IS IKEA INVADING AMERICA?

The Harvard Business School Case article of September 14, 2004: IKEA Invades America by YoungMe Moon discusses a Swedish Scandanavian company called IKEA. This is the first furniture retail company to establish an all-in-one concept of a childcare center, restaurant, and a bank for the convenience of its shoppers. The concept has captured the retail furniture market like never before.
IKEA's successful business model emphasizes a "self-service" attitude for its customers. This concept of "do-it-yourself" encourages customers to assemble the bought furniture from Ikea (as all the furniture is unassembled and consists of many parts). At the same time, due to elimination of overhead costs and absence of assembly labor, IKEA passes on the savings to the customer as bargains.
The brainstorming process at IKEA is of great importance as the company recruits internally for the design and implementation of any new style or fashion of furniture design. At the same time, it fosters healthy and productive competition within the engineers and designers for potential bids. Also, with regards to the work environment, there is no rule of formalities, therefore, all the employees from the CEO to lower-level executives/personnel are addressed by their first name. Everyone is encouraged to provide their insights and recommendations for the betterment of the company.
The innovations by Ikea can and do have a "trickle-down" effect on the already established companies in corporate America. For example, some companies have captured their own market niche such as: USAA, Southwest Airlines, and Costco Wholesale.
At USAA a culture similar to IKEA exists. USAA provides childcare services for its employees where they can drop of their kids at the day care center before reporting to work.
Southwest Airlines corporate culture instills an environment for its flight attendants to dress as casual and comfortable as possible without requiring the employees to wear "official" Southwest Airline uniforms. One may not be surprised to come across a male flight attendant wearing shorts and a Polo Ralph Lauren t-shirt (as their uniform) on flights originating from Texas where the weather is crucibly untolerable during the summer months. Southwest also provides a comfortable atmosphere for its passengers with unassigned random seating and all the seats consist of leather material for more comfort during your flight.
Last but not least, Costco Wholesale's business strategy model is similar (from a wholesale store prespective) to IKEA that it usually has multiple items of the same kind of items bundled together. For example, by bundling two boxes of Cheerios cereal instead of one, it can provide the item at more bargain prices. The wholesale atmosphere is more geared towards large groups, businesses, and most importantly families. Also, by charging a club membership, Costco is able to cater more efficiently to its customer's by providing "member's only" prices and since it does not deal with third-parties or middlemen, it is able to cut costs and pass along the overhead savings to the consumer. Costco's 100% Satisfaction Guarantee on its warehouse club membership and online at Costco.com also refunds back the complete shipping and handling charges as its "unconditional, no questions asked" money back guarantee.
The unique comepetitive advantage that Costco has is that it also caters to "non-members" of Costco for a small surcharge on any purchase.