Strategic Management

Being one of the leading Companies in Furniture, IKEA offers an extensive variety of decently composed, useful home outfitting products at costs that are reasonable to individuals who are attracted to their Swedish design. This is the real trick which led to IKEA’s success, advancement in product design development, targeting proper designers and suppliers to how they offer their products in IKEA stores. Over the past six decades, IKEA went from the cozy forested areas of southern Sweden to being a one of the largest competitors in the retail industry in over 40 countries around the globe. The story of IKEA began in 1926 when organizer Ingvar Kamprad is conceived in Småland in southern Sweden. He is raised on 'Elmtaryd' where he began his entrepreneur skills by selling matchsticks as a source of income where he discovered bulk purchases at discounted rates and learnt how to expand his inventory which in turn led to IKEA. IKEA expands their markets, for example, Japan and Russia. Everything from the

Today IKEA is progressing towards being one of the top furniture retailers in the world. In 2002, they served 286 million customers through 154 stores resulting in $12 billion in revenue. Although IKEA has several stores placed around the world, they are not always thought of as the most popular furnishing store in America. All the stores are self-service and are based on a do-it-yourself shopping experience. There are few contacts with customer service representatives within the stores, except for when the customer enters the transaction phase of their buying experience.

The well-known ‘build-it-yourself’ product design makes them progressive and makes them running ahead of the competition. IKEA is the only big brand in a category further not present in global markets, there are no real competitors operating in the same category. In 2013 775 million customers visited IKEA in 2013, and its website hosted 1.2 billion visits (4). Due to the ‘build-it-yourself’ product design IKEA is able to provide their customers with high quality and low cost products, even the customers with limited income and limited living space

IKEA’s clear vision is to offer well designed and useful home furnishings at low prices so many customers will be able and capable to afford them. IKEA designs exclusive products that meets firm requirements for task, well-organized delivery, excellence and has a good impact on the environment.

IKEA is known as one of the world’s largest furniture retailer that focuses highly on cost control, operational process and product development. IKEA differentiates itself from most furniture retailers by offering a wide range of well designed array of home furniture at very attractive prices that remain affordable to a large group of diverse customers. There are some unique features of IKEA as compared to most furniture retail stores (IKEA, 2012)

IKEA’s mission is to offer a wide range of home furnishing items of good design and function, excellent quality and durability, at prices so low that the majority of people can afford to buy them. Founder Ingvar Kamprad’s innovative strategy was to design functional furniture that was easy and inexpensive to build, receive it disassembled at stores, and display it on the showroom floor with detailed explanation tickets, making salesperson assistance unnecessary.

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,

In order for a supply chain to run as efficiently as possible, considerations must be in place to ensure the logistics function is operating in an appropriate manner. Part of this is ensuring that the distribution centre is located in an area that allows the greatest efficiency, all the while still meeting operational and strategic needs (Van Thai & Grewal, 2005, p. 4)

The vision of the IKEA Company is “To create a better everyday life for the many people”. They have also their business idea which is “to offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them”.

IKEA is a world famous furnishing company known for selling Scandinavian-style furniture and other home-based goods. The company has over 230 stores, with operations carried out in over 42 countries with well over 70 000 employees. The stores themselves can occupy 410 million shoppers per year. It is a Swedish based company built on the idea of offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products such low prices, that a majority of people will be able to afford them. The IKEA group is currently solely owned by the INGKA Foundation through a holding company, unlisted on any stock exchange.

IKEA is an international company which designs house products and sells them in the form of ready to assemble furniture. It is one of the world’s largest furniture companies. It is founded by17 years old Ingvar Kamprad in Sweden in 1943. The most important fact about the company is the attention to control the cost of the products, which allows them to lower the prices. Even today they are continuing to expand in the world by looking forward to new product developments. The number of stores of IKEA in the United States is 14 at the moment and they aim to have 50 stores by 2013.

1. Design- IKEA designers work in exactly the opposite way from their competitors. They design their products in such a way so that they can keep the prices low. IKEA designers design every product starting with a functional need and then decide on price. With the help of their vast knowledge in innovation and low-cost manufacturing processes through a large network of suppliers, they design the final product which can fulfill consumer’s functional needs. Large volumes are purchased to push prices down even further by distributing the R&D cost. Most IKEA products are designed in such a way so that they can transport in flat packs and assembled at the customer's

IKEA’s vision is to design a better life at home. Making it affordable as possible so that many people could have admirable furnishing. IKEA use function, quality, design and value to obtain their customer needs. IKEA learn to synchronise the contingency of the supplier and needs of the customers. Using that strategy to sustain the low prices. In order to gain a good condition of a product, IKEA go in for highly automated production. Together with mass producing and keeping long-term relationship with the supplier, IKEA is able to prolong their vision and aim to serve their customers. (Ikea.com/sg)

IKEA’s BUSINESS IDEA (www.ikea.com): “We shall offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them."

IKEA vision is “To create a better everyday life for the many people. We make this possible by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them”. (4) One of those keynotes is to create a range of low prices products that make as many customer will be able to enjoy IKEA services. To achieve this vision IKEA is keep seeking hard the best procurement environment.