Merve Özdemir Ceran, Customer Service Manager, Turkey

Years with AD

Team

Work Ethic

Analytical

Trait

Agile

Personality

What attracted you to your chosen work?
I started my career as a Customer Service coordinator in Avery Dennison, where I acted as a bridge between different teams, filtering the requests and prioritizing tasks. It was a hard start, but also it kept me energized and made me feel like part of the solution. One of the things I heard about Avery Dennison before I started working here was, ‘AD is a company that always stands behind the goods they produce. They are reliable.’ This attracted me to AD as a company and the work I chose.

What skills did you develop early that are still useful today?
Open and smooth communication and analytical thinking are the main skills I developed early and still find useful today. I cannot think of one without the other for myself or my team. I like to ask ‘Why?’ to understand the root cause so I can find a solution or make an improvement. It is also very important for me to use data or analysis to make complex topics more understandable.

How have you grown in your career at Avery Dennison?
I have always been open to learning from others and from new experiences. I like to share my knowledge and support others. I also had the chance to work closely with all functions in the organization globally, which widened my perspective. Being resilient, adaptive, and willing to take on responsibilities and do my best in every situation helped me grow my career at AD.

What's the biggest stretch opportunity you've taken on?
I have been the interim leader for AD Turkey for a period of time. This has strengthened my capabilities and helped me understand my abilities. It also helped me identify my areas for improvement.

Being resilient, adaptive, and willing to take on responsibilities and do my best in every situation helped me grow my career at Avery Dennison.

What role has mentorship played in your career?
Mentorship has played an important role in my career. My leaders taught me how positive feedback is crucial when trying to reach your goals, as well as knowing where improvement is needed. Being supported and understood by your leaders to keep your motivation and willingness high is very important. I had been lucky to have open and two-sided communication with my mentors, which helped me grow with self-awareness.

What’s the best career decision you’ve ever made?
The best decision I made was applying for a Sales Analyst role while I was working as a CS Executive. It took me out of my comfort zone where I was very experienced and pushed me to learn different tools. This role moved my perspective from daily operations to analysis, which helps drive the strategy. I have also been involved in different projects and trainings where I can interact with different people.

As you think about the next steps in your career, what are the most important actions you plan to take?
Digitalization is a big, exciting step for me. Continuous improvement is very important for my team and me, and digitalization is necessary to make that happen. I plan to have an active role in projects that support the Avery Dennison digitalization journey.

What do you enjoy most about the work you do?
Discussions around improvements - even small ones - that will impact our business and our people makes me feel involved and effective.

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