Leading the Future of Smart Buildings: Bora Gulan

Marcus Emmet, Consultant at Beaumont Bailey, sits down with leaders from across the Smart Buildings space to discuss the year gone by, what trends have driven the sector and what to expect in 2024.

Bora Gulan – CEO, Europe and Africa at TK Elevator

Bora has over 25 years of experience leading industrial, operational and customer service teams and over 20 years in the elevator industry. Born in Istanbul, he holds a Masters degree in Business Administration form the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, as well as further executive education degrees from INSEAD and Oxford University.

How would you summarise 2023 for the smart infrastructure industry?

It has been a year of remarkable dynamism, characterised by a series of challenges and opportunities; in 2023, we were still emerging from the challenges posed by COVID, faced supply chain issues, and navigated the impact of multiple global conflicts and wars. In contrast to these challenges, the year brought many positives, such as the tremendous developments in the area of AI and related tools. Overall, our lifts and escalators industry segment within Smart Infrastructure have once again proven to be extremely resilient to wider macroeconomic conditions. We have continued to drive growth and innovation forward.

Also overall, the industry has been successful in realising year-on-year improvements. At TK Elevator, we made strong progress in improving our performance today while at the same time repositioning the company for future profitable growth– a sentiment that I imagine will also be echoed by our competitors.

What has been the biggest success story to come out of your organisation this year?

About three years ago we were separating from the Thyssen-Krupp Group, and became an independent player in the global mobility sector. Since then, our journey has been marked by numerous success stories, driven by initiatives aimed at enhancing efficiency, bolstering profitability, and elevating our customer offerings.

If I were to highlight a specific example that captures our commitment to customer-focused innovation, it would undoubtedly be EOX. This is our new digitally native elevator designed for low to mid-rise residential and commercial buildings with lift shafts of up to 20 stops in height. It stands out as one of the market-leading products in terms of eco-efficiency, as EOX is manufactured using 100% green electricity and consumes up to 28% less energy to operate. This is made possible by its regenerative drive technology, a new eco-mode, and a weight-optimised design.

EOX has been designed to be a truly end-to-end solution – it is delivered alongside our predictive maintenance solution, MAX, and therefore ready to support future technologies like AI and machine learning.

We are extremely excited to be deploying EOX across 21 countries in Europe and also in the Americas, confident that it will enable us to further penetrate and expand our market share in both the residential and commercial building sectors, while also delivering a positive environmental and digital impact.

What is a trend that no one is talking about in the industry?

Let me begin with topics that are central to our ongoing discussions: digitalisation and sustainability. Our industry is intensifying its efforts to seamlessly integrate within the broader smart building ecosystem. In the face of rapidly evolving digitalisation, it’s essential to meet the evolving demands of consumers, particularly with an anticipated 75% of the global population becoming digitally native by 2030, which will require more innovative interaction and service delivery methods.

So, it will be about crafting seamless customer journeys. I can give you an example from the hotel sector where our lifts seamlessly synchronise with guest information, streamlining the check-in process for an effortless experience.

At the forefront of this transformation are products like AGILE, the destination control system  which personalizes user experiences, but also MAX which focuses on predictive and remote monitoring for better maintenance.

What we do not talk about enough is the necessity to modernise and repurpose existing buildings, especially in Europe. Both residential and commercial buildings can be redesigned to be more dynamic and future proofed. For example, in Spain five million people live in 3 or more storey buildings that don’t have an elevator. Also current elevator stock in Europe is aging – to take Italy as an example – buildings that have elevators, 50% these elevators are over 30 years old!

On top of that, the rise of hybrid working environments and the demand for multi-use buildings have underscored the necessity to refurbish existing structures to meet evolving needs. As a solution provider, we stand ready to support this transformation.

We not only have a responsibility to maintain and improve our existing buildings, but it also provides a fantastic opportunity for us. We offer several solutions for this, among them is our innovative EOX Renew passenger lift—an exceptionally flexible elevator that introduces eco-efficient features and inherent digital capabilities, enhancing accessibility for existing buildings.

What can we expect to see in 2024?

Supply chain stability has vastly improved from its worst point; however some issues persist and will continue throughout this year – recent political instability, especially along Maritime Trade Routes, is a prevailing contributor of this.

We are actively digitalising our supply chain and utilising our supply chain for Spare Parts in a model similar to Amazon to improve resiliency and adaptability. In recent years, companies that pushed hard for efficiency and relied too heavily on single countries have been suffering – we will not make that mistake.

What is your one piece of advice for leaders

Everything starts with people, and getting them engaged is key to the success of any business. As leaders in the business we are constantly asking ourselves how we can onboard our people better and make a new generation of TKE’ers! Hybrid working is a reality, and we recognize its significance. However, we are very conscious that we don’t lose our TKE culture and spirit while also offering flexibility.

Of course sustainability is a topic that is hugely important for our people – in particular younger generations are very purpose driven. As our society becomes more urbanised, I often give our young people an analogy: that we in the elevator industry provide the veins that transport people around the city. In the same way if a body doesn’t have healthy veins then it cannot function properly – it is the same with our cities!

If you would like to discuss any of the topics raised in this piece or if you need support with your leadership resourcing strategy, please get in touch with Marcus Emmet on marcus.emmet@beaumontbailey.com