...Global Sourcing Development at IKEA – a Case Study Paper prepared for the 25th IMP conference Jens Hultman1, Susanne Hertz1, Rhona Johnsen2, Thomas Johnsen2 1: Jönköping International Business School, P.O Box 1026, SE-551 11 SWEDEN E-mail: jens.hultman@ihh.hj.se, susanne.hertz@ihh.hj.se Tel: +46 0(36) 10 10 00 2: Audencia Nantes School of Management, 8 Route de la Joneliere, BP 31222 – 44312 Nantes Cedex 3, France. E-mail: tjohnsen@audencia.com; rjohnsen@audencia.com Tel: + 33 (0)240 37 46 25 Abstract This study explores the dynamic process of global sourcing development through a case study of the Swedish home furnishing giant IKEA and its supply network concerning the PAX wardrobe system. The paper provides a synthesis of the existing global sourcing literature by dividing this growing body of research into three major themes: globalization processes and stages, motives/drivers, and organizational design and management. Moreover, the paper integrates the global sourcing literature with the established literature on the internationalization process of firms. Comparing the existing research on global sourcing and internationalization, we propose two research questions focused on: (1) the ways in which the IKEA global sourcing and supply chain development process resembles a linear stages process, and (2) the principal drivers of the development of global sourcing within IKEA. Relating the findings of the global sourcing process in the case of IKEA, the paper suggests that the...
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...This article was downloaded by: [Hong Kong Polytechnic University] On: 3 June 2010 Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 738313287] Publisher Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 3741 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713735234 Knowledge and knowledge sharing in retail internationalization: IKEA's entry into Russia Anna Jonssona; Ulf Elga a Department of Business Administration, School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Sweden To cite this Article Jonsson, Anna and Elg, Ulf(2006) 'Knowledge and knowledge sharing in retail internationalization: IKEA's entry into Russia', The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 16: 2, 239 — 256 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09593960600572316 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09593960600572316 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does...
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...Supply Chain Management – Assignment (Wal-Mart & IKEA) Are they involved in strategic alliances with major trading partners? If so, how and for what purpose? Strategic Alliances Definition of Strategic Alliance: Strategic alliances are inter-firm collaborative business models that allow firms to create value by sharing resources, obtaining market influence or access novel markets. Simply put, strategic alliance allows for projects where companies can share their resources and risks for an agreed period or project. Resources such as distribution chains, development of products, technologies or services become communal amongst alliances. In recent times, the potential positive effects of alliances are highly regarded by firms, thus, leading to an increasing trend in entering into strategic alliances with the aim of constructing stable collaborations. While the successes of alliances are plentiful, there is also evidence of many undesirable business outcomes. This section of the research paper will discuss and analyze the applications of strategic alliance for global giants in the retail business: IKEA and Wal-Mart. IKEA’s Strategic Alliances: IKEA aims to provide consumers with low-price products through fostering long-lasting business relationships and networks with its main suppliers. These relationships are a pivotal part of the development of IKEA’s products and technologies. IKEA tends to push interactions with their suppliers as far upstream as...
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...Recruitment, selection, and diversity management in IKEA for its limits of homogeneity in China 1. Introduction In the article “China teaches IKEA limits of homogeneity”, the author presents the problems that IKEA has in its standardization in the Chinese market. The customer group, the pricing, and the culture make IKEA almost impossible to keep its homogeneity in its products and corporate culture. This article is an analysis on the marketing and sales perspective of IKEA. However, the problems in marketing and sales indicate problems in management, especially the human resource management. The limitation of a company to bring its standardized management in a new market indicates its failure in the previous investigation on the reality of the market, which is rooted in the issues of human resource management. If there were local employees or managers warning the reality and difficulties in China, IKEA would be better prepared and make a better marketing strategy. Thus, this paper would analyze the issues of IKEA from the perspectives of recruitment and selection, and diversity management. 2. Recruitment and selection Recruitment and selection is the primary task in human resource management. Recruitment is to seek qualified talents that are suitable for the current needs of the company. It requires a board range of human resource activities under the guidance of the overall business strategy, annual business plan, and the budget of the company (Van Den, et al., 2010)...
