Future Of Furniture Companies With Blue Ocean Strategy - Essay Example

The water is becoming redder as stores try to win customer dollars. To endure at all, it is not sufficient that the company is good; but it has to be something beyond being good. Blue Oceans has to be created and cultivated so that companies will succeed. Following Blue Ocean, strategies are not pipe dreams. Accurately carried out, they are practical, restricted risk strategies for methodically following and conquering unchallenged Blue Oceans. A very good example of furniture retailers who used Blue Ocean strategies to their benefits is the IKEA.

It is an American retailer of furniture. Before IKEA entered the furniture market, the retailers like Thomasville, Rooms To Go etc., believed in high priced furniture and retaining their old customers by providing them with lots of services. But IKEA did not believe in such a strategy. IKEA extended reasonably priced furniture with a good assortment and above average quality followed with little customer service. This helped IKEA to create a blue ocean for them and they became the single retailer of low priced high selection furniture.

The company eliminated the idea of retaining old customers by trying to reach customers who were new. In addition, to this IKEA also can create new customers by not focusing on customer differences; instead, they can develop on the powerful commonness’s in what buyer’s measure. 's in what buyer's measure. This will help the companies to develop beyond the existing demand and create more demand thus bringing in customers who were not there before (Kim W.C. et all, 2005.Pp 101-102).There is yet another area of Blue Ocean, which IKEA can venture in the future.

Sometimes some companies are prepared to challenge the functional-emotional direction of their industry; they frequently find new market space. It can be observed that sometimes many companies offer many additional products with the main product, but if these additions are stripped off and the actual product is provided at a lesser cost, then such an act would surely bring in more customers. On the other hand, functional sloping industries can repeatedly instill commodity products with new life by contributing a dosage of sentiment and, in so doing, can rouse new demand (Kim W.C. et all, 2005.Pp.69-70).

In the same way, IKEA instead of giving any additional product or service can just sell their main products for lesser cost thus bringing in more and more customers. Yet another success for IKEA is through creation and this is through its instruction booklets, which is released with every assembly-required item that a consumer buys from the store. In these instruction booklets, IKEA attempts to demonstrate the process instead of explaining it in words. In reality sometimes, the instructions are with out any words at all.

This is done just to show or emphasize the ease with which to construct IKEA furniture and this way the furniture company can save on translation costs too. Furniture companies can also look across its alternative industries. For furniture, stores new retail outlets in places where there are no such shops will have to be developed. Innovations on the part of the furniture manufacturers will create Blue Oceans for them. They will have to look beyond their industry and seek alternatives (Kim W.C. et all, 2005.Pp 49-50). IKEA furniture can also secure its future by reducing its cost of production by a method called collaborating.

This way the company can meet its target cost easily. Actually,