IKEA: An Innovative Furniture Company

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History and Primary Business
IKEA is an established innovated furniture company; founded by Ingvar Kamprad in the early nineteen hundreds. Ingvar Kamprad was raised in Sweden and as a boy he was a young entrepreneur. He began his business career by buying [fire] matches in bulks and selling them individually to make a profit in his neighborhood. As his business continued to bloom he expended to selling fish, seeds, Christmas decorations, pencils and ballpoint pens. Kamprad was clever in utilizing resources by delivering his goods by bicycle (IKEA History, 2013).
IKEAs unique name was established by Ingvar initials and the farm and town he was raised in. His business started out by selling simple things, not until 1951, was when Ingvar had a clear focus on selling furniture. Pressure from manufactures forced suppliers to boycott IKEA, which led to the decision to design its own furniture. Creating their own furniture forced them on creating low priced furniture (IKEA History, 2013). By the 1980s IKEAs store started the first open warehouse feel that today you see at every IKEA store. By the same time IKEAs market expanded from Sweden to the United States (IKEA, 2012).
Mission and Value Statement
Like many companies IKEA strives to please its consumers (Gadzala, 2011). IKEA has become a household name, from movies to TV shows you can always count on seeing IKEA furniture. Their values are simply taking care of their customers and the planet. Their primary focus is to develop cheap, safe and modern furniture for everyday consumers. Like Apple, INC. they want to develop a lifestyle not just a product (Isaacson, 97). “At IKEA our mission / vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people. Our business idea supports this v...

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...NATO. Although the Netherlands does not have a huge population they are one of the United States largest trading partners. According to President Obama “We are one of the largest investors in the Netherlands. The Netherlands in turn is one of the largest investors in the United States”. The president has been helping Rutte with the Eurozone crisis that has made the Dutch economy weak compared to Sweden (Obama, 2011).
Sweden and the Netherlands both share the same alliance with the European union. Sweden joined the European union in 1995, but rejected on adopting the euro in 2003. Sweden also remains hostile to a Eurozone membership. Sweden took a small hit when the European economy had a crisis, because they depend heavily on European trading. Nevertheless Sweden has weathered the financial crisis better than other countries in Europe (Wall Street Journal, 2013).

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