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...Today, IKEA is the world’s largest furniture retailer and it is also internationally known as home furnishing retailer. IKEA always concern for people and the environment. Besides that, it also responds to the public and customer’s rising concern for sustainability in its choice of product range, suppliers, stores and communication. However, there are still problems faced by IKEA from the aspect of organization development that requires changes to take place in order for the organization to improve efficiency and effectiveness of its existing operations and also to ensure that goals and objectives of the organization can be achieved. The first problem encountered by IKEA is the size and scale of its global business. IKEA is known as the world’s largest furniture retailer and carries a range of 9,500 products, including home furniture and accessories. It also means that IKEA’S outlet is widely establish in many other countries. Thus, this could make it extremely hard to control in terms of its standards and quality. So they must figure out some solutions to deal with the problem which will bring benefits to whole organization. Also, the quality of the products in each country may be slightly varied from others. For example, some countries where IKEA products are manufactured do not implement the legislation to control working conditions. Hence, this could represent a weak link in IKEA’S supply chain and also affecting consumer’s view towards IKEA’S products. In terms of that...
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...IKEA in India: An Opportunity for Success James Baskerville, Irina Damianoff, Jacquelynn Mantel, and Teressa Paulus Indiana Wesleyan University Assignment ADM510 Team Project Paper Team Project Paper Rubric: The Team Project report was graded according to the rubric below |Criteria |Points Possible |Point Achieved | |Spelling, grammar and mechanics - Excellent |15 | | |Description of the Organization – good detail |20 | | | Opportunities for Global Expansion – great research |30 | | |Challenges to Global Expansion |30 | | |Expansion Options and Recommendations – team did a great job with the analysis and support |30 | | |APA citations & references page |15 | | |TOTAL |140 | | ...
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...Running Head: IKEA ANALYSIS REPORT Josephine Apuri Argosy University Atlanta IKEA’S marketing IKEA’s products and services are geared towards the overall satisfaction of the needs and wants of every individual customer that walked through their doors, looks them up on the internet or flips through the pages of their catalog. The founder of Ikea Ingvar Kamprad stated that what is good for their customers is also in the long run good for ikea. Their goal is to create a better everyday life for majority of the people. The starting point for Ikea is always, their customer’s needs and wants. That is why Kamprads idea was to offer a wide range of home furnishings of good design and functionality at a price low enough to be afforded by most people (Edvardsson and Enquist, 2006.) Most customers would want to go shopping and not feel pressured to buy, thus Ikea has very few sales people on the floor, and they are rather more of a help aid in locating the items which are stored at the market hall section, often located at the end of the store. They also have special QR codes in case a customer wants to learn more about a specific product. With Ikea’s concentration on individual marketing rather than mass marketing, also takes into consideration the needs and wants of each country. For instance beds are bigger for the U.S customer (Marketing Week, 1996.) Austria’s taste for seventies corner sofas are satisfied too .A majority of Ikea’s stores are located outside of cities centers...
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...The purpose of this research paper is to define the most difficult challenges of international human resource management, such as cultural diversity and the problem of managing people in different cultures and environments, convergence and divergence and the variety of international organizational models that exist. This paper proves that human resource managers of global organizations can not afford to ignore challenges of international human resource management, in order to ensure company’s success. Moreover, this work focus on investigating the correlation between these problems, that also must be understood. During the past fifty years, technological advances in transportation and communications have spurred the pace of globalization. Many companies envolved from being purely domestic to becoming truly global. The first step in this evolution might be to export goods for sale in one or two foreign markets. The next step might be to manufacture those goods overseas because it is more efficient than shipping products thousands of miles to foreign markets. Setting up all those complex operations to enter a foreign market change the companies that eventually envolve into multinational enterprises. Although developing international business increase the requirement for understanding ways in which companies operate effectively on a global scale. In order to become successful in the global, competitive business world, firms must overcome certain challenges. Globalization influences...
