Characteristics Of IKEA

At IKEA, employers include from human resource managers, supervisors to board members and directors. HR managers need to be strategic toward employees. This is when leadership style come in place, effective leaderships style approach motivates employees and stimulate their initiative. IKEA has two main leadership style, autocratic and democratic. Respectively, HR managers attain full control over decisions so that its made quick and efficient. As a result, employees will be able to see manager’s resoluteness in making decisions and are positively influenced. This autocratic management style is effective in large businesses like Ikea and also because the manager will always have more experience and expertise than general workers. It can also

IKEA has 328 stores in 28 country (Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2016). The countries includes North America, Europe, Russia, Asia and Australia. Europe has the highest IKEA stores in the world in which it has 229 stores and 19 distribution centre. Follow by North America has 52 stores of IKEA and 7 distribution centre. The third country that has the most IKEA stores is in Asia in which it has 27 stores in total and 5 distribution centre. Furthermore, Russia has 14 stores of IKEA company and 1 distribution centre. Lastly, Australia has 6 stores and 1 distribution centre.

Since its 1943 establishing in Sweden by Ingvar Kamprad at 17 years old years, IKEA has offered home furniture and frill of good outline and capacity at low costs so most of the general population can manage the cost of them. IKEA 's vision is to: "Make a superior regular life for the numerous individuals" Its business thought is "To offer an extensive variety of all-around outlined, practical home outfitting items at costs so low that whatever number individuals as could be expected under the circumstances will have the capacity to bear the cost of them"(IKEA 2004)

Ikea is a multinational group of companies operating on a global scale in the furniture industry, offering a wide range of ready to assemble (Do It Yourself) furniture, appliances, and accessories worldwide. The company is well known and recognized for its modern designs, functionality of their products, quality services, and their eco-friendliness. Within the competitive market, Ikea aims at being better than its competitors in the market, and offers the best standards of services to its customers, as well as a wider range of products for low prices.

A different approach about Ikea’s success is given by Sara Kristofferson in her book Designed by Ikea, London 2014. In the first chapter, Kristofferson refers to the relationship between the swedish goverment and Ikea.

IKEA started in 1943 as a one-man mail order company in a small farming village in the southern part of Sweden called Sm&land. The founder, Ingvar Kamprad, only a 17- year-old boy at the time, initially arranged for the local county milk van to transport the goods to the nearby train station. Today the IKEA Group has 70,000 co-workers and a turnover of over 11 billion euros (close to $11 billion) (Dahlvig, Kling and Goteman, 2003).

Ikea, originating from Sweden was started out by Ingvar Kamprad by first selling daily used items and home accessories in the 1940s, over the years it has now evolved to being an established home furnishing company that “designs and retails its own ready-to-assemble furniture, appliances and home accessories”.

IKEA's strategy is derived from environmental conditions; the Swedish company's understanding before customers want functional furniture, the attractive and modern design, and affordable, with immediate availability. The furniture has lost its status as a heritage object, to become a universal object of consumption.

IKEA has achieved success by offering customer value for functional designer products. The cost conscience attitude has worked in favor for IKEA amongst its target market.

TOP 5 SALES COUNTRIES Germany USA France UK Italy ... AND TOP 5 PURCHASING COUNTRIES China Poland

Ikea, the world’s largest home furniture retailing company, was founded by Ingvar Kamprad. He built his business empire through developing a distinct corporate culture. The Ikean

Ingvar Kamprad, an entrepreneur, founded the Swedish furniture company IKEA in 1943 (Chu, 2013). Kamprad was only 17 years old when he founded the IKEA company. He named the company after the initials of his first and last name and the first letter of the farm and hometown he grew up in (Bhasin). In the years following, the Swedish furniture giant has grown to 328 stores in 28 countries as of August 2015. This includes 1.9 billion visits to IKEA.com, 771 million store visits, 213 million catalogs printed in 32 languages and 155,000 co-workers across 6 continents. According to IKEA’s website, their vision is “To create a better everyday life for the many people”. An interesting fact about IKEA is that its furniture production consumes one percent of all the wood produced on earth (Bhasin). The site goes on to explain how they optimize their entire value chain to provide affordable quality to their customers. IKEA expanded into China and other countries so that they could continue to attain their goal of creating “a better everyday life for the many people”. A unique aspect with IKEA is their product packaging. The product is a flat package, so it is easy for the consumers to take the product home and assemble it themselves.

1990s IKEA was concentrating on the needs of families and children, it has launched the

IKEA established itself as the largest furniture retailer in Sweden by the early 1970s by reinventing the wheel of furniture manufacturing at that time. Majority of furniture manufacturers in Sweden produced expensive products with designs that were basic or passed down generation to generation, additionally other manufacturers stores where located in downtown congested areas. IKEA’s strategies which consisted of low cost low priced furniture, brave intricate designs, self-assembly,

IKEA is a multinational group of companies, popular for its design and marketing of ready to assemble furniture, appliances and home accessories. It was established by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943 in Sweden. IKEA has derived its name from the initials of Ingvar Kamrad, Elmtaryd (farm where he was raised up) and Agunnaryd (his birthplace in South Sweden). Since January 2008, it is world’s biggest furniture retailer. IKEA owns and operates 325 stores in different regions of the world and is well-known for its architectural eco-friendly designs, diversity in appliances and furniture (Inter IKEA System BV, 2009). It has become one of the world’s largest home furnishing retailers (Jonson, 2008) & has been ranked 44th in 2002 among top brands beating big brand