Ikea, the name was created by the founder Ingvar? The founder grew up in Kamprad, Taride, ailm, and the church village Agunnaryd a few kilometers away, where his mother lived when she was a child. Today IKEA is hardly a Swedish company. For a long time, the group has been jointly managed by the Netherlands and Belgium. But the birthplace of this enterprise is undoubtedly Smaranda province in southern Sweden, where kamprad's grandfather moved. But the first generation's entrepreneurial pain forced him to commit suicide.
Grandpa Achim? Aeltermann? Kamprad is the son of a big capitalist landlord. 1894, he learned from the German newspaper Hunting that there was a farm with forest for sale in Smaranda province. He bought the farm, and since then, his grandfather has owned 449 hectares of Swedish forest. When he came to his farm from Germany, he found that compared with his own imagination, the state here was really bad, and the farm needed a lot of investment and efforts to improve. Achim tried to solve the problem through a bank loan, but he didn't get a loan. It cost him a lot of money to buy a farm. 1897, he was desperate and shot in the head. At this time, his wife Fanny was pregnant.
Grandma Fanny took on the responsibility of living in Taride, ailm, and took over the farm. It is a little comforting that the young widow got the support of her mother-in-law who didn't like her. Kamprad (Tenet, ingvar) brought more than just money. In order to help Fanny, the old lady came to Sweden alone.
incubation period
1 1 year old to do business, to? Match king? Set an example for entrepreneurship
In the first few years, father? Kamprad worked under the supervision of her grandmother and took over the farm at the age of 25. 1926, Yingwa was born. His mother comes from an old merchant family not far from the farm.
Making money has long occupied an important position in Yingwa's life. 1 1 years old, he supplied seed shops and sold small plastic bags to farmers around him. ? That was my first real money-making business? He used the money he earned to buy himself a bike and a typewriter.
At that time, Ingvar had a great example, called? Match king? Eva? Clough. Clough is one of the most famous entrepreneurs in Sweden. As a construction entrepreneur, he succeeded in South Africa and the United States as early as he was young. After World War I, Clough returned to Europe and founded a powerful company engaged in the production and sale of matches. Through a series of competitions, Swedish Match Holding Company has developed into an enterprise group. In his later years, Clough controlled match markets in at least 33 countries and 60% of the world's match production.
In Europe in 1930s, Clough's name was a household name, and Swedes were regarded as the model of modern capitalists. However, the world economic crisis destroyed him, and the Swedes committed suicide on 1932. The collapse of Clough Company once shook the whole economic structure of Sweden.
initial stage
Registration age 17? Ikea? The mail order merchant started.
Ingvar has the characteristics of a businessman since he was a child and loves to make deals. Ingvar, who went to middle school, traded with anyone he could reach. There is a cardboard box under his school bed, which contains belts, wallets, clocks and pencils. His business is very good, so he decided to start a business after graduating from high school. He applied to the management department in writing for a shop, and because he just turned 17 and is still underage, he asked his uncle to sign it on his behalf.
On July 28th, 1943 registered the name of his trading company. He took his own name, the initials of ailm Taride Farm and Agunnared pastoral area, and formed the name of the company: IKEA.
1947, Yingwa wanted to do military service, but he didn't want to give up the mail order business, so he got permission from his superiors not to stay in the military camp every night. He rented a place in the basement of a single-family house and decorated it as a sleeping place. Soon he had his own telephone. At that time, the main products of IKEA were sewing supplies, nylon stockings, greeting cards, seeds, pens and wallets. Soon, cheap photo frames, clocks and watches, and cheap cosmetics also joined in.
After basically completing his military service, kamprad was transferred to a military academy in 1948, where he successfully became the general agent of a Swedish stationery company. Responsible for selling their ballpoint pens and pens to retailers in Sweden.
After passing the officer's exam, Yingwa moved back to her parents. From then on, he wanted to run his own business on the basis of ailm Taride Farm. First, he continued to import goods from abroad and then sold them to retailers. He also printed some books called. New IKEA products? His parents helped her deal with the mountain of orders.
In the first few years, the headquarters of this small enterprise was located here. IKEA was a real family business in the early days. Father Fiod is responsible for managing orders and bills, and mother is responsible for answering the phone and helping with packing. They are very busy, even at night. Later, kamprad personally built a small house to store parcels. He later wrote:? My first mail order room, with a total area of only one square meter, is the most economical in the whole industry. ?
Departure period
Creativity? Furniture fair? Realize and move towards a great cause.
The first piece of furniture that ingvar bought was a simple sofa chair without armrests. Kamprad can remember the price and account number well, but it is difficult to remember the product number. In addition, in the sales process, he will intuitively communicate with customers. So an idea came out: give this sofa a nice girl name. That's it? Rude? Students and customers' demand for furniture is increasing rapidly.
Suffering? Rude? Encouraged by success, kamprad successfully expanded its furniture business. Early customers ordered most sofas or bed chairs, and chandeliers sold well. There are lush trees around Lake Moken, and there are many furniture processing factories around it. It's not worrying to find a product manufacturer. From the beginning, he reflected his ideas in the modeling design of furniture. To this end, he bought the cloth used as filler from a well-known textile factory in Sweden, and his family and farm assistants spent many nights cutting the cloth.
1948, the 22-year-old IKEA founder hired his first employee Ernst & Young? Romans in Ekster are accountants. Yingwa wants to expand her business. In order to promote his products, he published a brief introduction to the products in the Farmer's Daily, which is highly read on the farm, and is known as the Farmer's Post with a circulation of more than 280,000.
Kamprad is determined to become an entrepreneur in a greater sense. He thinks that only low prices can succeed.
In the product introduction, there is a preface he wrote to customers, pointing out that the reason why things in the store are so expensive is because of the existence of middlemen. He flexibly combined with the daily experience of farmers and said, please compare the price of killing one kilogram of pork yourself and buying the same weight of pork in the store. . Kamprad's advertising campaign was very successful, and the number of orders soared.
The strategy of low price cannot achieve decisive victory. As soon as IKEA produced cabinets and ironing boards with particularly low prices, other mail-order merchants immediately responded with lower prices. As the price goes down, the quality of the products also goes down. More and more letters of complaint have been received.