user scenarios. As Comodif, we create a solution together with operational and technological business partners.

Has there been a lot of interest in this value proposition so far? As a new venture, have you been able to realize your technology/service into actual projects?

Yes, we have contributed to projects implemented with Comodif technology. We have become the platform to provide technology and accelerate the launch of this kind of services to the market in Turkcell’s KoPilot, KoPilot Filom, KoPilot WiFi and Tofaş’s Fiat Yol Arkadaşım, Connect Filom and Renault’s Motrio Connect projects. Our latest project with Tofaş, Connect Filom launched on July 2nd. This new product will be in high demand in the market and will achieve significant sales.

Where does Comodif want to go from here?

Our strategy is to focus on our corporate customers while we grow. We aim to provide our services to our corporate customers in offering connected services with fast and rich in value added services to their customers. We will enable B2B2B and B2B2C models over B2B. In the automotive and mobility world, you encounter many different segments and players, prospects, and with micro-mobility, many different, non-traditional companies and solutions continue to enter our lives. We will provide new generation mobility solutions to automotive manufacturers, major automotive manufacturers brands and importers and distributors in Turkey initially. We can collaborate with these companies for the fleet management solutions of smart vehicles. Insurance companies are also potential customers with the data that we can provide to them from vehicles and driver behaviors to make smarter pricing, to manage their business better, to make more optimal assumptions of the market and, most importantly, to make their risks more visible and to manage them correctly. We can offer them the opportunity to analyze data that will develop many different business and sales models. Fleet management and companies that manage large fleets are at our focus, especially since the connection data received from the vehicle has become a part of the solution in real time. There are a some applications that companies are using to manage large fleets, but they are all based on Telematics 1.0, we started introducing Telematics 2.0 to the market, with the integration of data sources that generate added value both from the vehicle and mobility.

What exactly does this mean?

In other words, companies can provide real-time, decision support system integrated functions to their offerings with much more enhanced data that they can obtain from the limited data and static information that cannot be obtained from the vehicle’s own network. This is another potential customer segment for us. We can also provide services to global telecommunication companies similar to the services we have been providing to companies in the same field in Turkey. We are currently in touch with some of the key players in the market. We can also offer our services to medium-sized companies that provide services similar to fleet management, companies that provide specialized services in certain areas of telematics, companies that will need technological infrastructure while providing their own technological solution, their own software. Along with the market in Turkey, the global market is also very important to us. Our first priority is the Europe, Africa and the Middle East market. Comodif’s goal is to expand the business internationally while continuing to grow nationally and continue as a global technology company.

How are your competitors in Turkey and in the world?

There are companies operating in Telematics 2.0 in various fields in Turkey, but at the moment there are no competitors in the exact field of Comodif. We could see some new potential competitors from emerging start-ups.

“OUR TARGET IS TO BE A GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY COMPANY ”

One of the most important goals for you in joining the group is to get investment in Comodif. What is the strategy and why is there the need for investment?

As Comodif, we want to make progress and leap especially in two aspects: The first is the technological features of the products and the fact that our technology can truly compete at the highest level in the global market. To achieve these goals you need significant investment. While making these investments, we have structured our business model on having our platform based on Telematics 2.0, and on infrastructure that we can achieve faster with reliable business partners. Another aspect is access to the global market. You need to become a global provider and succeed. First of all you need to invest in talent for investment. We need investors, strategic business partners, and strategic companions who can also provide us with smart money in terms of technology and accessing the global market. In order to move forward and expand the business globally we need investors who not only invest with their money in Comodif, but bring their experience and global know-how so we can look in the same direction and work together while investing in technology and developing our international organization. We will start our talks with our formal-informal potential investors in the autumn.