INTERNATIONAL ICOVACS 2008 CONFERENCE STARTED…

President of the Organizational Committee Prof. Dr. Tunçdan Baltacıoğlu, IUE Rector Prof. Dr. Attila Sezgin, Assoc. Prof. Jalal Ashayerii from Tilburg University, the Netherlands, Hugo Boss Turkey CEO Dr. Sezai Kaya, Pof. Dr. Suresh Sethi from Texas University, USA made speeches in the opening ceremony of the conference. After the speeches Prof. Dr. Tunçdan Baltacıoğlu presented plaquets to the speakers.

President of the Organizational Committee Prof. Dr. Tunçdan Baltacıoğlu stated that the aim of the conference was to bring academia, professionals, decision-makers and practitioners together, who work in various fields of business and strive for creating and maintaining sustainable value chains and said “ICOVACS 2008 (International Conference on Value Chain Sustainability) is organized and hosted by our university. It is the first of conference series that strive for creating and maintaining sustainable value chains. The following conferences of this series will be organized in different countries by different universities and I hope we will find the opportunity to share our knowledge and experience in different places of the world.  I hope we will have the chance to share our knowledge and experience in different parts of the world. We believe that the founding stone for today’s value chains is the integration of three key areas, namely design, logistics and branding. From this standpoint, the theme of ICOVACS 2008 is identified as "Integrating Design, Logistics and Branding for Sustainable Value Creation”. I believe that discussions and idea sharing during the conference will provide to the participants a better understanding of how design, logistics and branding can be integrated to develop sustainable value chains.”

İzmir University of Economics Rector Prof. Dr. Attila Sezgin stated his happiness in organizing and hosting the first conference and said “During the congress, we will have the opportunity to discuss the sustainable value chains from all perspectives and I believe that this ultimately will enhance our understanding in the subject. Izmir University of Economics aims to provide the students with real life knowledge and experience. For this reason, the university cooperates and maintains good relations with the companies and organizations in different industries. Lecturers at our university are in close relation with both the managers of the companies and experts in the industry. The curricula of courses are enriched by “Industry-Aided Projects”, which aim to find solutions to the problems of the industry and improve the processes of the companies. Our academic programs create synergy from joint projects with other academic institutions and the business world, and benefiting from lectures given by professionals and experts. ICOVACS 2008 is mainly organized by three departments of our University. These are the Department of Logistics Management, the Department of Business Administration and the Department of Industrial Design.”