IKEA

IKEA is a home furnishing brand founded in Sweden in 1943, whose business idea is to offer well-designed, functional and affordable, high-quality home furnishing produced with care for people and the environment. Its stated vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people, and its value chain covers product development, design, supply, manufacture and sales, beginning and ending with customers. Keeping design and sourcing within one value chain is a common approach among mass-market furniture retailers, as it helps hold prices down across a broad range.

The range is organised into named collections, series and product families, such as the ALPTALL, KONSTRUNDA and GREJSIMOJS collections, the KRONÖREN storage family, the VARPTROSS bamboo series and the ASPUDDEN kitchen series. The company also shares stories about the designers behind products such as IVAR, SÖDERHAMN, LYCKAN and RISATORP. Beyond products, it offers room inspiration for small studios, home offices, children's play areas and college rooms, as well as a Life at Home Report on the role of home in a changing world, content aimed at households furnishing everyday living spaces.

The IKEA retail business operates through a franchise system in which 12 different groups of companies market and sell the range under franchise agreements with Inter IKEA Systems B.V. The brand unites more than 200,000 co-workers and hundreds of companies with different owners worldwide, and jobs published under the IKEA name are offered by various companies operating under the trademark. Local IKEA websites serve markets across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania, including Germany, the United States, China, India, Japan, Australia and Egypt. This separation between brand owner and retail operators lets one consistent product range reach very different countries through locally run businesses.