The business of personalizing IKEA products

An article in Bloombergbusinessweek (February 24,2014) titled “Cry of the Style. Mavens” describes smaller companies that enable customers to personalize their IKEA products. Companies like Bemz provide slipcovers for chairs, couches and beds, and Superfront, that modifies kitchens and wardrobes, help customers take IKEA standard products and modify them to create unique looks, often at higher prices than the original product. The article claims that as IKEA moves to its planned $68 billion sales by 2020, its low priced standard products will create market opportunities for customizing companies. Should IKEA continue to ignore these opportunities and focus on standardization and growth, leaving such markets to smaller suppliers? Will the over 2,000 new products offered each year by IKEA increase the complexity for suppliers to catch up, thus increasing their costs significantly ? Is there an opportunity for IKEA to share its designs with this ecosystem of suppliers thus further increasing its own sales ?

About aviyer2010

Professor
This entry was posted in Global Contexts, Operations Management, Service Operations, Supply Chain Issues and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

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