Ikea - the Supply Chain

Abstract

As the distribution network is important to the company, it not only helps the company to save cost, but also increase the efficiency of the whole supply chain process. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the supplier network is developed and the operation of the distribution network in IKEA. IKEA is considered as one of the leading marketer in the furnishing market. Our group has mainly studied its activities in establishing suppliers and customers network in Hong Kong. The finding is used to confirm that IKEA is developing an efficient supplier network in Hong Kong.

Introduction

IKEA Background

IKEA is a company which offers a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products with the lower price. They hope that most of the people are abke to afford their high quality products that the cost is low. The main idea of IKEA is to control well for their supply chain, from product development and design, the materials purchases, the selection of the suppliers and how to sell the products in IKEA stores to the customers globally.

There are three methods for our group to collect data and information, including interview, observation and using secondary data.

For the interview, we have conducted an interview with the manager in IKEA. In the interview, our group asked about the distribution network in IKEA, the purchasing policy, warehouse operation, the relationship with suppliers and the distribution center in Hong Kong. The result will be applied in our project.

We have also observed one of the competitors of IKEA, TAKAD Furniture (HK) Ltd.

For TAKAD, our group has observed its situation and policies in its retail store and applied to the project. Some of the information is secondary data we conducted through