Reference no: EM133112712

CASE STUDY

IKEA is a global leader in retail furniture sales. It is a Swedish multinational company that designs and sells a wide variety of ready-to-assemble furniture and is the world's largest furniture retailer. IKEA sells furniture through a series of 392 stores in 48 countries as well as online using Web-based and mobile catalogs.

The Problem
Because of the personal nature of furniture and how it fits into an individual's home or apartment, a key issue is ensuring that whatever is purchased will fit in both size and style. This is difficult because the product is never in the home environment until after purchase (Teixeira and Gupta 2015). This creates the possibility of regret for purchases which can spawn decreased brand satisfaction or costly reverse logistics (returns). Customers at the store must picture the furniture in their home, and customers in their home must picture the furniture available on the website at that location. This creates distinct disadvantages for sales of furniture, creates cognitive dissonance before and after the sale, and lengthens the overall sales cycle. If customers were confident in how furniture would look in their home, it would make the selection process easier and quicker.

Question 1: As a student of Business System Model development propose the relevant topic to this problem in context to your country.

Question 2: Suggest any two research questions to this problem.

Question 3: State:
a. One business system model that was used.
b. Three business models that IKEA can innovate to mitigate this problem.

Question 4. Describe any solution you may come up with to solve the problem.

Question 5. Outline any four lessons learned from the case.