Ikea founder Kamprad's undertaking

"Pioneering home network" 11-year-old business, 17-Year-old registered "Ikea", 22-year-old with the first employee, 78-year-old personal net worth of 18.5 billion dollars; The 86-Year-old is still busy, "too busy to die." Kamprad has never had a glamorous appearance, no fashionable clothes, no expensive watches, travels always in economy class, and he thinks "simplicity is a virtue".

The following excerpt from the Value China Network:

Ikea founder Kamprad

Ikea, a world-known name, buys Heaven in many people's minds. What is the entrepreneurial gene for a personal enterprise founded by a Swedish high school student in 1943, with the help of Ikea undertaking, we review founder Kamprad's entrepreneurial journey.

Background

The first generation of residence in Sweden, grandfather suicide

Ikea, the name is the founder of Ingva Camprade (Ingvar Kamprad), the founder of the Place Almtarid (Elmtaryd), and a few kilometers away from the church village Argennared (Agunnaryd, also where his mother lived as a child) With the initials. Ikea is hardly a Swedish company for a long time, and the group is run by the Netherlands and Belgium. But the birthplace of the business was undoubtedly the province of Malan in southern Sweden, where Kamprad's grandfather emigrated. But the pioneering suffering of the first generation forced him to choose suicide.

Grandfather Ashim Eltmann Camprade was the son of a big capitalist landlord, and in 1894, he learned from the German "hunt" that Malan had a farm in the forest that he bought, and since then his grandfather had 449 hectares of Swedish forest. When he arrived on his farm from Germany, he found that the state was too bad, and that the farm needed a lot of investment and hard work to improve. Achim tried to settle through a bank loan, but without a loan, the farm cost him a fortune, and in 1897 he shot himself in the head with desperation. His wife, Fanny, was pregnant.

Grandma Fanny was alone in the task of living in Almtarid and took over the farm. It was a little comforting that the young widow had received support from her mother-in-law who disliked her, and that Donnie Camprade (Geva's milk) had brought more than financial help, and the old lady had been alone in Sweden to help Fanny.

Gestation period

11 years old in business, with "Match King" as a pioneering role model

For the first few years, Father Feode Camprade worked under the supervision of his grandmother, who formally took over the farm at the age of 25. Geva was born in 1926, and his mother was a long merchant family not far from the farm.

Earning money plays an important role in British Geva's life, when he was 11 years old, supplying a seed store and selling small plastic bags to the farmers around him. "It was my first real money-making business," he bought himself a bicycle and a typewriter with the money he earned.

At that time, the British Geva had a great example, is known as "Match King" Iva Crogg. Kroger, one of Sweden's best-known entrepreneurs, was a successful entrepreneur in South Africa and the United States as a builder as a young man. After the First World War, Kroger returned to Europe and founded a powerful company engaged in the production and sale of matches. Through a series of competition, the Swedish match holding company has developed into an enterprise group. The Kroger control the match market in at least 33 countries around the world, mastering 60% of the world's match production.

In Europe in the 30 's, Kroger's name was known, and the Swede was seen as a model for modern capitalists. But http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/39374.html "> The World economic crisis destroyed him, 1932 the Swede killed himself. The collapse of the Kroger company has shaken Sweden's entire economic fabric.

Baby Period

17-Year-old registered "IKEA", mail-order business started

The British Geva has a merchant's trait from an early age and loves to make a trade. The English Geva in high school deals with anyone he can contact. Underneath his school bed was a cardboard box with belts, wallets, clocks and pencils. His business was good, so he decided to start a business when he graduated from high school. He applied for a shop in written form to the management, because he had just turned 17 and was underage, so he asked his uncle to sign him.

July 28, 1943, the name of his trading company was registered. He took his name, Almtarid Farm and the first letter of the Argennared Pastoral area, which constituted the company's name: IKEA.

1947, the British Geva had to do military service, but he did not want to give up his mail order business, so with the consent of his superiors, do not have to stay in the barracks every night, he rented a place in the basement of a single family and decorate it as a place to sleep, and soon he had a phone. At that time IKEA goods mainly include sewing products, nylon, greeting cards, seeds, pens and wallets. Soon, the cheap photo frames were added, as well as clocks and inexpensive cosmetics.

After the basic military service was finished, Kamprad was transferred to an officer school in 1948, where he successfully became the general agent of a stationery company in Sweden. Responsible for their ballpoint pens and pens sold to Swedish retailers.

After passing the officer examination, the British Geva moved back to their parents. From then on, he wanted to run his own business on the Almtarid farm. First, he continued to import goods from abroad and sell them to retailers, and he printed a number of advertisements called "Ikea new Products", and his parents helped her deal with the avalanche of orders.

