Sabanci Holding Case Analysis

I’ve been working for Sabanci Holding for the last 10 years, which is one the largest multi-business firms in Turkey operating in various sectors including finance, insurance, retail, cement, industrial production besides its philanthropic endeavors. The Group currently operates in 16 countries and has also multinational business partners, namely Ageas, Aviva, Bridgestone, Carrefour, E.ON, Heidelberg Cement, Marubeni and Philip Morris.

Sabancı Holding is a 90- year-old family company founded by five brothers. Each brother took responsibility of one business unit and controlled the related companies autonomously. This decentralized approach has been one of the key components of way doing business in Sabanci companies including brand and communication management.

Despite this autonomous structure, the umbrella brand is Sabancı and its sub-brands have been created with its initials, such as CarrefourSA, AvivaSA, TeknoSA. So, there is mutual effect between brands which can be considered as an advantage but also a risk. Thus, integrated management of the brand is crucial in this context.

But on the contrary, the communication

We already have a corporate brand guideline, but considering the multidimensional environment of the company, it was obvious that the need was beyond that.

So, I have decided to write down a detailed document, called “Constitution of Sabanci Communication”. This document identifies the principles of communication in Sabanci Group besides regulating duties and responsibilities of all functions involved in the processes. The rules for each communication discipline from media relations to advertising, sponsorships to digital communication have been clearly defined. The document has been classified as “company policy” after Board approval and became a regulatory binding document for the whole