Topic: Project Management in Emerging Telecommunication Markets, Turkey

Abstract: Within this presentation, Murat Erkan will provide an overview of Turkey's current telecommunications market and some basic information regarding the country.  He discusses Turkcell as a star within the emerging markets and walks us through some of the difficulties encountered within the regional industry.  Explaining how project management is utilized within one of Turkey's premier telecommunications provider, Turkcell, the presentation will outline some of the organizational charts and workflows used to help manage the chaos.  Turkcell, having been nominated for Project of the Year, has encountered cultural differences like most projects today. Murat Erkan will explain some of the best practices and techniques used to by Turkcell regarding risk and performance management that all project managers today can gain insight from.

Presenter: Nejat Murat Erkan, MBA, PMP

Presenter Bio: Murat Erkan started out his career as a small business consultant (KOBI consultancy in Turkey) in USA. In the following years, he continued his career in pharmaceutical industry. Initially, he worked as a Project Leader in Health Marketing at Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. (now GlaxoSmithKline) and later on, worked as a Project Manager in the field of allergy and immunology at Greer Laboratories, Inc. in North Carolina. After spending 7 years in USA, he moved back to Turkey in 2000 where he continued his career in the telecommunication industry at Telsim (now Vodafone Turkey). In 2005, he started to work at the leading GSM operator in Turkey. Murat is currently working as Senior Project Manager at Turkcell Telecommunication, Inc. where he is managing multinational/multi vendor Telco/IT projects.

Mr. Erkan holds a Bachelor of Science degree (BSChE) from Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Campbell University in North Carolina, USA. He is a member of IPYD (Istanbul Project Management Association), the Project Management Institute, PMI Turkey Chapter and is the PMI College of Performance Management-Global Advisory Committee representative for Turkey.

He gained his PMP certification in September 2005. He is keeping his certification valid by volunteered PMI & Association activities. Recently, he volunteered as a prime-evaluator for Turkey National Project Management Award organised by IPYD.

Murat Erkan was born in Istanbul in 1970. He speaks fluent Turkish, English, French and basic Spanish. He is married and has a 8-months old son.


Attended conferences as a speaker:

Dynamics 2008 Project Management Congress, April 4-5, 2008, Istanbul
Organised by Instanbul Project Management Association, Istanbul, Turkey

PMI EMEA 2008 Project Management Congress, May 19-21, 2208, St. Julians, Malta
Organised by Project Management Institute, PA, USA