Marketing Principles and Business Practice: IKEA

The Mission Statement is a vital component in the strategic planning of a business organization. Creating a mission is one of the first actions an organization should take. This can be a building block for an overall strategy and development of more specific functional strategies (Abrahams, 1995). By defining a mission an organization is making a statement of organizational purpose.

1. Mission and Vision Statement – Mission is a written declaration of the purpose of an organization and Vision is that business will accomplish in future years.

The mission defines the organization’s purpose, values, and core goals, providing the framework for all other plans. It is simple, vivid and compelling so that the employees from the janitor to the CEO, from the customers to investors can easily understand.

Most organization have develop an element called a mission statement. A mission statement describes and helps focus the attention of organizational members and external constituents on the organization's core purpose. This is use in the criminal justice and security agency use mission statement for the success of the organization and better serve the community or businesses that they have agree to serve and protect.

They are comprised of the dreams and inspirations of the organization and where it is headed. This statement also serves as the framework for the organization’s strategic plan. Mission statements are a representation of the organization’s purpose for existing. It should be derived from the vision statement and used as a guide when producing a strategic plan.

The mission statement is often publically stated and used by almost every organization today. It helps provide basic guidelines, essentially the core values of a company, and what they aim for. A mission statement gives customers

In this assignment I will be exploring what missions statements are, ethos and the values the schools set to reflect their vision. Mission: this means that is it a statement of what an organisation is focusing on and why they want to do it. An example of a mission statement; “Our vision is to create a school community where children participate, excel and are proud of their achievements…” set by Round Hill primary school. Schools create mission statements in order to set themselves a Goal to reach for, a goal in which everyone will learn from it and gain an experience, because the statement they have set is creating them a vision to aim for.

This is the agreed-upon statement by the organization and explains the reason for its existence. It is necessarily broad to encompass the diversity within the business. The statement is not precise in its measurements nor does it need to be, but it does need to be periodically reviewed by the business to see whether it still encompasses all of the relevant activities of the business.

Organizing the direction of a business or corporation is essential because it can increase profitability and provide broad guidelines for how to accomplish the organization goals. This is where a mission statement becomes useful. A mission statement should be short, concise, and to the point. Employees should be able to remember it and make it part of their everyday work culture.

The mission statement communicates to stakeholders the main activities that the company focuses on in order for it to achieve its vision. The mission statement communicates to employees’ information on how to conduct their day to day activities. The mission statements also describe the organizations, policies, culture as well as ethics (Alesia 2013).

On the other hand, mission statement is the reason why a company exists and it’s a statement that declares the core purpose of a company. Mission statement usually will remain the same over time (Bratianu, 2007). The mission is different from a vision as it aims to create competitive advantage and also achieve the social goal of a company (Bratianu, 2007).

IKEA also based on low cost to achieve hybrid strategy. Big items are all flat-packed that the customers transported and assembled themselves. This saves IKEA with shipping costs from suppliers and delivery costs to customers so that they can pass this benefit to customers through low price. In the stores, there are no armies of sales staffs. Customers are providing with tape measures and pencils so that they can self-served. This reducing the number of sales staff required. IKEA encourages customers to create value for themselves by taking on certain tasks traditionally done by the retailers and their low expectation on service levels keeps costs down. Additionally, IKEA choose most economical suppliers over traditional suppliers around the world. The company buys great volume of materials from suppliers to get the economies of scale. Since the labour in UK is expensive, their products are produced in

Part of keeping costs down IKEA strategically located its global distribution retailing network near container ports and major truck and rail routes. In most instances, they own the large stores but in order to be flexible and adaptable to penetrate new markets they also facilitate franchises where there are risks to entry due to unfamiliarity or hostility to the IKEA concept. Their stores have been described as ‘theme parks masquerading as a furniture outlet’ (Margonelli, 2002: 112)

In PEST analysis, we will look into what will be affect by the business environment. It includes political environment, economical environment, social environment and technological environment.

IKEA has adapted to the operations function of a business. This function is the main function of every company. This key function, of which IKEA has adapted to, is the business function responsible for managing the process of creation of goods and services. The operations function is responsible for organising, coordinating, planning, and controlling the resources that are required in the production of goods and services. IKEA has effectively implemented this function by understanding the needs of customers. In particular, this applies to those who have a lower income, and/or, limited space. IKEA’s employees within the product design and product development departments, focus directly on the price and quality, as well as the design and function of products. Elements of the design are typically agreed on within the factory itself, this is where manufacturers and designers work together, to create a product with regard to the greatest use of raw materials and manufacturing opportunities. IKEA’s operations have proved effective as in 2013 it earned $35.5 billion. IKEA has a large amount of suppliers, greater than 1300. IKEA purchases most of their