Question

What are the markets of IKEA ? What are their value proposition ? Describe their marketing offers.

Answer 1

IKEA formerly known by its full initials, Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd is a multinational group, headquartered in the Netherlands, that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories. It has been the world's largest furniture retailer since at least 2008.IKEA'S Business idea is to offer a wide range of well designed, functional home furnishing products at a low price. The target market is very broad. They are aiming to appeal to people of all ages, sexes, geographic locations.
Currently IKEA operating in 52 countries-
Germany,United States,France,China,United Kingdom,Italy,Sweden,Spain,Canada,Russia,Netherlands,Poland,Australia,Switzerland,Japan,Turkey,Belgium,Norway,Austria,Saudi Arabia,Finland,Denmark,Taiwan,Greece,Portugal,Hong Kong,Czechia,Malaysia,Israel,Dominican Republic,Hungary,United Arab Emirates,Lithuania,PuertoRico,Singapore,Romania,Thailand,SouthKorea,Iceland,Kuwait,Serbia,Slovakia,Cyprus,Ireland,Bulgaria,Macau,Egypt,Qatar,Jordan,Croatia,Indonesia,Morocco,India,Latvia,Bahrain

IKEA is one of the most prosperous merchants in the globe annd ranks among Forbes Top 50 World’s Most Valuable Brands. Ikea’s growth can be largely ascribed to its forward thinking strategy and the construction of a well-organized global network from production to distribution. Ikea’s business plan is “to offer 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.”
This strategy gives the company a competitive advantage and a clear vision of what it wants to achieve, guided by its strong values. Here are a few of Ikea’s strong points that have pivoted the company into the forefront of the world market.
1. Pricing
2. Sales outlets
3. Personal visits
4. Sustainability
5. staff

IKEA’s great current success predetermines its future strategy. IKEA is a company, which is an example of internal efficiency which predisposes to external competitiveness and operational agility. The company’s successful performance is the product of a symbiosis between its innovative product design, cost-efficient strategy, pricing structures, unique selling proposition, human resource management and winning business philosophy. The future of the company is challenging – the environmental threats, which question the social and environmental responsibility of companies, which operate with raw materials as wood and plastic. This is likely to increase the prices of the raw materials and affect the pricing structure of IKEA. This is the reason why it can be suggested that the most important future capability of IKEA is the capability to develop and adopt innovation. Innovation would be the key to success for IKEA as the company should sustain its cost efficiency and high quality of design and materials in order to keep its successful global performance.

Following are the 7 marketing tactics IKEA uses to grow their business and engage with their customers-
1. Create an Experience, Not Just a Product
2. Have Strong Brand Identity
3. Invest in Content Marketing
4. Make Use of Your Social Media Channels
5. Get to Know Your Customers
6. Keep It Fresh
7. Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously