IKEA Vision and Business Idea
IKEA has the vision to create a better everyday life for the many people.
This is made more concrete in the IKEA Business Idea :
”We shall offer a wide range of well designed functional products at prices so low that as many as possible will be able to afford them.”
In order to live up to this challenge, IKEA has developed the principles of Democratic Design to be used in all product development. Democratic Design consists of 5 different elements.
IKEA engages in exciting possibilities
At IKEA, we should always focus on all 5 Democratic Design elements in the product development process. It is not either/or, but both/and, in order for a product to come to the market. This makes product development extra challenging. Therefore, we need to evaluate and use all possible approaches to achieve a clear both/and outcome.
IKEA has therefore engaged itself in a wide variety of material and technology development projects to support Democratic Design. This leads to new and exciting possibilities and fields of applications for IKEA and consequently increased value for customers.
IKEA Engages in Exciting Possibilities · The Assembly Revolution
IKEA and WW WoodWelding GmbH already started the dialogue about WoodWelding® Technology for home and office furnishing applications in the 1990s.
With emerging new materials and increased level of technical possibilities within the furniture industry, IKEA decided in 2013 to enter a license agreement with WW WoodWelding GmbH for applying the WoodWelding® Technology.
The license enables IKEA to use the WoodWelding® Technology in its range, including exclusive rights for certain product areas. The agreement also includes a well defined process for dealing with intellectual property rights resulting from the cooperation.
An intense development program has been initiated in cooperation with the licensor, and WoodWelding® Technology is considered a strong contributor in supporting Democratic Design -still with many unexplored possibilities. First products applying the WoodWelding® Technology, such as the VALJE range, have already been made available to customers.
