Ikea: Fabulous Prefab
When a Swedish teenager established a small business in his village in 1943, few could have predicted that it would become the largest furniture retailer in the world. Almost 70 years later, however, Ikea is an international giant, and there is no end in sight to its expansion. The company's success is down to the unique and sometimes controversial business model established by Ingvar Kamprad, who founded the company all those years ago.
The fact is that Ikea supplies attractive furniture at dirt-cheap prices. This coupled with a strong brand identity has seen it weather economic downturns. The current CEO Mikael Ohlsson believes the thrift that has served Ikea so well is rooted in the company's origins in a relatively underdeveloped region of Sweden. Locals, says Ohlsson, are “stubborn, cost-conscious and ingenious at making a living with very little.”