The Competitive Advantage of Ikea

Question 2a: Identify two of your firm’s ownership advantages that allow it to successfully compete internationally. Please explain your answers?

”The IKEA Concept starts with the idea of providing a range of home furnishing products that are affordable to the many people, not just the few.” *http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB/this-is-ikea/the-ikea-concept/index.html

IKEA to maintain their leading position will keep diversifying their products offerings always based on the “democratic aesthetic”. They will continue offering aesthetic, quality and low-priced products. Moreover, they will expand IKEA concept by opening new to stores to make their furniture available for everyone. For instance, from now to two years IKEA planned to make available to 80% of French population a store at less one hour of road. They will focus at developing its online activities to compete with the pure players. Now, most of their products are available on the IKEA website. The group has developed the “click and collect”, which is available in mostly stores. To accelerate the e-commerce transition IKEA planned to integrate external operators

With further global expansion, in order to maintain profitability it was crucial for IKEA to establish the main potential customer group, who would not only appreciate the product concept but will be able to afford it and recognise it as being a "good-value”. The IKEA concept proved to be successful in the developed countries and free trading markets, but the same acceptance can’t be anticipated in the countries with large variations in exchange rates, high inflation and/or high import tax and other restrictions, e.g. bureaucratic obstacles in Russia and China.

IKEA stores have been present in five big areas in the world which are North America, South America, Europe, Russia, Asia and Australia as of 31 December, 2014. IKEA group have stores located in 42 countries which include Australia, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Denmark, France, Germany and etc. IKEA group sell their products in to these 42 countries with their domestic currencies such as Australian Dollar (AUD), Yuan (RMB), Taiwan New Dollar (TWD), Malaysian Ringgit (MYR), Singapore Dollar (SGD), Danish Krone (DKK), Euro (EUR) and etc. The reason of using domestic currency is because this is easier for the customers to buy IKEA products in their country.

IKEA is a global furniture retailer, which is established on the concept of contributing wide range of well designed, functional, and low cost home furnishing products in 40 countries, with 330 stores and 154,000 workers (The IKEA concept, 2012). IKEA was founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kampar and has turned in an international furniture retailer that specialized in stylish but inexpensive furniture designs.

IKEA, which is a famous furniture company in Swedish has dominated in furnishing market for many years. Its success delis on its strategies in large part. This report is trying to analyze IKEA’s strategies on the basis of related literature.

IKEA is one of the largest multinational companies in the world dealing with several products. The company sells and designs furniture appliances and home accessories at an affordable price. Ikea has over three hundred stores worldwide enjoying the good name it has created for itself. While they are one of the most profitable furniture companies in the world there are significant challenges and threats that have been overcome and are still needed to be tackled.

IKEA is using a different operation strategy from their competitors. The operation of IKEA has to cope with large volume because their products are highly repeatability and specialised. The variety of products the operation needs to create is low to medium as they offer

We believe what is good for society is good for IKEA. We are passionate about creating a successful business where we act in a responsible way through small and large actions. It is a way of being. This is why sustainability is a cornerstone in the IKEA strategic direction – it is highly prioritized and serves as a driver of further innovation and development. Economizing with resource, finding new ways of doing things and developing our knowledge and expertise are important parts of our business idea and heritage. A low price company must be a low cost company, and this includes being careful with earth’s limited resources. IKEA has unique capabilities and tremendous enthusiasm to make a positive contribution across the world – from the forests of Siberia to the cotton fields of India and all the way into people’s homes in New York, Lisbon and Shanghai. Our customers rightly expect us to not only to make our products in a responsible way, but also to help them live more sustainable

In this modern hypercompetitive marketplace, a company must be a powerful competitor to survive. A company must possess a powerful strategy in order to become a powerful competitor. But what makes a good strategy for the company?

In PEST analysis, we will look into what will be affect by the business environment. It includes political environment, economical environment, social environment and technological environment.

IKEA is a privately held, international home products company that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture. The company is the world’s largest furniture retailer. It was founded in 1943 by 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad in Southern Sweden. As of October 2011, IKEA has 326 furniture stores, operates in 38 countries and engages 1,500 suppliers of 12.000 products. In fiscal year 2010, it sold $23.1 billion worth of goods, a 7.7 percent increase over 2009 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA).

In august 2008, IKEA had total 253 stores where 560 million people visited. Here the total sales became 23 billion Euros. Considering 20% sales profit here IKEA’s average customer per store and cost per store are given below:

IKEA was founded in Sweden by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943. IKEA has been established around the world in 26 different countries. Within these countries IKEA has a total of 303 stores. This business is effective in adapting to change through the use of the four key business functions; operations, finance, marketing, and human resources.