Shortly after IKEA opened its first American store in 1985, American did not like their goods.
The company stubbornly refused to size its beds and kitchen cabinets to fit American sheets and appliances.
Nordin, IKEA's sales and marketing manager for North America , remembers following shoppers in a store in Houston, when a woman said to him, ''I like this bed, but what is 160 centimeters?'' When he tried to explain, she said, ''Young man, why do you do this?'' Other things were wrong as well. There were no glasses large enough to meet American big-gulp thirsts.
Source: Leland, John, “How the disposable sofa conquered America,” The New York Times (1 Dec 2002)
US furniture consumers tend to view furniture purchases as “long-term” investments, a behavior and habit that IKEA would have to undo to promote its almost disposable model of furniture consumption.
According to Christian Mathieu, the external marketing manager at IKEA North America in 2002, “Americans change their spouse as often as their dining-room table, about 1.5 times in a lifetime.”10 Furniture is a durable good that can last a lifetime, and American customers do not tend to change items unless they have excess money to spend.
Source: Bloomberg Businesswek Magazine, “IKEA,” Bloomberg Businesswek (13 Nov 2005). Retrieved from www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-11-13/ikea
“To be relevant, we have to go there to listen and learn from people, like we do in all markets”, says IKEA Design Manager Marcus Engman. “What’s essential in a Chinese home? And what price is affordable?” Every year, we visit thousands of homes around the world because we’re driven by a curiosity to understand how people are living. Every project starts with an idea based on people’s everyday needs and with the low price in mind.
Sometimes work means play. Like when designers Sarah Fager and Camilla Tubertini began developing the MALA series.
MALA is a children IKEA series. They started where the product would end up: with children. The whole development and design process behind MALA took place in cooperation with children. It was the best way to understand their demands on our products and to ensure we’d have happy customers at the end of it all.
Source: IKEA. (2012). IKEA Group Yearly Summary FY12
IKEA. (2013). IKEA Group Yearly Summary FY13
Strength
1. Products designed will be best suited to the majority of its customer in terms of
dimension, preference and functionality because they listen to customer similar to
the IDEO where their employees will collect feedbacks from its users
2. Products designing are done in a collaboratively manner, this reduces customer's
resistance to their new products
3. WIth these knowledge of its customer in mind, designers can spend more time to
focus on the designing of products
Weakness
1. Giving the customers what they want might kill creativity
2. Reduce the element of surprise. Customers could have figured out what their
next big idea would be
CORPORATE CULTURE #1: Listens to Customers
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