Technology Management in Turkish Defense Industry

Abstract

The Turkish defense industry has been growing significantly since 1970s. The majority of the $416 million USD reserved for R&D budget in 2005 was spent for defense and aerospace industry. The total revenue of the defense companies in Turkey was around $2.2 billion USD in 2008. The Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) of Turkey aims to increase the average portion to meet the system requirements through local infrastructure to 50 percent and also to increase the export of defense services and goods to 1 billion USD by 2011. SSM also plans to quadruple the portion of Turkish defense industry in the NATO projects. Companies operating in the defense sector utilize the latest technologies and they have to cope with the fast pace of changes in the technology. On the other hand, the Turkish defense industry is growing significantly and aiming to keep and even accelerate this growth. Therefore, technology management plays a vital role in Turkish defense industry and this research investigates the current status of technology management in the Turkish defense industry.