IKEA Supply Chain Management System Research

At present, the international market competition is intense. Each enterprise competitioncapital has already changed from tangible products and service to intangible culture of thebrand competition, from individual enterprises competition to enterprises group’s supplychain competition. As one of the most attractive new enterprise management idea in theworld, supply chain management has a significant and practical value in various industriesand fields. IKEA company is the best one in the international home furnishing market and thelargest home furnishing retailers, thanks to its commercial mode based on value creationsystem and the establishment on the competitive position and the unique strategic logic forthe management mode maintenance. To sustain such a high efficiency and low cost businessvalue chain, it must run an efficient supply chain management system.This thesis analyses product design, product purchasing, logistics management andproduct sales through the whole IKEA supply chain gradually. By analyzing on personalizeddesign, procurement strategy, logistics strategy, and experiential marketing strategy elementsand design department, purchasing department, central warehouse, stores and supply chaincontrol system of procurement control, inventory control and distribution network set up, theauthor find out the advantages of IKEA supply chain operation and also some problems. Withsome the relevant theory in supply chain management, the author proposes some suggestionson further reducing logistics cost, improving sales forecast and IKEA accelerated localizationdevelopment. For example, in the field of logistics, IKEA has very good consideration onpackaging, transportation, distribution, and environmental aspects. But in terms of cost, it stillcan be improved by reducing inventory and increasing the predictive system. Further more,IKEA can design and develop some new related system to strengthen the exchange ofinformation communication in the supply chain to improve the supply chain managementsystem via network information.IKEA supply chain management subverts the traditional management consciousness andestablishes new customer relationships. Through the entire supply chain information flow andknowledge flow, each enterprises or departments in the supply chain form a good, win-winstrategic partnership. At the same time IKEA supply chain management changes thetraditional inventory concept and breaks the first production, after selling mode. Inventory management is an important point in IKEA supply chain. Each enterprises or departments inthe supply chain keeps safety stock firstly, and then they can reduce inventory cost and ensurethe minimum cost of logistics management. Now supply chain management in China hasmany problems, such as unreasonable product structure, the poor cooperation relationshipbetween enterprises, the blocked information, non-standard management. This thesisdescribes the IKEA supply chain management system in all aspects so that can provide somereference to solve some problems for other enterprises.