Good morning ladies and gentlemen, it’s a pleasure to be here.
Today, I would like to say few words about the giant of home furnishing: IKEA.
I have divided my talk into 3 areas: * Fist of all, let’s look at the general presentation * Then, I will go on to the organization * My final point will be the positioning and strategy

I/ General presentation

* IKEA is a privately held, Swedish international home products company which designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, appliances and home accessories. * The company is now the world's largest furniture retailer. * IKEA was founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad in Sweden, named as an acronym comprising the initials of the founder's name, the farm where he grew up, and his home parish. * The IKEA Group itself owns 276 stores in 25 countries and the other 37 stores are owned and run by franchisees outside the IKEA Group. * The IKEA Website contains about 12,000 products and is the closest representation of the entire IKEA range. * The first IKEA store was opened in Sweden in 1958. The first stores outside Sweden were opened in 1963 in Norway.

II/ Organization

=> Store’s organization: * Older IKEA stores are usually very large blue buildings with yellow accents => are also the national colors of Sweden.

* They are often designed around a "one-way" layout. This layout is designed to encourage the customer to see the store in its entirety although there are often shortcuts to other parts of the showroom.

=> Sells organization: * The sequence first involves going through furniture showrooms making note of selected items. * Then the customer proceeds to an open-shelf warehouse for smaller items (Market Hall). * Then the customer visits the furniture warehouse (Self Serve) where they collect previously noted showroom products in flat pack form.

* Most IKEA stores offer an "as-is" area at the end of the warehouse just prior to the