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...International Businesses Strategy of IKEA –Activities of the multinational furniture retailer Seminar paper in “Strategy of International Business” University of Economics Bratislava 2008/2009 Katarzyna Gawor Sona Halasova Friedemann Polzin Table of Contents IKEA – global strategy............................................................................................................2 History................................................................................................................................2 IKEA corporate structure...................................................................................................3 The IKEA Group............................................................................................................3 Inter IKEA Systems B.V. ..............................................................................................5 IKEA Stores...................................................................................................................5 Business strategy...............................................................................................................5 Mission...........................................................................................................................5 Target group..................................................................................................................6 Organizational structure........................................................
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...decade, WRI’s Sustainable Enterprise Program (SEP) has harnessed the power of business to create profitable solutions to environment and development challenges. BELL, a project of SEP, is focused on working with managers and academics to make companies more competitive by approaching social and environmental challenges as unmet market needs that provide business growth opportunities through entrepreneurship, innovation, and organizational change. Permission to reprint this case is available at the BELL case store. Additional information on the Case Series, BELL, and WRI is available at: www.BELLinnovation.org. IKEA AND THE NATURAL STEP In September 1995, Jan Kjellman took over as president of IKEA North America, the U.S. and Canadian subsidiary of the Swedish furniture giant. At IKEA s headquarters outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kjellman sat at his desk, located in an open, brightly sunlit bay. His assistant, also the service center office manager, sat at a nearby desk a few feet away. Co-workers walked through one side of the bay, heading for the coffee room. On the landing below the president s office was a pedestal bearing a large gray rock. It was from the rocky and poor land in ˜lmhult, a small village in the province of Sm land, Sweden, where IKEA s founder was born and where the design and production core of IKEA s business was still located. Kjellman pondered the success of his predecessor, Gor n Carstedt, who had moved back to Sweden to take responsibility...
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...1995, Marianne Barner faced a tough decision. After just two years with IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, and less than a year into her job as business area manager for carpets, she was faced with the decision of cutting off one of the company’s major suppliers of Indian rugs. While such a move would disrupt supply and affect sales, she found the reasons to do so quite compelling. A German TV station had just broadcast an investigative report naming the supplier as one that used child labor in the production of rugs made for IKEA. What frustrated Barner was that, like all other IKEA suppliers, this large, well-regarded company had recently signed an addendum to its supply contract explicitly forbidding the use of child labor on pain of termination. Even more difficult than this short-term decision was the long-term action Barner knew IKEA must take on this issue. On one hand, she was being urged to sign up to an industry-wide response to growing concerns about the use of child labor in the Indian carpet industry. A recently formed partnership of manufacturers, importers, retailers, and Indian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) was proposing to issue and monitor the use of “Rugmark,” a label to be put on carpets certifying that they were made without child labor. Simultaneously, Barner had been conversing with people at the Swedish Save the Children organization who were urging IKEA to ensure that its response to the situation was “in the best interest...
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...Bachelor of Commerce Best Business Research Papers | September 2008 | Volume 1 Faculty of Business University of Victoria, BSS Office, Room 283 PO Box 1700 STN CSC Victoria BC V8W 2Y2 Canada Phone (250) 472-4728 Fax (250) 721-7066 | www.business.uvic.ca Seeing new horizons. September 2008 | Volume 1 Bachelor of Commerce Best Business Research Papers Bachelor of Commerce Best Business Research Papers Volume 1, September 2008 Table of Contents NOTE FROM THE EDITOR Anthony Goerzen 1 THE DUTCH BUSINESS SYSTEM IN TRANSITION: AN APPLICATION OF WHITLEY’S BUSINESS SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR THE USE OF EXECUTIVES, MANAGERS, AND POLICY MAKERS Eric Brewis 2 SWENSEN’S MUST ENGAGE IN MARKET PENETRATION AND DIVERSIFICATION TO RETAIN ITS LEADING POSITION IN THE THAILAND MARKET Kailee Douglas 13 DISNEYLAND PARIS: EUROPEANIZING A RESORT Amanda Louie 22 IKEA: A STRATEGY FOR SUCCESS Garret Luu 31 COMPULSORY LICENSING IN THAILAND Simran Mann 38 CHANGING POVERTY AND INEQUITY THROUGH BUSINESS Matthew R. Tanner 47 SWEDEN IS A NESTING GROUND FOR YOUNG START-UP ENTREPRENEURS James Whyte 56 Note from the Editor In business today, “globalization” is a key concept with the firms across nations intertwined as never before. With overseas customers, suppliers, operations, and competitors, today’s managers need an international outlook. Therefore, the mission of the University of Victoria’s Bachelor of Commerce program is to...
