Ikea and the human resource management

Résumé du document

Ikea is an international retailer which has set up outlets which are running successfully all over the world for the last twenty five years. Today Ikea is an undeniable leader in the home product industry in the United States, Asia, Europe and Middle East, thanks to an innovative strategy which is in step with the structure of the company.
All the companies of the Ikea Group are owned by the Ingka Holding B.V. which belongs to the Dutch foundation Stichting Ingka. This foundation is officially dedicated to innovations in architecture and interior design, and is controlled by the Kamprad family . At inception, Ikea was a Swedish company, and was thus strongly influenced by the Scandinavian style and culture regarding design, business and management. Ikea has successfully preserved its identity despite its growing activities overseas, so that the success of the company has led to the formulation of the "Ikea way". According to Ikea's managers, there is always a way of doing things better and the "Ikea way" makes methods and approaches converge to reach this perfect process. There are almost no differences between stores operation in different countries or cultures, so much so that management, structure and organization are very similar from one store to another.

Extraits

[...] This is enforced by the headquarters, which send “Swedish missionaries” to supervise local managers and make the model work. In fact the “Ikea has become the formula of Ikea's success and the company tries to transplant it on all foreign subsidiaries, irrespective of the local culture and its specificities. To some extent, universalism has led to ethnocentrism because the Swedish culture has become the only cultural reference of the company. Thus the “Ikea jeopardizes Ikea's overall efficiency instead of strengthening it. [...]

[...] Exhibit I[15] This diagram shows how Ikea has made its value chain evolve toward the integration of suppliers and customers. Flat-pack accounting, [ 06.05 .08] IKEA: Culture as Competitive Advantage P. GROL, C. SCHOCH ECCH Collection Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry Ikea of Sweden, [ 06.05 .08] See Exhibit I IKEA: Culture as Competitive Advantage P. GROL, C. SCHOCH ECCH Collection Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry Ingvar Kamprad was the founder of Ikea. Is Yours a Learning Organization? David A. [...]

[...] Ikea ran into problems when it moved to the United States, because many standards were different. The managers thus decided to capitalize on Ikea's culture and employees to attract American customers by “speaking English with a Swedish accent”[8]. The strategy was a success, and the US market represents about 10% of the turnover of the company today. III Valuation of Ikea's strategy in the management of people Ikea is well-known for managing people efficiently from the point of view of managers and workers, since employees are one of Ikea's main strengths and the Swedish retailer is ranked among the “best companies to work However there remain some issues concerning management and human resource development which need to be resolved. [...]

[...] In fact the cornerstone of the Ikea's strategy has been the establishment of a strategic sourcing process, which has brought the company and its suppliers closer. The main objective is to reach vertical integration. The company has managed to virtually integrate production into its value chain without heavy investments, which has entailed important economies of scope and kept costs as low as possible. The same reasoning explains why Ikea has integrated customers in the value chain; they reduce costs by participating in the distribution cycle through the concept of self-service in stores. [...]

[...] Also, the company relies too much on its Swedish missionaries to transmit the “Ikea to foreign managers. Even if it is costly and difficult to find experienced managers to work overseas for long periods, top managers consider that they are the only ones who are able to reproduce Ikea's successful model. In fact Ikea gives few opportunities to experienced foreign managers to have access to these positions because they are not familiar enough with the roots of the “Ikea Way”. [...]