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At the Medcem Global Cement Group( Medcem) factory in Turkey, the trucks are being run in a refreshingly efficient way. Loaded with raw material at the quarry, which sits higher than the plant itself, they roll downhill and regenerate their own batteries along the way, arriving with enough charge to make the empty return trip uphill.
For the largest global cement exporter in a single location, this is a small detail, yet it perfectly encapsulates how CEO, Mehmet Ali Ceylan, is running the company through the third year of its 2024 – 2028 strategic plan – with efficiency and sustainability being the exact same investment. That logic now extends far beyond the quarry, most visibly in a new order for 60 electric trucks from Mercedes; one of the largest single electric truck deals the manufacturer has taken.
Mehmet sat down with us in 2025 to discuss Medcem’ s five-year plan, and he returns today to reveal how the strategy is working out, alongside vertical integration, geographical expansion and decarbonization.
“ As we touched on last year, the plan has two main strands. The first is quantitative growth, which breaks down into vertical integration, horizontal integration, increasing efficiency and strategical growth,” he begins.“ The second is qualitative development, built around three pillars – sustainability, digitalization and organizational development. Since we last spoke, we’ ve commissioned several new terminals and ready-mix plants and made new investments in the factory to increase efficiency and establish control over our raw material and logistics operations. We’ ve also continued to improve efficiency through digitalization and kept investing in the development of our people, who remain our most important resource.”
Integrating operations
Medcem has significantly increased operational efficiency through vertical
▲ Mehmet Ali Ceylan
integration, which Mehmet says allows full control over the supply side, logistics or sales, and notably improves margins.“ Vertical integration splits into backward integration
We’ ve taken control of the r quarrying operation at our fact the electric mining trucks – a w both sustainability and efficien
and forward integration,” he explains.“ Backward integration means controlling the supply side; forward integration covers distribution channels and the customerfacing side. On the backward side, we’ ve taken control of the raw material quarrying
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