Operation Management in Ikea to meet eco-friendly product for customers - Coursework Example

In the next section, the researcher will brief about business background of the company. IKEA is renowned multinational Dutch furniture retailer having Swedish origin and the company was founded by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943 (IKEA PS, 2012). The company is headquartered at is Leiden, Netherlands and at present, the company is maintaining its global operation with the retail portfolio of more than 300 stores (Euromonitor International, 2009). From operational perspectives, product portfolio of the company includes customized home furnishing solution, assembled furniture, home furnishing products and large furniture (IKEA, 2013a).

The furniture retail giant earns annual revenue of €20 billion from its business operation across the globe. IKEA has created unique selling proposition (USP) by offering Scandinavian designed future at affordable price to customers while target market for the company includes couples waiting for baby, students, working professionals, couples planning to marry and students (IKEA, 2013a). These customer groups are ready to experiment with choice of furniture design but they are not ready to invest huge amount in furniture purchasing.

As the researcher has selected Product Design as key sustainability and value chain indicator for idea hence the study will only focus on operation management initiatives of IKEA to deliver eco-friendly products to customers. According to IKEA Group (2011), the company has set environment sustainability criterion for the products and a product has to pass all the criteria during value chain process in order to get the certification. However, detail of the product design related value chain integration will be discussed in the later sections.

According to IKEA Group (2011), the company does not change its mission and vision statement with the change of operating environment. The company