Ikea
1.0 Introduction
The Swedish home furnishing retailer IKEA was founded by Ingvar Kamprad in the region of Smaland in Sweden in 1943 (Hultman, et al., 2011). It is regarded as one of the most respected and reliable companies in Sweden (Gronvius, Lernborg, 2009). Today, IKEA is a global company which has operations in 41 countries around the world for over six decades. It has 29 trading offices located in 25 countries and the remaining 16 countries are 11 customer distribution centers and 26 distribution centers. According to sustainability report in year 2011, it shows that IKEA group have 287 stores worldwide with and it has approximately 16,000 Co-employees and 33 production units in 10 countries. Besides that, IKEA had 1,026 home furnishing suppliers in 53 countries (IKEA, 2011).
2.0 Marketing mix
The definition of standardization is the process of expanding and applying domestic target-market dictated product standards effectively to markets in different environments. Standardization is not only concerned about products, but it is also progressively spread to brand standardization which concerns the brand name, packaging and positioning of a company. In marketing mix, standardization for business means using the same way to promote its products in all countries (Zierfuss, Bergersen, 2004). Levitt has argues that well-managed companies have moved from emphasis on customizing items to offering worldwide standardized products that are advanced, efficient, trustworthy and low priced. Nevertheless, it has limited to being ineffective in some countries (Vrontis, Thrassou, 2009).
According to Medina and Duffy, adaptation is described as the obligatory modification of domestic target market dictated product standards as to make the product suit into different environmental conditions (Heczkov, Stoklasa, n.d.). The essential basis of the adaptation is that the marketer is subject to a set a new position of macro environmental factors, to different constraints
The Swedish home furnishing retailer IKEA was founded by Ingvar Kamprad in the region of Smaland in Sweden in 1943 (Hultman, et al., 2011). It is regarded as one of the most respected and reliable companies in Sweden (Gronvius, Lernborg, 2009). Today, IKEA is a global company which has operations in 41 countries around the world for over six decades. It has 29 trading offices located in 25 countries and the remaining 16 countries are 11 customer distribution centers and 26 distribution centers. According to sustainability report in year 2011, it shows that IKEA group have 287 stores worldwide with and it has approximately 16,000 Co-employees and 33 production units in 10 countries. Besides that, IKEA had 1,026 home furnishing suppliers in 53 countries (IKEA, 2011).
2.0 Marketing mix
The definition of standardization is the process of expanding and applying domestic target-market dictated product standards effectively to markets in different environments. Standardization is not only concerned about products, but it is also progressively spread to brand standardization which concerns the brand name, packaging and positioning of a company. In marketing mix, standardization for business means using the same way to promote its products in all countries (Zierfuss, Bergersen, 2004). Levitt has argues that well-managed companies have moved from emphasis on customizing items to offering worldwide standardized products that are advanced, efficient, trustworthy and low priced. Nevertheless, it has limited to being ineffective in some countries (Vrontis, Thrassou, 2009).
According to Medina and Duffy, adaptation is described as the obligatory modification of domestic target market dictated product standards as to make the product suit into different environmental conditions (Heczkov, Stoklasa, n.d.). The essential basis of the adaptation is that the marketer is subject to a set a new position of macro environmental factors, to different constraints
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