Ikea to decide India ‘quality’ strategy at Bengaluru workshop
2 min read 22 May 2017, 10:11 AM ISTThe three-day Ikea workshop in Bengaluru, beginning today, will decide the Swedish furniture company's 'quality' strategy for India
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Bengaluru: Swedish furniture company Ikea is holding a three-day workshop in Bengaluru that will decide the thrust of its India “quality" strategy.
Ikea India Pvt. Ltd’s managing director Juvencio Maetzu and the firm’s quality head Karen Hopkinson Pflug will be among the top officials attending the workshop that begins on Monday.
At the end of three days, the Swedish firm expects to identify actionable points to achieve its key goals of long-lasting value at low prices, quality at every touchpoint and quality through transparency.
The company is opening its first store in India in December, according to its workshop invite. Ikea has also listed 49 cities by 2030 as part of its India plan.
The firm said Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata are the big cities it is targeting; Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune fall under its medium-sized cities; and Coimbatore, Jaipur, Lucknow and Kochi are among the “next tier" cities it is aiming at. The company broke ground for its Navi Mumbai store last week.
The Bengaluru workshop will connect leaders and co-workers from Ikea along with key business partners and external stakeholders. It will be facilitated by Sandra Janoff, the chief executive officer of Future Search, a company that helps other organizations quickly transform their capability for action via a task-focused, 16-hour meeting spread across three days. Janoff has worked with Ikea for over a decade.
Ikea also listed eight key trends that it expects will affect the company today and in the near future in its workshop material, including e-commerce, social media, multi-channel, growing demand from the middle class, sustainability, quality and low price and women in the workforce.
Last Friday, at its groundbreaking ceremony in Navi Mumbai, the company’s India MD Maetzu told Mint that the firm is planning to offer its products via e-commerce and will also provide home delivery and at-home assembly services for customers of its upcoming stores in Hyderabad and Mumbai.
The company is also working to meet India’s 30% local sourcing norm and expects to double its sourcing from India over the next three years to about €670 million.
Ikea India’s deputy country manager Patrik Antoni said last week the company was working hard to meet the 30% local sourcing norm for FDI in single-brand retail, even as land acquisition remains one of the challenges.
In March, the Swedish firm said it will work on lowering its pricing for India so that its products are available to a larger audience in India. The product range at Ikea’s stores in India will start at Rs150 for a pack of two light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs and Rs500 for a pack of 100 tea lights. In the furniture category, a table from its Lack series is expected to cost Rs500-600 and a complete Ikea kitchen can be assembled for an average of Rs2.5-3 lakh.
