 |
| IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad |
Born in March 30, 1926, Kampard was a precious entrepreneur. At the age 17 years, he had stared selling match boxes to neighbors from his bicycle. He found that he could buy them very cheaply from Stockholm and sell them at a low price but still make a good profit. From matches, he explored to selling fish, Christmas Tree decorations, seeds and later ballpoint pens and pencils.
Kampard soon moved away from making individual sales calls and began advertising in local newspapers and operating a makeshift mail-order catalog. He distributed his products by the local milk-van, which delivered the items to the nearby train station.
In 1950, Kampard introduced furniture into his catalogue, pieces that were produced by local manufacturers in the forest area close to his home. Getting positive response, he soon decided to go for furniture business by discontinuing all other products. Hence IKEA was formed.
 |
| An IKEA Location |
Kampard formed the company's name from his own initials and the first letters of the family farm, Elmtaryd and the parish of Agunnaryd where it is located.
Early Life-> Pain-> Struggle-> Dream
Ingvar was born in a small farming village Smaland where his grandfather killed himself in fear of debt burden. However his German grandmother and his father could manage the family business by hardship. His father initially was not happy with Ingvar's performance in school. He had dyslexia . But Ingvar determined himself to prove his worth by tremendous hard-work. He did well and his proud father gave him some money as reward. He invested that money to start his business.
Over the next seven decades Kamprad built IKEA into the world's furniture retailer with about 400 stores in 29 countries., sales of $47.6 billion, more than 930 million store visits and 210 million recipients of catalogues in 32 languages.
Bloomberg Billionaire Index listed him as 8th richest person in the world ,worth $58.7 billion. However he maintained his life down to earth. He drove a modest Volvo and dressed unassumingly. He practiced thrift and diligence all along his life and portrayed those traits as the basis of IKEA;s success. He flew only economy class, stayed in budget hotels, ate cheap meals. shopped for bargains. In a 1998 book that he co-authored about IKEA's history, he described his habit of visiting the vegetable market right before it closed; hoping to get a cheaper price.
IKEA Sverigo, the chain's Swedish operation said on Twitter that Kamprad died peacefully following a short illness on Saturday at his home in Smaland, Southern Sweden. The company also said,
He will be much missed and warmly remembered by his family and IKEA staff all around the world.
Jesper Brodin, CEO and President of the IKEA Group said Kamprad's
legacy will be admired for many years to come and vision- to create a better everyday life for many people - will continue to guide and inspire us
IKEA's Innovation and Legacy
 |
| Inside the IKEA Showroom |
What techniques do people take in the most extreme situations to make decisions? What can we learn from them to make more rational and quick decisions ?
If these techniques work in most extreme and drastic scenarios , they have good chance of working for us.
By the story of IKEA over the years in various forms , there are many lessons to take from the one-time startup.
Consumer Inconvenience
The great innovation that Kamprad discovered was that consumer inconvenience could be lucrative. Youngme Moon, a professor of Havard Business School wrote in her book Different :Most global brands built their reputations around a set of positives - the good things they do for their customers. What's intriguing about IKEA is that it has consciously built its reputation around a set of negatives - the service elements it has deliberately chosen to withhold from its consumers.IKEA is quite literally the antithesis of the view that the consumer is always right.
The right price and product mix
Kamprad realized that with low price, high quality and effective solutions, consumers would be driven to IKEA stores as destination shopping experience. For this IKEA designed products that can be flat-packed to reduce massive packing and transportation cost. The products are being sold with ease to fit assembly manual.IKEA purposely built big warehouses to sell its products on the outskirts of the cities near major ports or transportation hub - improving logistics while cutting the costs due to cheaper rents and larger scale. For example the Poang Chair's price is now $79 while it was $300 when launched in 1980.
According to Kamprad,
To design a desk which may cost $1000 is easy for a furniture designer, but to design a functional and good desk which shall cost only $50 can only be done by the very best. We have decided once and for all to side with the many. What is good for our customers is also, in the long run, good for us.
Since then the IKEA concept - keeping prices low by letting the customers assemble the furniture themselves - offers affordable home furnishings at stores across the globe.
Setting Example and Lead by them.
Kamprad employed a brilliant metaphor for this. He believes that the best way to encourage hard work and a strong character in others was to exemplify that in his own life.
 |
| Ingvar Kamprad - March 30 1926 - January 27 2018 |
As the New York Times beautifully stated in its edition dated 28th January 2018 ,
Kamprad was, like his designer wares, a studied Every-man. He cultivated a provincial openness: curious about everything, but a face lost in the crowd. He was bespectacled and balding. with wisps of greying hair plastered down the sides, jowls, and a pointed chin. His blue denim shirts and Khaki pants might have been a gardener's but there was hard individuality in dark eyes and compressed lips.According to Kamprad
While he lived mostly in seclusion, he traveled to IKEA stores around the world, sometimes strolling in-anonymously and questioning employees as if he were a customer and customers as if he were solicitous employee. He spoke at IKEA board meetings and occasionally lectured at Universities. He rarely gave interviews, but made no secret of alcoholism, saying he controlled it by drying out three times a year.
I'm a bit tight with money, but so what? I look at the money I'm about to spend on myself and ask myself if IKEA's customers can afford it. I could regularly travel first class, but having money in abundance doesn't seem like a good reason to waste it, if there is such a thing as good leadership, it is to give a good example. I have to do so for all the IKEA employees.
Time Management
Kamprad's frugality is matched only by his desire to never waste his time. We only have so many hours to get work done and to accomplish our goals. Every little step that we take to build our business will add up to big movements forward but we have to the time in to turn our vision into reality. Kamprad has built the IKEA corporate philosophy around efficiency and hard work. IKEA has always kept few layers of management, practically eliminated titles and privileges and has almost no suits and ties in the office.According to Kamprad,
Time is your most important resource. You can do so much in ten minutes. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. Ten minutes are not just one-sixth of your hourly pay. Ten minutes are a piece of yourself. Divide your life into ten-minutes units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activities.In 1953, Kamprad opened a showroom in Almhult, by 1958 that eventually became the first IKEA store. In 1960s IKEAs opened in Stockholm, elsewhere in Sweden as well as Denmark and Norway. Threatened by the company's growing presence, its competitors organized a boycott by IKEA's suppliers, but it backfired. Kamprad went to Poland for sourcing that cut costs further.
From 1970 to 2000 IKEA opened stores and became popular in Canada, USA, Europe, Russia and China. The company owned vast majority of its stores, though about 10 percent are franchise operations.
In 1976, Kamprad moved to Switzerland. In 1982 he transferred control to the Dutch Foundation and in 2013 he stepped down from the board of Inter IKEA Group, a key company within the business and named his youngest son Mathias, as its Chairman. His other two sons also held key positions. Kamprad announced his retirement in 1986, but continued traveling to IKEA stores and making major decisions.
He told to Forbes in 2000,
I see my task as serving the majority of people. The question is, how do you find out, what they want, how best to serve them? My answer is to stay close to ordinary people, because at heart I am one of them.
