Ingvar Kamprad: IKEA Founder and One of the World's Richest Men

 

IKEA founder Invar Kamprad made headlines in early 2004 when Swedish business magazine Pecans Affairs announced that he had overtaken Bill Gates as the richest person in the world. Although IKEA's unconventional ownership structure has made it a talking point, there is no doubt that IKEA is still one of the largest and most successful private companies in the world, even after the death of Kamprad in 2014.

There are over 200 stores in 31 countries, employ over 75,000 people and generate over $12 billion in sales annually. Invar Kamprad, a born entrepreneur, was born in Lamprey in southern Sweden in 1926 and grew up on a farm called Elmtaryd, near the small village of Agunnaryd. Early on, he learned that he could buy matches in bulk in Stockholm and resell them for a fair price, but with a good profit. He reinvested his profits and expanded into fishing, seeds, Christmas tree decorations, pens and pencils. When he was 17, Kamprad's father gave him a nice reward for doing well in school.

Did you spend it? He founded IKEA The birth of IKEA How IKEA was born:

The name IKEA was formed from the initials of Kamprad (I.) and the first letters of Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the farm and the village where he has grown up. Towards the end of World War II in 1943, as a primarily mail-order business, the company began selling a variety of products including wallets, watches, jewelry and hosiery, before moving on to expand into the furniture industry nearly five years later. When Kamprad outgrew its ability to address its customers individually, it converted to a kind of makeshift mail-order operation, hiring the local milk truck to make deliveries.

"The biggest mistake of my life" During his adolescence, Kamprad participated in a few pro-Nazi meetings. When this was discovered in 1994, Kamprad said, "It's a part of my life that I sorely regret...after a few Nazi-style meetings, I left." In a letter to the employees entitled" The greatest mistake of my life " said forgiveness and devoted two chapters in his 1998 book, the story of Ikea. In an interview after his publication, did Bethe showroom allowed people to see it, touch it, smell it, and be sure of the quality before buying. Competition leads to innovation.

IKEA is now famous all over the world for its innovative and stylish designs. Almost all IKEA products are designed for packaging, which lowers shipping costs, minimizes shipping damage, increases store inventory capacity, and makes it easier for customers to take furniture home, instead of having to deliver. Although this innovation is now seen as a great customer experience that helps IKEA customers buy furniture without the hassle of cost and delivery time, the original reason was competitive pressure from IKEA's competitors on their suppliers, who in reality boycotted IKEA, forcing IKEA to do it themselves.

Good design, good functionality and good quality at low prices Kamprad's vision has been the driving force behind IKEA's success. IKEA hires its own designers, who have received numerous awards over the years. Kamprad believed that the company existed not just to improve people's lives, but to improve people themselves. The design of the self-service store and the ease of assembly of its furniture are not only cost control, but an opportunity for autonomy. This vision is also reinforced in advertising and in the catalog.

All In the Family Kamprad was extremely cunning in creating IKEA's organizational structure. Ultimately, it is owned by a Dutch trust controlled by the Kamprad family, with various holding companies managing different aspects of IKEA's operations, such as franchising, manufacturing and distribution. IKEA even has an investment banking branch. Kamprad repeatedly resisted pressure to go public, believing it would slow down their decision-making processes that have enabled their phenomenal growth over the decades. Frugality and charity on the one hand, Kamprad had a reputation for being, eh well, "cheap".

He took the subway to work and when he drove it was an old Volvo. It is said that when he was staying in a hotel, if he felt the need to drink one of these expensive drinks from the bar in his room, he would later replace it with one from a nearby grocery store. Yet IKEA has a long tradition of community outreach and philanthropy, with each store encouraged to support local causes, in addition to international sponsorship from the United Nations.

written by: