...Operation Management 2 Task 2: The Link between Operation Management and Strategic Planning 4 Task 3: Organizing a Typical Production Process 6 Task 4: Application of Relevant Technique to the Production of an Operational Plan for an Organization 7 Conclusion: 9 References: 10 Introduction Operation management is a part of overall function of a business organization. It means planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling the resources of a company those are used to make goods or services of that particular organization. So it can also be said as a part of management function. Operation management is important for any kinds of company including for- profit, not-for-profit, social, commercial etc. IT performs the prime managerial activities of any organization. Weather the organization is service oriented or profit oriented to achieve goals it needs to manage its resources like human, technological, informational etc. organizational management makes the way for a better combination of these resources. In this assignment the nature and importance of operation management will be described. The importance of organization management for an organization, its operation in a selected organization and evaluation of operational management of a selected organization by using a process model also will be described. There is a link between operation management and strategic management it will also be explained. The importance of Three Es’, the impact of cost management and...
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...IKEA Case Study IKEA Case Study The founder of IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad, established the IKEA brand in Sweden when he was only 17 years old. It was 1943, and the IKEA brand started its enterprise journey by selling items such as seeds from Kamprad’s family’s farm and Christmas magazines. By 1948, the IKEA furniture line came to life. Kamprad’s concept was “good furniture could be priced so that the man with that flat wallet would make a place for it in his spending and could afford it” (Hill, 2013). Today, IKEA is one of the world’s largest furniture retailers. This essay will discuss the legal, cultural, and ethical challenges that confront IKEA; determine the various roles that the host governments played in IKEA’s business operation; and will summarize the strategic and operational challenges facing global managers illustrated in IKEA: “Furniture Retailer to the World.” Legal, Cultural, and Ethical Challenges IKEA faced obstacles with a culture of disjointed, established Swedish furniture retailers that sold an expensive line of furniture that was to be passed down in families as heirlooms. IKEA’s self-assembly, less expensive furniture concept led to ethical and legal implications for them. Kamprad was able to undercut prices of the established retail outlets by cutting retailers out of his process (Hill, 2013). Because Kamprad cut the retailers out, they countered by coercing furniture manufacturers to not make sales to IKEA...
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...IKEA: Ecommerce Expansion/ IT Capacity Management Information System Initiative LASA 1 Organizational Structure IKEA currently holds the position as the world’s largest furniture retail chain, with 332 locations, in 32 countries worldwide. IKEA is operated and owned by an array of no-for-profit corporations. The Organizational Structure is divided into two main entities: Franchising and operations. Many of IKEA’s operations, including the manufacturing and design of products, the managerial operations, and the supply-chain processes, are overseen by INGHKA Holding, which is private, for-profit Dutch Corporation. INGHKA Holding currently runs 235 of the IKEA stores, the remaining are operated and ran by franchises that are outside of INGHKA Holding. IKEA has differentiate themselves from their competitors, by satisfying the needs and wants of their consumers, with upholding a value proposition that is center on providing, high-quality products (furniture), at affordable prices. IKEA’s value proposition differentiated them from their competitors, secured competitive advantage and positioned themselves as the leader in furniture retailer, on a global level, by their value-based services, and marketing mix that emphasizes on areas such as: Location, Merchandise, Store Format, Market Communications, and Service and Selling Environment, which produced a remarkable “brand image”; “The essential role of brands is to differentiate a product or service from others in satisfying a...
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...IKEA: Expanding globally Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….3 1. A learning organization: understanding the culture of learning and innovation….3 2.1 General concept of learning organization……………………………………3 2.2 IKEA – a learning organization in various market:………………………….4 2. IKEA’s internationalization strategy ……………………………………………..6 3.3 Internationalization strategy from 1974 onwards ……………………………6 3.4 From the perspective of internationalization theories: ………………………7 3. Issued considered in international market research and opportunity analysis: ….9 3.1The Japanese and Chinese market: ……………………………………………9 3.2 The Brazilian market: ………………………………………………………..9 4. IKEA’s entry mode strategy: …………………………………………………...12 5.5 Subsidiaries………………………………………………………………….13 5.6 Franchising………………………………………………………………….13 Summary Introduction Globalization is now playing an important role in the growth of economies across the world. The rapid growth of its process has led to social, economic, technical, cultural and ecological interdependence among nations. It also provides new and potentially profitable markets, increases firms’ competitiveness, facilitates access to new product ideas, manufacturing innovations. Thanks to its numerous advantages, the world is moving closer together and a great deal of organizations has great opportunities to expand their market to foreign ones. IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, did not...
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...system applied in IKEA, the well-known low cost yet high quality home of furnishing. Function, process and strategy of IKEA operation system will be accessed to identity the core competency that lead to the successfulness of IKEA in the world. Besides, other purpose in complete this report is to analyze the strength and weakness of operation system in IKEA. Operation management is procedure where processes of production or deliver goods and services is being monitoring and managing. Operations management is the activity of managing the resources which produce and deliver products and services (Slack, Chambers and Johnston, 2010). Operations management is important because without a proper operations management, an organization will unable to transform their knowledge, information, skill and resources to produce products or service in order to add value and satisfaction to their consumers to generate profits. 1.1 Background of IKEA IKEA, an internationally well-known Swedish home of furnishing, started its operation in 1943, by founder - Ingvar Kamprad. It is the largest Swedish home furnishing retailer and designer in the world. IKEA is very famous with it low price concept where they produce and offer well-designed and functional home furnishing products at price as low as possible with variety of choices. They target to sell their brand to as many as possible of consumer who afford them, with objective to make everyone’s life at home better than yesterday. IKEA trademark impersonate...
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...Development Paper: IKEA * Joe Purdoff CMB 533 Human Resource Strategies June 18, 2012 IKEA is at the top of the world’s leading furniture retailers, and has set new standards for competitiveness in household furnishings. The company has achieved this position by redefining the roles and interactions between the firm and its customers. Founded in 1943 by a poor Swedish farmer named Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA is now one of the largest furniture retailers in the world. From its inception, Kamprad wanted to create cheap, quality furniture that everyone could afford. This formula led to IKEA’s early success in Sweden and has carried over until today. IKEA's positive HR policies have supported a strong and nurturing culture that promotes diversity and creativity. To its customers, IKEA is not just a store but a way of life, which is evident through the impressive customer loyalty the company has achieved. IKEA has also been able to build a solid labor force that has helped meet the demands of its shoppers and create products that meet those demands at a reasonable price. IKEA products are sold at unique stores that serve strategically important, geographic markets. This paper examines the factors that have made IKEA such a big success and offers some recommendations for future growth. Today, IKEA has 332 stores in thirty-eight countries. In fiscal year 2010, it sold $23.1 billion worth of goods, a 7.7 percent increase over 2009 (Wikipedia). Revenues for IKEA double every...
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...corporate strategy…………………………. 2.1 IKEA business and corporate strategy 2.2 Micheal Porter’s Five Forces Model 2.3 IKEA as a competitive advantage Chapter 3 Why IKEA failed in USA………………………………….. 3.1 Cause of the failure 3.2 Different management styles in USA 3.3 Different consumer decision process 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Scope 1.2 Objective 1.3 IKEA Company Background IKEA is a Swedish furnishing company and was founded by Ingvar Kamprad 1943. It started as a one-man mail order company in a farming village in Southern Sweden called Smaland. (IKEA, 2011a) Today IKEA has become a big international company which has stores in 44 countries worldwide. The IKEA Group has grown into a major retail experience with 123,000 co-workers and is generating annual sales of more than 21.5 billion Euros. (IKEA, 2011b). The sales growth is shown in Appendix 1. The IKEA concept started in the 1950’s with catalogue marketing combined with a showroom where customers could see and touch IKEA products. The company’s three distinct features were function, quality and low price. Problems with suppliers led the company to start purchasing from foreign producers in Eastern Europe. During the 1060’s the concept was taken even further by introducing the warehouse principle. A huge store in Stolkholm was opened where customers picked the products from the shelves themselves. IKEA turned a capacity problem into a new way of...
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...IKEA Analysis Repot Having a successful company takes a lot of work and researching. You see a lot of big successful firms go out of business after many years of being open due to lack of marketing and not being able to keep up with the rapid growing competition. It takes the integration of sales, marketing, front of the line staff and knowing your customers wants and needs to be successful for decades. Not listening to customer demands could be detrimental to your organization. Even if you are successful now, another competitor can rise and take away your market share. An organization should not only care about sales and revenue growth, they need to also be conscience about the environment and care about the working environment of their employees. IKEA is a Swedish company that dominates in the furniture industry and is very successful with their sales and marketing strategies. They are also very conscience about the external environment. They have been in the foreign market since 1973, they currently have stores in over 37 countries and are continuing to grow (most recently Asia). By following the traditional pattern of globalization, first operating in countries with similar cultures and then expanding to the foreign market, they were able to have great international success (Burt, Johansson & Thelander, 2011). We will discuss in detail why IKEA strategies are so effective and why other organization should learn from their current success. IKEA’s Marketing ...
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...IKEA: Leadership Leads to Product Innovation and Globalization Human Resource Management IKEA: Leadership Leads to Product Innovation and Globalization IKEA is a worldwide furniture retailer which sells ready-to-assemble furniture. The IKEA story started in 1926 by its founder ‘Ingvar Kamprad’ was born is Southern Sweden. He was raised on ‘Elmtaryd’, a farm near the small village of ‘Agunnaryd’ if we added all the quotes we can see how the IKEA name was created. The following time table shows how IKEA became an international retailer in 40 countries around the world. Now IKEA is the world’s largest furniture retailer and seller of ready-to- assemble furniture, as we can see from the previous time table that IKEA is expanding globally in different regions all around the world, they has 338 stores in 40 different countries. And in 2012 IKEA achieved 8% growth in profit compared to the previous year, they reached $4.34 billion. Vision: To create a better everyday life for the many people. Mission: Offering 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. With the set vision and mission they are focusing on three main business ideas: * Product Range and Innovation: IKEA products are known for its quality and innovation, they try to create unique products that offer home furnishing solutions for every room in the home, making sure that these products meet daily wants and...
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...Background IKEA is a privately held, international home products company that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture such as beds, chairs, desks, appliances and home accessories. The company is the world's largest furniture retailer1. Founded in Sweden in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, who later became one of the richest people in the world, 2 The Company is known for its modern architectural designs on various types of appliance and furniture, often associated with a simplified eco-friendly interior design3. In addition, the firm is known for the attention it gives to cost control, operational details and continuous product development, allowing it to lower its prices by an average of two to three percent over the decade to 2010, while continuing its global expansion.4 As of October 2011, IKEA has 332 stores in 38 countries. In fiscal year 2010, it sold $23.1 billion worth of goods, a 7.7 percent increase over 2009.5 On February 17, 2011, IKEA announced its plans for a wind farm in Dalarna County, Sweden, furthering the furniture giant's goal of running on 100 percent renewable energy.6 The IKEA website contains about 12,000 products and is the closest representation of the entire IKEA range. There were over 470 million visitors to the IKEA websites in the year from September 2007 to September 20087. IKEA is the world's third-largest consumer of wood, behind The Home Depot and Lowe's.8 Things were going so well for the company, that in 1973, the company's German executives...
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...HISTORY: IKEA is a globally famous home furnishing retailer. IKEA was founded by a 17 years old boy Ingvar Kamprad in 1943. It has grown rapidly and today it is the world's largest furniture retailer, known for its cost control, operational details and continuous product development, allowing it to lower its prices while continuing its global expansion. Since then, the IKEA Group has grown into an international retail brand with 131,000 co-workers in 41 countries generating annual sales of more than 24.7 billion EURO. IKEA carries a range of approximately 9,500 products, majority of which is flat-pack resulting in reduction in costs and packaging. This wide range is available in all IKEA stores and customers can order much of the range online through IKEA’s website. IKEA stores include restaurants and cafés serving typical Swedish food. They also have small food shops selling Swedish groceries. The biggest sales countries are Germany, USA, France, UK and Sweden. Competitive prices are one of the foundations of the IKEA concept and help to make customers want to buy from IKEA. This low price strategy is united with a wide range of well designed, useful products. IKEA’s products provide for every lifestyle and life stage of its customers, who come from all age groups and types of households. This is vital in times when the retail sector is depressed, as it increases IKEA’s potential market. I have selected The Home Depot for comparison with IKEA which are one of the largest...
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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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...empLOyee and LaBOr reLatiOnS STUDENT WORKBOOK Case Study Series on Work-Life Balance in Large Organizations By Gill Maxwell Project team Author: SHRM Project contributors: External contributor: Editor: Design: Gill Maxwell Bill Schaefer, SPHR Nancy A. Woolever, SPHR Sharon H. Leonard Courtney J. Cornelius, copy editor Scott Harris, senior graphic designer © 2008 Society for Human Resource Management. Gill Maxwell Note to Hr faculty and instructors: SHRM cases and modules are intended for use in HR classrooms at universities. Teaching notes are included with each. While our current intent is to make the materials available without charge, we reserve the right to impose charges should we deem it necessary to support the program. However, currently, these resources are available free of charge to all. Please duplicate only the number of copies needed, one for each student in the class. For more information, please contact: SHRM Academic Initiatives 1800 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA 22314, USA Phone: (800) 283-7476 Fax: (703) 535-6432 Web: www.shrm.org/hreducation 08-0753 Case Study Series on Work-Life Balance in Large Organizations By Gill maxwell Student Workbook employee and Labor relations Overview Introduction..........................................................................................................2 Format ..................................................................................................................3 Learning Objectives...
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...is Strategy? – Michael E. Porter I. Operational effectiveness is not strategy So in the quest to beat competition managers focus on improving quality, speed and productivity all related to operational effectiveness. But in this way, they move further away from viable competitive positions which can only be achieved by an appropriate strategy. Positioning which was once the way to go about beating competition is now rejected, since its too static. Rivals can easily copy the market position and competitive advantage. However, that is not entirely true as hypercompetition is a self-inflicted wound. It is important to watch out for what your competitors are doing, but improving operational effectiveness alone is not enough, and that cannot be your only strategy. Operational effectiveness and strategy are both important for superior performance which is what a firm aims for. A company can beat rivals if it can stand out, establish a difference it can preserve. Basically a company can either provide greater value to customers or comparable value at low prices, or both. Delivering greater value means higher unit prices, greater efficiency means lower unit costs. Cost arises from performing activities and cost advantage comes from performing activities more efficiently than your competitors. This can be in the choice of the activity or how the activity is performed. So activities are what creates competitive advantage. Operational effectiveness means performing similar...
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...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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