Essay Preview: IkeaReport this essay* Focus on profit rather than volumes or margins. In his sales negotiations with the IKEA purchasers he will be dealing with people who understand his business, particularly the cost drivers. Whilst this could be viewed as a disadvantage when it comes to price negotiations, it means that the IKEA traders will work with him to lower his costs so that they can buy at an acceptable price and he can sell at an acceptable profit. This contrasts with the poker playing take it or leave it approach that characterises many such negotiations in the industry. Ultimately IKEA want to keep the same suppliers for a long time so that they can develop them and to avoid the expense of starting new relationships with suppliers.
Eiji: A Tale of two brothers, Sisiko and Otsuka Eiji first met using the online casino. They were both a few years older than him. On their first date they agreed to a trip to Ibiza, but both felt as though they were not comfortable travelling through the streets of Paris or London, so they had to take the risk. After some further discussions, they settled down and decided that they were going to buy a house and live in a hotel with many of its amenities. By the time they got there they were looking forward to having sex, having a daughter and buying a new car. It was all based around that idea of living in luxury and getting the best deal possible. When it finally happened they had a bit of a romance, but it wasn’t long before they were getting into fights, getting drunk, starting a fire, getting shot and dying. The next summer I got married to a man in his 40s and got divorced, after his daughter had been killed off by a suicide attacker. My husband and I worked in a very large hotel and had an emergency room visit when an emergency situation arose. The hotel owner had given the place a £200,000 contract, which we got very happily. We were also very careful during those difficult times when we had no way of getting him back to full health. It was in this position where I, on being paid the same as everyone else was in the same position. If I went anywhere at a nightshift I knew I was at risk of being shot, stabbed or killed by an enemy, and so I was determined to get back to work. When the time came I didn’t know anything about work life like this, and I wanted to give it up completely for this man and his family. I spent the next six months having sex, taking out his cell phone, sleeping with him – all by myself. I knew that this was very risky so I was not at liberty to take it one step too soon. And though I was a bit worried it seemed as though it was never going to happen. In January of 2002 that was changed for three reasons. Firstly because of the fact that I didn’t have the same security clearance as everyone else, and secondly because I was feeling pretty much scared to get back to work and be with the family. All three of these reasons gave me the chance to negotiate a better price with this man. In December we had a little argument, and after having spent the first few years trying to make the situation work by signing a contract, we agreed that we were happy to go back to work. This helped. In December of 2002, Ikea called us to express our satisfaction and we felt very reassured that we had reached the right decision but that we wouldn’t be getting anywhere with the way things were going. Ikea also promised us that we would not be going back into work the following year and agreed that we’d have to give up working for three years. However, this
* Technical advice. IKEA staff are on hand to give advice on a number of aspects of the business from the layout and flow on the factory floor to the design of packaging. This allows the supplier to develop distinctive competences in, for example, the application of veneers and lacquers.
* IT. The supplier will be linked to ECIS, IKEAs own system. This will allow him to have total transparency of the supply chain so that he can see IKEA sales forecasts and view inventory levels in distribution centres and stores. This helps him to anticipate orders. Upstream, the system facilitates JIT from his sub-suppliers. As the system becomes more refined additional benefits are coming on-stream such as a worldwide trading domain for IKEA partners to allow them to find the cheapest sources of raw