Evaluation of the export potential of a furnituremanufacturing company using qualitative andquantitative methods

With globalization and rapid technological developments, countries are in constant competition in the world market. In this sense, furniture export has great importance both in the world and in our country. Furniture import and export are affected by natural disasters, political events, war, cyclical situations such as terrorism. The most obvious example is the Covid-19 outbreak. The epidemic slowed down the import and export of furniture and adversely affected foreign trade between countries. According to the results of 2022, the countries that export the most furniture in the world are China, Poland and Germany, respectively. The countries that maintain their place in the world market in furniture imports are the USA, Germany and England. The countries with the highest exports of our country are Iraq, Germany and the USA. The countries with the highest imports are China, Italy and Germany. To take place in the furniture market with the appropriate price policy and model selection by increasing the brand perception to increase the export potential of the companies in the sector. The width of the areas where furniture production will be made, the use of technological machines suitable for the industry and the support of qualified personnel are the most important factors that increase exports. The fact that some countries in the world furniture market offer cheap production costs and logistics services negatively affects the competitiveness of our country in the sector. In addition, the rapid rise of foreign currency in our country and the increase in raw material costs, which are affected by current inflation, cause furniture prices to increase. In this context, in order for companies to hold on in the furniture market, it should be ensured that they enter the furniture market that they target export with state incentives or participate in fairs in order to diversify the existing market and to meet travel expenses, purchase raw materials, quality employment and export-based production. Making future plans in the development of the furniture industry is extremely important in terms of increasing the export potential and preserving the sector's place in the world furniture market. In this context, the fact that furniture producing companies have foresight in terms of meeting the demands for products suitable for export will enable effective plans to be made. This capacity is presented with the SWOT analysis method, the weak and strong competitors of the firm's exports, the limitations and threats in exports. With the export data of a furniture manufacturing company between 2018 and 2022, planning estimates for the next three years were made. In the research, ACF and PACF graphs, one of the ARIMA model parameters, which is one of the Box-Jenkins method, were used. The R program was used to obtain the results. xviii It is extremely important that this thesis study sets an example in future studies in terms of making consistent export forecasts by using the time series and meeting the appropriate demands.