Ikea Essay

IKEA

CASE STUDY 3

Waddah Abbas - 20140059

Amr Shehadah – 20140044

Mohammed Mustafa Ahmed – 20140050

Jad Issa – 20140062

CONTENT:

Introduction

Founded in Sweden by Ingvar Kamprad since 1943, IKEA has offered a variety of outstanding home furnishings and accessories of good design at a convenient price where the majority of people can afford them. Having Kamprad set the foundation for the future direction of IKEA, items had been obtained from other resources and sold by Kamprad. In 1953 Kamprad bought a small furnisher factory to open a furnisher and home finishing show room in Almhult, that’s when IKEA began designing its own furnisher items in 1955. That lead to IKEA’s first store opening outside Sweden near Oslo in Norway, in 1963.

The company designs it own items such as chairs, desks, beds and mattresses, sofa’s and armchairs, textiles and rugs then sells them at low prices. This low price strategy is connected to a wide range of excellently designed functional home furnishing products. Ever since IKEA was founded its main focus was to satisfy their people and the environment, where its vision is to supply products for every life style and life stage of their customers and to ”create a better everyday life for the many people.” This is fundamental in times when the retail sector is depressed, as it increases IKEA's potential market.[pic 1]

IKEA’s way of responding to the public’s rising concern for sustainability was its choice product range, suppliers, stores and communication. It has also spotted business potential in providing sustainable solutions. IKEA’s support comes from the concern it has for people and environment to make better use of both raw materials and energy. This helps the company reach its green target and get an overall positive impact on the environment.

Analysis of current situation

IKEA began with an innovative idea, which was to be able to offer furnishing products of high quality, function and design at the lowest possible price by using cost cutting solutions that did not affect the quality of the product. IKEA’s vision statement was “To create a better everyday life for the many people”, also it’s mission statement was “ 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”. And so therefore the main objectives of IKEA were to produce cheap and affordable products for all it’s customers, while also ensuring that the customer finds what they are looking for in store and therefore being able to provide a better life for those who are not able to afford more expensive products.