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INSPIRE | Interview NAME: C O M P A N Y: POSITION: L O C AT I O N :

Feliks Boynuinceoglu KFC Turkey CEO & General Manager Istanbul, Turkey

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KFC TURKEY HAS BEEN IN THE COUNTRY

SINCE THE LATE 1980s BUT HAS NOT BEEN
REACHING ITS FULL POTENTIAL DUE TO
A NUMBER OF UNFAVOURABLE MARKET
CONDITIONS. THAT’S FINALLY CHANGING AS
CEO FELIKS BOYNUINCEOGLU PURSUES A
“WINNING CULTURE” AND RAPID GROWTH.
WORDS JACOB GOLDBERG

F
ast food giant KFC was one of the very first global
quick service restaurant brands to open in Turkey back
in 1989. But while the fried chicken chain has a long
history in the country, it has not yet reached its potential
there thanks to stiff competition from other eateries
and a number of other challenging market conditions.
“The brand is under-penetrated in many cities,” says Feliks
Boynuinceoglu, CEO and General Manager for KFC Turkey.
“Though brand awareness was high, trial was not at a desired
level. Restaurant performance was previously declining or not
stable, and there were many challenges in terms of profitability.”

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INSPIRE | Interview

But that has all started to change in recent months
thanks to a huge overhaul that has seen the board of
directors and many senior staff replaced. Feliks is one of
the new faces; he started in his role in August last year.
With new leadership, the brand now has a clear direction
and a robust business strategy.
The changes are already starting to produce results.
Same store sales performance for 2021 outpaced that of
2019, even though the COVID-19 pandemic caused
enormous disruption to the industry. By the end of this
year, KFC Turkey will have 50 per cent more restaurants
than it did last year.
DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE
Feliks and his team managed to enact their plan within
six months, transforming the company from the inside
while also conducting business as usual.
“It was something like open heart surgery,” Feliks
explains. “You are changing something, but the organism
is still alive. We changed every single department, but at
the same time, we were still performing.”
For example, while the company was restructuring its
marketing department, it was also continuing its ongoing
media plan. While it was reorganising the growth and real
estate departments, the company was still signing contracts
with landlords.
KFC now has more than 165 restaurants in Turkey
and is aiming to open another 30 by the end of this year.
“It’s a crazy number; we are going to grow nearly 50 per
cent in terms of store count. It’s huge growth,” Feliks says.
GAINING MOMENTUM
Within five years, Feliks aims to open more than 360
restaurants in Turkey – a sign that KFC sees huge potential
in the market for QSR chains, despite the challenges.
The country has 84 million people, most of whom live
in urban areas. Urbanisation is rising, and there is a large
population of young people.
To take advantage of the favourable demographics,
Feliks is overseeing the implementation of a new marketing
strategy that aims to reach under-penetrated areas with
a more sophisticated, data-driven and consumer insight
focused approach.
Under this plan, KFC Turkey will also diminish the
previously misinterpreted high price perception and
emphasise the value of superior-quality food offered
at best prices for its consumer base, which, in return,
will help it reach new segments of the market.

“With our agile nature, we prioritise digital
transformation and ordering optimisation with ease,”
Feliks says. “In line with our digital excellence strategy, we
renewed our website, which we were shortly awarded for
by three organisations, including Effie. We also launched our
app this summer, which offers personalisation of buckets,
easy online payment and loyalty rewards.”
As the overhaul of the leadership shows, achieving
growth is also about looking inward. When starting as
CEO, Feliks shares that he saw an opportunity to “fix
the fundamentals” of the business model.
“Our main strategy simply has three pillars: fixing
the fundamentals and resetting the business; focusing on
consumer needs and market shifts; and creating a winning
culture for achieving growth momentum,” he reveals.
RISING TO THE CHALLENGE
Nonetheless, KFC still faces several headwinds in Turkey.
Costs are unusually high for the QSR industry, and unstable
interest and exchange rates create uncertainty.
“Profitability for QSR businesses is not very high here,
as it is in many other markets,” Feliks says. “If you go to
Middle Eastern markets, the food cost is very low or the
labour cost is very low. In other countries, the cost of labour
is very high and the rent is very high, but the cost of food is
still relatively low.
“In Turkey, every single profit and loss item, every
single cost item is very high. Labour is high because of
the minimum wage. The rents are immense. Electricity,
heating, cooling – everything is very expensive when the
purchasing power per consumption unit is taken into
account. Unlike other QSR businesses across the globe,
Turkish companies are single-margin companies. This is
why growth is so important – to get economies of scale.”
Another key challenge is competition. All of the major
global brands are in Turkey – Domino’s, McDonald’s, Burger
King, Popeyes and more – plus there are many strong
local players with loyal followings. “Turkey has a unique
competitive landscape,” Feliks says. “There are tough global
competitors, and there are also effective local competitors.”
These competitors are vying not just for the same
customers but for a host of other important resources too.
“They are also bidding for the same real estate locations
for opening restaurants,” he shares. “They’re ambitious
for growth too, and very limited resources are allocated
between multiple parties. This has led to a steep increase
in real estate prices, making things even more challenging.”
To rise to these challenges, KFC Turkey will need to
grow rapidly and drastically expand its market presence.
The plans to do so are ambitious, but they are already
underway. Feliks is confident that he and his team will
achieve what previously seemed impossible.

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