IKEA assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

IKEA assignment - Essay Example The stores include restaurants and child care. Electric carts are provided for people who need them. IKEA’s products are trendy yet inexpensive relative to the market. The product line is very extensive. And IKEA prints and distributes more catalogues each year than the world produces Bibles (Roth). The company has found itself in a position of prominence because of the unique strategy it has developed since its inception as a small mail-order merchant in Sweden in 1943. Its founder, Ingvar Kamprad, was a man of vision who started developing this strategy from the very beginning. It took him only twelve years to develop his model. He put the final touches on it in 1965 when he opened a large store in suburban Stockholm that resembles today’s stores worldwide. A great deal of IKEA’s strategy is embedded in what it calls the IKEA Concept. According to the IKEA Web site, the IKEA Concept â€Å"is based on offering a wide range of well designed, functional home furn ishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.† The site also suggests that IKEA’s target market is the middle class, not the upper class that has always been able to buy trendy furniture. The Web site also discusses the way its products are designed, manufactured, and distributed. There is mention of how the products are assembled. In a sense, this is a fallacy because most IKEA furniture products are sold disassembled which is one of the reasons why they can be sold as cheaply as they are. Although Kamprad initially bought the furniture he sold, he soon changed his strategy by manufacturing the furniture himself. He designed his furniture to be functional and yet easy and inexpensive to build. The furniture was sold disassembled to save on manufacturing costs. And it was displayed in the store with detailed explanation tickets to alleviate the need for salesperson assistance, thus cutting down on the cost of labor (Owens) . A major competitive advantage that IKEA has is its control over the channels of production and distribution. It controls a network of 1800 suppliers in more than 50 countries (Normann and Ramirez). Because marketing channels are so critical on market acceptance and overall economic performance, creating a formal planning process for designing and selecting channels is imperative (Stern & El-Ansary: 222). Much of this control is spelled out in its code of conduct that it calls â€Å"The IKEA Way on Purchasing Home Furnishing Products.† This code was launched in 2000. It defines what suppliers can expect from IKEA and specifies what IKEA expects from its suppliers. It not only spells out its expectations in terms of legal requirements, working conditions, external environment, and forestry management, but also puts a great deal of emphasis on the active prevention of child labor (IKEA Web site). Partly for societal reasons and partly because it is just plain good business, IK EA has become very environmentally aware. For example, for decades the firm has worked to minimize the use of formaldehyde in its products. For 25 years, IKEA has applied the German formaldehyde legal requirement for all its products in all markets. The Germans have the strictest standard in the world. IKEA even applies this standard in countries where no limit exists. The German limit is such that even persons who are overly sensitive to formaldehyde should not experience any problems

Video review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Video review - Essay Example This is a goal that will take me many years to accomplish, but I know that I can do it. I also know that I want to work in a way that will allow me to travel more than I can right now. Traveling the world is something that really is appealing to me. I already speak a few languages and hope to develop this skill through more travel. There is a lot of pleasure to be had in traveling, but I believe that there is even more to be had in living and being immersed in a different culture. I hope to use my PhD in a way that will allow me to travel and live abroad for extended periods of time. I know that it sounds as though these two goals are only professional goals, but my profession is a huge part of my life. I want to have a life defined by accomplishing these two goals. Exercise #2 I have felt like some of the students featured in this video. I can still remember being in classes where the way the teacher addressed various students was very demeaning. He seemed to feel that unless you fi t into a very narrow definition of what a good student was, and then he had not time for you. I have been made to feel inferior because of my ethnicity and because of my gender. I know that traditional biases have been against women and minorities, but the biases do not end there in the classroom. I have witnessed white, male students demeaned in history classes because of the history of colonialism of the European powers. I remember thinking to myself, â€Å"Why is this professor treating this guy so badly, just because he is a male of European descent?† I mean, it isn’t like he personally owned slaves or colonized Africa. Having seen and been the subject of biased treatment from professors has made me determined to never treat my students this way. While watching the video, it occurred to me that much of the cultural bias displayed was generated from a desire to be in control and to be powerful. There is no better way to keep power than to convince everyone else that they are somehow inferior to you. I want to have a community of learners in my classroom, not a situation where I need to tear others down just to prove my superiority in some way. Exercise #3 In my class, all students will be honored. I recognize that we are all adults in this course and we all are here to better ourselves in one way or another. Most of us are here on our own accord, so we deserve to have a meaningful educational experience free from sarcasm, bias or harassment of any sort. As a result, I believe that the following guidelines need to apply in this classroom. The first guideline concerns student comments. There are a variety of ways individuals from various cultures express themselves orally. In this class, everyone will be expected to only offer encouraging and academically appropriate comments. This does not mean we can never disagree or think critically. It means that we need to keep our communication focused on what was said and not how it was said. The second guideline concerns student learning. Everyone learns differently. One person may feel that a project or research assignment is a great opportunity to learn, while another views it as drudgery. I would like you to keep an open mind about the assignments in the course, saving criticism for the assignments and not directing it at other group members or myself. By doing this, you ensure everyone can learn in the manner that is most fitting for their individual learning style. Finally, I need to