The Marketing Functions Of IKEA

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

IKEA is a multinational group of company that design and sells home furnishing products and home accessories. IKEA founded in 1943 in Sweden by 17 years old Ingvar Kamprad, who was ranked as one of the wealthiest people in 2013. The IKEA’s name is an abbreviation of ‘Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd’. Ingvar Kamprad is founder name, Elmtaryd is the native farm and Agunnaryd is his native village located in Smaland, South Sweden. In 1943, Ikea operates mail order sale business where to sell everything such as pen, photo frame, watches and ladies leggings. Until 1958, the first IKEA store was opened in Amhult, Smaland. As of 2015, IKEA group has grown into worldwide brand own and operate 373 stores

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

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.

The services and products offered by IKEA provide value to its customers in various ways. For one, the products and services are very affordable. The products and services are not priced highly and therefore, the average customer can enjoy them. At the same time, the products are of high quality. From IKEA’s slogan “low prices but not at any price”, it is clear that the company prices its products lowly but that does not mean that the quality is compromised. IKEA satisfying its customer’s needs through providing them value for their money as they provide quality products that will last for a long time, and at affordable costs. The fact that the company has set the minimum acceptable standards for its wood, implies that it is also keen on quality and on the environmental impact of its action of making furniture ( Edvardsson, Enquist & Hay, 2006).

After IKEA did the low cost strategy in furniture industry and it is growth so fast recently. More than 3 franchise retailer as IKEA competitors.

Strengths are company resources that represent competitive assets. Next to this strengths are very important for a company’s competitiveness and ability to succeed within a market. IKEA’s strengths can be defined as following;

IKEA serves a huge product range to the customers. The products of IKEA are well designed and structured, functional products. The company serves its products globally. IKEA’s customers can find the same products in any IKEA store and they can trust their quality. With the vision of creating an everyday life for people, IKEA finds the balance between function, quality, design and price. With merchandising the cost efficient products to the customers, IKEA does not compromise from the profit margins. Having a well structured business model, IKEA can decrease the costs of the products and can serve a competitive price to the customer. While doing that, IKEA creates long term partnerships with its suppliers. The long term partnerships makes lowering costs easier for IKEA since they can easily negotiate about prices. Another advantage about lowering costs is cheaper unit costs. IKEA makes huge amount of purchases so they can decrease the unit costs through the economies of scale principle. Creating better business relationships helps IKEA to make their businesses

If Marketing's function is to identify the needs of customers, then it is Operations Management which has the role of providing the required products or services in a way that satisfies the criteria imposed by the market. Efficient operation of this function is therefore important if the organisation is to be successful. An understanding of the main operational tasks is

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.

How does the function of an operations manager differ from the function of a marketing manager or a finance manager? The operations manager's function is to create the supply of goods, whereas the marketing manager's function is to create the demand for goods, and the finance manager's role is to secure and allocate the capital necessary to produce the goods.

IKEA can establish their business by targeting both markets as their product range of interior furnishings are required by both households and business establishments. However, in either case, customers are the target for any company. To be able to find out the requirements of the customer is the challenge and is the area that the company needs to analyse

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.

Operation management is how the organization create and deliver services and products. In a simple word operation means is process or activities . every thing see around has produced by doing operation such as chairs ,car. The core function of operation management is three function .There are marketing function , the operation management function and products and services development function . essay I want to explain about the role of the marketing function and the operation management function of an organization and also about actual quality, customers' expectation , customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction .And finally I will explain about the important of coordination between the two business function.