Delving into Design: An IKEA Analysis

After reading the IKEA case, I support the strategy of IKE expanding its stores more rapidly per year between 20 to 25 stores. The strategy is one that has been adopted and proved to be effective for IKEA. IKEA has adopted strategy that focuses on understanding, listening, and adapting to different and new markets. Instead of merely deciding to open its stores with the assumption of being successful, it seeks to tweak the marketing mix to diverse markets with the goal of meeting the needs of the local consumers. With reference to the Chinese markets, IKEA has learned the importance of fine-tuning its promotion, products, and charging favorable prices. Pomering & Johnson (2018) report that the strategy of expanding its stores coupled with affordability and quality present boundless potential for success.

The expansion strategy will, in the long-run, be a sure way of maintaining its competitiveness and increasing the sustainability of operations. Though the strategy of IKEA of expanding its stores more rapidly requires huge amounts of investments, the cost-benefit analysis indicates the potential of realizing more profits than the expenses involved (Pomering & Johnson, 2018). It is inarguably an important development that IKEA has managed to become the world’s biggest furniture retailer, and this is an achievement that presents the challenge of sustenance. Being the world’s largest retailers is just as important as maintaining this advantageous position. As argued by Pomering & Johnson (2018), the market dynamics are often uncertain and constantly changing.

Therefore, the most important question is one that is futurist in focus: “How can IKEA retain its current situation of dominance and replicate it in the future? The answer to this question is “expansion.” It is important to acknowledge the success realized by IKEA. Similarly, it is imperative to consider how this success can be improved and sustained not only in the present market but also in the new markets by expanding its stores rapidly on an annual basis.

Reference

Pomering, A., & Johnson, L. (2018). Building sustainability into services marketing: expanding decision-making from a mix to a matrix. Sustainability, 10(9), 2992.