Ikea
2547 mots
11 pages
Agathe EstourStudent number: 2925500
World count: 2,135
-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
Case study:
-------------------------------------------------
IKEA
-------------------------------------------------
QUESTION 2
Introduction
IKEA is a Swedish retailer of furniture and objects of decoration in kit. This company offers a large range of well-designed and functional home furnishing products at low prices with no delays in delivrery. The funder is Ingvar Kamprad.
The acronym IKEA (Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd) consists from the first letters of his name, the name of his farm Elmtaryd and the name of his country Agunnaryd in South Sweden. Ingvar Kamprad began his career by selling fish, Christmas magazines, but quickly he realized that his best opportunity lay in furniture. Furthermore, furniture price rose 41% between 1935 and 1946. The first store was opened in Älmhult in 1958.
1- Key dates of IKEA’s internationalization
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6204196/Cas-IKea-Strategie-Internationalisation-Du-Groupe
IKEA began its internationalization in 1970s and entering new markets in Western Europe (in Germany, Norway, Denmark, Canada, and Switzerland). IKEA has been a striking success in Germany. Western Europe became the IKEA’s major market centre. They even achieved to enter in Switzerland, which is a very difficult market.
The IKEA’s internationalization went on in 1980s. IKEA established new stores in Italy, United Kingdom, France, Belgium... with the same success as in 1970s.
But IKEA didn’t stop its expansion on the contrary; the company had conquered from 1990s to 2000s the United States, China, Japan, Spain, Russia, and Portugal...
The establishment in USA, in the end of 1980s was the best success of IKEA and led to a lot of change in the IKEA’s internationalization strategy.
Nowadays, IKEA Group has 298 stores in 25 countries and employs 128 000