For the first few years, this small business was headquartered here. Ikea was a real family business at the beginning of its founding, and his father, Feode, was responsible for managing orders and bills, and the mother was responsible for answering the phone and helping to pack it, and they were busy, even at night. Later, Kamprad himself built a cabin for storing parcels. He later wrote: "My first mail-order room, with a total area of only one square metre, is the most economical in the industry." ”

Take-off Period

Creative "Furniture exposition" to achieve, towards the great enterprise

The first piece of furniture purchased by Geva is a simple armchair with no armrest. Kamprad can remember prices and account numbers very well, but it is difficult to remember the product number, in addition, in the sales process, he will be very intuitive to communicate with customers emotionally. So an idea came out: a nice girl's name for the couch chair. In this way, "Ruth" was born, customer demand for furniture rapidly increased.

Inspired by "Ruth" 's success, Kamprad successfully expanded the furniture business. Early customers ordered the most is a couch or bed chair, chandelier sales also good. Moken surrounding forest Lush, surrounded by a lot of furniture processing plants, so do not worry about finding product manufacturers. From the very beginning, he embodied his ideas in the design of the furniture. To that end, he purchased cloth for fillings from a well-known textile mill in Sweden, and family and farm assistants spent many evenings tailoring the fabric.

The 22-Year-old Ikea founder hired his first employee in 1948, and the man named Enster Extrom the accountant. British Geva wants to make his business bigger, in order to promote his goods, he is on the farm reading a high rate of farmers newspaper, the circulation of more than 280,000 of the "Farmer Mail" published a product profile.

Kamprad is determined to be a bigger entrepreneur. He felt that only a low price could succeed.

In the introduction to the product, there is a preface he wrote to the customer, pointing out that the things in the store are so expensive because of the existence of middlemen. He has the flexibility to combine farmers ' daily experiences and say, "Please compare yourself to the price of slaughtering a kilo of pork and buying the same weight of pork in a store." Kamprad's advertising was successful and orders soared.

The low price strategy does not win a decisive victory, and when Ikea has just made a very inexpensive locker and ironing board, other mail-order operators are now responding at a lower price. As the price declines, so does the quality of the product. More and more complaints have been received.

After a long time of thinking, Kamprad thought of a way, that is, the goods out of the exhibition, so that customers visit the furniture store, to win the trust of customers. "People can go to the scene and look at the furniture and compare the quality of the different pricing products." Kamprad said. The Ikea long exhibition, which was held at the Almhut, Sweden's second-largest city in the railway hub, quickly concluded that it would be wise to specialize in the furniture business if it abandoned office supplies.

The first IKEA fair opened on March 18, 1953, with furniture full of two floors. The young enterprise ushered in its glorious era with new ideas. Combining the mail order business with the furniture store, the 28-Year-old has succeeded in reforming the British tile! The first time the furniture was launched behind the scenes, the old Kamprad described it as "a state of intoxication for a long and interesting job", as he remembers, "a group of people are snapping at our furniture show every weekend, At night we all sit around the desk in the office to count the shipping bills and bills.

Ikea keeps experimenting, and in Ikea's early catalogues, there's a table that needs to be assembled by the customer, and it has a name called "Max."

The mystery of Ikea's success

In "Ikea undertaking" book, the German well-known media person Ludigg Jomblutte summed up Ikea's success secret.

One, spare no effort to maintain the low price. Kamprad once said: "It is absolutely necessary to maintain a clear price difference with our opponents, and in all areas, we must always be the most reasonable price." ”

If low prices are the main reason for Ikea's success, then design is the second biggest reason. Ikea's furniture is cheap, but its sophisticated design is uncontroversial, sparking a worldwide trend of Scandinavian Pen. home style. This style is natural and lively, simple and practical, rejecting elegance and exaggeration. Scandinavian design is a strong and rational pronoun, it represents a self-confident, independent life sentiment. In the decades, the style and materials are constantly changing, people's taste changes, Ikea is called furniture culture influence the trend of a wide range of leaders.

Third, experiential marketing. Ikea has identified itself as a non service merchant. 80% of the work in the furniture purchase process is done by the customers themselves. They look at the selection, from the shelves to take out the favorite goods, come to the cashier, with a private car to transport home. When they got home, they assembled the parts into a complete piece of furniture. Although Ikea did not invent portable furniture, it was the only trading company to place the design and sale of the furniture at the centre of the business.

Its four, simple corporate culture. "Simplicity is a virtue," Kamprad wrote in a testament to a furniture merchant. An enterprise without rules cannot survive, but it must be simple. The more complex the rules, the harder it is to comply. Kamprad believes that "too much emphasis on planning is the most common cause of corporate death." ”

The British Geva almost withstood all the material temptations of a billionaire for a lifetime. In addition to the Porsche he opened in the 1970s, the most valuable thing the British Geva purchased in his lifetime was a vineyard in France. Kamprad never took part in social intercourse, and Lausanne's biggest daily, "24 hours", never took pictures of kamprad at parties or celebrations.

Source: Entrepreneur Net