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...IKEA Research Paper Team Members: Kevin Agbulos Chandni Shah Francis Mendo Raymond Cheng Ting Yu Course: International Business Professor Alex Settles Date: December 5th, 2013 Table of Contents: I. Introduction (pgs. 1-3) II. International Expansion (pgs. 3-5) III. The IKEA Concept and Business Model (pgs. 5-7) IV. Organization and Management (pgs. 7-8) V. SWOT Analysis (pgs. 9-10) I. Introduction In 1943 Sweden, a Swedish 17-year-old man named Ingvar Kamprad established IKEA. IKEA stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd. Elmtaryd is the family farm’s name and Agunnaryd is the name of the village where the farm is located. It started off as being a retailer for selling matches, seeds and fish and Kamprad slowly added items such as ballpoint pens, furniture and other household designs. As he started expanding his product portfolio, Kamprad started adopting business strategies such as selling his products via mail order, using a milk truck as transportation, making a furniture catalog and hiring a furniture designer. This designer was Gillis Lundgren who also came up with the self-assembly, flat-packaging technique. This flat-packaging design allowed for more efficient transportation as it cut down on unnecessary space and prevented product damage. The self-assembly technique Lundgren had developed allowed IKEA to essentially forward integrate, cutting out outside retailers. Big retailers responded by turning manufacturers against IKEA...
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...standardised approach to the world? IKEA in China Ulf Johansson Department of Business Administration, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, and Standardised approach to the world 199 ˚ Asa Thelander Department of Communication Studies, Lund University, Helsingborg, Sweden Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the marketing strategy in China of the furnishing retailer IKEA in the context of standardisation and adaptation of marketing activities. IKEA’s strategy in China is compared to its corporate strategy throughout the rest of the world. Design/methodology/approach – The four P classifications are used as a framework to compare the central marketing strategies of IKEA with marketing strategies used in China. The paper builds on both primary and secondary data. Interviews with senior managers at IKEA are conducted and studies on business and retailing in China are used. Findings – The marketing strategies used by IKEA in China are found to be different from the standardised strategies it uses throughout the rest of the world. Several of the changed strategies are central to the business concept of IKEA. Research limitations/implications – The present paper shows the challenges for a standardised marketing concept and its implications. Originality/value – The paper provides, in the context of the standardisation and adaptation of marketing activities, a more nuanced and up-to-date picture of the strategies used by IKEA compared to previous studies. Keywords...
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...Burangi submitted to fulfill the requirements for an MSc in Information Systems particularly the International Marketing Module. The report reflects the success of IKEA in developing its brand internationally. The purpose of this assignment is to give one analysis of the marketing context in which IKEA operates and critical evaluation of its operational options. We would like to thank Fontys and Roehapmton that give us such a good opportunity to work as a group, and we also would like to thank our tutor, Mr. Wijckmans for his instruction. Executive Summary The report gives a detailed account of the IKEA brand development over the years using marketing principles. The first chapter looks at IKEA, the background, evolvement and current position. Chapter two looks at branding in terms of the marketing mix that is product, price, promotion and place. This is the followed by chapter three which looks how IKEA handles cultural differences when conducting business across the world. Chapter four explores the various methods used by IKEA when conducting market research world wide. Chapter five gives an account of the market entry strategy used by IKEA to introduce their brand in new areas. The next chapter then delves into the details of market segmentation, positioning and targeting strategies used by IKEA. The report concludes with a look into the future world trends and their effects on the...
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