Growth strategy of Turkey’s TAV becomes case study at Harvard

ISTANBUL

The operating model and growth strategy of Turkey’s TAV, one of the world’s largest airport constructors and management companies, has now become a case study at Harvard Business School, said the company in a press release on Jan. 20. 

The case study is on TAV’s transformation to being an important global brand and emphasizes how it differentiated from its counterparts through its integrated business model, it added. 

One of the world’s most prestigious business schools, Harvard Business School published a case study on how TAV became a global brand from its humble beginnings in Istanbul.

Prof. Juan Alcacer, a faculty member of Harvard Business School, and Esel Çekin, HBS Istanbul Research Center’s executive director, co-authored in writing a case study on how a Turkish company that had started from ground zero with a build-operate-transfer model project and a wide target and vision became one of the globe’s largest airport management companies, said the company. 

“At Harvard Business School we are committed to provide teaching materials that help our students to become leaders that make a change in the world. To achieve this goal, we are looking constantly for firms and organizations around the world that provide interesting and important lessons in management. When I visited Turkey a couple of years ago I had the chance to learn about TAV, its managers and its strategic challenges. I thought that it provided a great setting where students could explore good managerial practices, so we wrote the case,” said Alcacer. 

Within the scope of this case study, Sani Sener, the CEO of TAV group, will meet Harvard Business School’s MBA students in Boston on Feb. 18. 

 “Since the very beginning, we established a business model that is based on innovation and smart growth. We started a three-year, eight-month, 20-day project. We had only 10 million passengers in Istanbul in 2000. Today, we are welcoming 102 million passengers in 14 airports in seven countries. TAV’s wide variety of products and services from ground handling, to food and beverages, duty free, security and IT, are provided in 70 airports and 16 countries. We are in number one in airport construction. We achieved this success not through our physical assets, but through intellectual and social assets that are our 54,000 employees from 39 different countries. We are proud that TAV’s flexible business model which endures the market shocks and its global brand name born out of Turkey are now being discussed by the leaders of the future at Harvard,” Şener said. 

Together with its affiliates and subsidiaries, TAV Airports, one of the world’s leading airport operators, operates the Istanbul Atatürk, Ankara Esenboğa, İzmir Adnan Menderes, Milas-Bodrum and Alanya-Gazipaşa airports in Turkey. The Tbilisi and Batumi airports in Georgia, Monastir and Enfidha-Hammamet airports in Tunisia, Skopje and Ohrid airports in Macedonia, Madinah Airport in Saudi Arabia and Zagreb Airport in Croatia are also operated by TAV.