THE DAISY of Kebapçı İSKENDER^â and SEVEN PRINCIPLES

1. COMMITMENT

Creating a value of the institution and having employees and customers considering the firm an institution, could be achieved by not only constituting the intellectual infrastructure of institutionalization but also giving employees and customers a sense of institutional commitment.

In terms of the productivity of service and institutional image, it is an ideal state to have a staff feeling committed to the institution, and integrated and identified with it. While it is possible for those who work at the higher positions of management to acquire professional approach and experience through training, time and individual efforts, sense of commitment is a factor of motivation that is to be given by superiors in a hierarchical structure. In cases where there is a lack of commitment, the rate of making mistakes is much higher. An institution with a staff not feeling committed could not be as prestigious as desired and it would not be much different about the service quality either. To give them a sense of commitment to the job and institution, it is highly important to let the staff in one to one relationship with customers participate in the management, take the initiative when needed and share some professional views and experiences. By keeping the morale and motivation of the staff at the maximum point and increasing the level of commitment as much as possible, it should be considered indispensable to maximize the quality of work, and thus the quality of the service given to customers.

It is the most pleasing manifestation of commitment for us to have customers who feel the urge to protect our name when they come across in or out of Turkey any application imitating us, and those who do it more because of feeling that they have to do it than being stimulated by what we have given them.

2. MORALITY

As it should be the way in all the jobs, İskender Döner Kebab adopts a customer-centered philosophy and the main centre of care and love is our customers. If the skills of empathizing and sharing with customers had not been demonstrated, the name and flavor could not have been kept in the way it is now all throughout those nearly 150 years. In this story that began with İskender Dede(the grandfather) and came to these days thanks to the flavor and name he introduced, besides the mastery over meat and sauces, the fact has always been appreciated that public relations is crucially important. Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğlu has always adhered to the principle of our ancestors advising us not to give the food we would not eat to others, which is now formulated in the motto “food safety right from the field to the fork”. We think that we do not just feed people. We believe that we shoulder some kind of social responsibility and set a good example for the sector with the importance we attach to nourishment, which is directly related to human health.

3. QUALITY

Our firm, which has made great steps on the way to achieve institutionalization and become one of the prominent food trademarks today, appreciates the heavy responsibility of serving in a sector where hygiene and quality have a great importance and we see ourselves as responsible for also serving our stakeholders under the best conditions possible. The trademark rights of Kebapçı İSKENDER-Yavuz İskenderoğlu were registered all around world in 1999. Fulfilling the requirements of being a worldwide reliable brand and shouldering social responsibility, Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğlu became the first in Turkey to simultaneously have the documents of TS-EN-ISO 9000, which approves the managerial system, and HACCP 13001, which determines the standards of food hygiene and safety, in the area of “Cooking and Serving Döner Kebab”. All the people working for Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğlu are proud of giving priority to customer satisfaction, making any kind of sacrifices to keep the quality high and behaving in harmony with our national responsibilities besides the institutional ones.

4. CONSTANT DEVELOPMENT

An ideal member of a staff is to know well and much about the skills, knowledge and practices needed in the segment he works. To improve himself, he should observe his superiors, and read and ask for new information. Development should not be limited with professional development only. To have a broad general knowledge, one should be a good reader and listener.

On the other hand, the importance Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğlu, which has completed its industrialization using the latest technology, machinery, equipment and infrastructure, has attached to the University-Industry cooperation has helped it come to the position where it is today.

Today, the traditional, historical and long-established features of the trademark of Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğlu are perpetuated in the İskender Efendi Mansion House, which is full of some distinctive features of the Ottoman architecture in the 17th century.

5. RELIABILITY

In order for the people who do a job to be successful, they should do it with care and love. Moreover, no matter what the job is, and no matter even with how much care and love it is done, the point aimed at would be impossible to reach if the skills to integrate and share with people cannot be devloped.

We believe that the only way to protect the trademark is to establish an emotional connection between customers and the brand name; what is more, to create some kind of customer loyalty.

“İskender is” actually not the name of a food but that of an approved brand. The name of the food is “döner kebab”. İskender Efendi’s “spinning kebab” has come to be called just “döner” also. The name “İskender” has become identified with döner and been used as the name of the food too. Whereas, placing pita, yoghurt, sauce and others together in a plate is an invention of ours, and it makes our reliability, our approach to quality, our integration with customer psychology and our socialization.

Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğluis proud of sharing with our customers all those experiences and historical background with a different approach to serving, and is aware of the fact that we have been able to come to these days

   *  with the brand name that has transformed into a created trademark, 
   *  with the patent and trademark rights that have been officially secured, 
   *  with the business administration culture that was inherited from the family and has transformed into an institutional culture, 
   *  we have always been in communication with people and tried to make them happy 
   *  and we have always attached great importance to consistency, being different and novelties.

6. DIFFERENCE

Not horizontal but Vertical / Serving in Plates: That is removing all the bones and nerves from the lamb first, then roasting the lamb, which was till then cooked for centuries parallel to a fire on the ground, on a vertical spit span before a fire set in a vertical fireplace, and serving it in thin slices in a plate.

Sticking to the atmosphere in our first restaurant in Kayhan Bazaar, now the floors and tables are furnished with marble, woodwork in İskender blue is used on facades, the dark blue daisy of Kebapçı İSKENDER^â and kündekari are placed in the restaurants, forks are served as wrapped in papers, grape juice is served in hygienic bottles with brass lids. All such details are aimed to develop and frame the concept of our restaurants today. Another difference of ours to note is that today’s style of organic production and nourishment has already been adopted since the establishment of Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğlu. Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğlu produces the organic İskender Döner Kebab in conformity with the world standards without any chemicals or additives and using only the meat obtained from animals bred and fed in natural environments.

7. CONVICTION

Loving the job is important in terms of not only the life of the firm but also our life. When an employee experiences some kind of professional dissatisfaction, unhappiness and growing old faster is inevitable for him. Serving people in a way that could please them is naturally difficult. It is always probable to encounter people who are fussy, exigent, bad-tempered, nervous etc. Treating them with tolerance and sympathy could be possible only if one loves his job.

The characteristics that make some firms different are,

   * customer satisfaction,
   * quality service and products, 
   * management quality, 
   * social responsibility

Maybe, “respectability”, which comprises all those above, could be considered on its own a criterion of prestige. Our customers deeming us worthy of such a prestige augment our love and motivation.

To serve in the best way in a short period of time and achieve customer satisfaction, we know that we have to do our job with pains, self-sacrifice, quality, hygiene, love, care etc. all.

Trying to please and influence people that you do not know at all and doing it with self-sacrifice could be boring and annoying for most of the people, but we do it and we are aware of our responsibility that we have to please our customers with our service. We believe firmly and sincerely that we, as Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğlu , have come to these days thanks to that conviction.