STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Strategic Analysis: IKEA

Strategic Analysis: IKEA

Introduction

Modern day business is more competitive than ever and success of one's business is boiled down to one thing, outsmarting the competitors. This is where a management team comes into play. Planning is essential for any business that wants to succeed because failing to have a plan is planning to fail. For a manager it is vital that they be able to run their department efficiently and effectively to keep up with the plans that have been established from upper management.

“Planning is the ongoing process of developing the business' mission and objectives and determining how they will be accomplished,” (Grossman 2002 4-16). “Planning includes both the broadest view of the organization, its mission, and its tactics for accomplishing a specific goal,” (Venkatraman 2004 73-87). Planning allows managers the ability to identify the goals of an organization and take the appropriate steps toward achieving those goals. There are three steps in the planning process that managers should take to ensure that they are using the planning process correctly.

There are different levels of planning for the different levels of management in every organization. Most organization have three levels of management, they are first line manager, middle managers, and top managers. The first line managers are responsible for the day-to-day operations of an organization. They are also responsible for supervising the employees and making sure they are producing quality work. The middle managers are responsible for supervising the first line managers and making sure they are doing their job as well as making sure that all resources within a department are being used to achieve departmental goals and the goals of the organization. Top managers are responsible for all departments within an organization; they also set the goals for an organization and monitor the work of the middle managers.

Each industry attempts to use unique, distinctive, and effective business strategy which will enable them to stay in competitive market, specifically in global market. In this regard, goal of this paper is to provide the strategic analysis for IKEA. The analysis will use SWOT Analysis, value chain, porter's five forces model, and stake holder's analysis.

Company Overview

IKEA is one of known global home furniture and household goods retailer which is the privately owned company. It was established by Ingvar Kamarad Sweden and in year 2008 company owned 244 IKEA stores in 24 nations and management is still planning to open 23 new stores. The company has also 32 stores on 16 nations and these stores were still managed and owned by franchisees outside IKEA Group which extends global reach of IKEA to 35 territories overseas. The IKEA Group has also been able to diversify their products beyond furnishings and furniture into food products and prefabricated housing. The company has been able to ensure that they have franchise agreements among most of overseas operations to ensure capitalization of local marketing expertise and practices of franchisees. The concept and trademark of Ike is owned by IKEA Systems BV and operations of company ...