The secret of IKEA`s success

The secret of IKEA's success

宜家的成功秘诀

Lean operations, shrewd tax planning and tight control

高效的运营，精细的税务规划，加上严格的控制

Feb 24th 2011 | MALMO| from the print edition

THE paragraphs below are arranged randomly; you will have to assemble the finished article yourself.

以下段落的顺序已被随机打乱，请各位自己动手排列成一篇完整通顺的文章。

Just kidding. But if you shop at IKEA, you are no doubt familiar with the hassle and frustration of assembling its flat-pack furniture at home. Millions of customers endure it, for two reasons: IKEA’s products are stylish and they are very, very cheap.

开个玩笑而已。但如果你有过在宜家购物的经验，那么你对把家具组件打包带回家再拼装时的种种麻烦和挫败感一定不会感到陌生。可是无数的消费者对此并没有怨言，只因为两点：宜家的产品不但时髦，而且非常便宜。

“We hate waste,” says Mikael Ohlsson, who took over as chief executive of IKEA Group in September 2009. He points proudly at a bright-red “Ektorp” sofa. Last year his designers found a way to pack the popular three-seater more compactly, doubling the amount of sofa they could cram into a given space. That shaved €100 ($135) from the price tag—and significantly reduced the carbon-dioxide emissions from transporting it.

2009年9月份接任宜家集团执行总裁的麦克奥尔森说“我们讨厌浪费”。他指着一个鲜红色的“Ektorp”沙发，神情中显露出些许自豪。去年他的设计团队想到了一个办法，使常用的三座沙发在包装时占据的空间更小，同样大的空间能够放进去的沙发数量就能多一倍。这个方法使沙发的价格也相应地下降了100欧元（约合135美元），而且使运输过程中产生的二氧化碳也大幅度减少。

Thrift is the core of IKEA’s corporate culture. Mr Ohlsson traces it back to the company’s origins in Smaland, a poor region in southern Sweden whose inhabitants, he says, are “stubborn, cost-conscious and ingenious at making a living with very little”. Ever since Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA in 1943, the company has tried to allow “people with limited means

to furnish their houses like rich people”.

节约是宜家企业文化中的核心理念。奥尔森认为这一理念可以追溯到公司的发源地斯马兰，瑞典南部一个贫穷的地区。他说那里的居民“倔强、节俭、善于过精打细算的日子。”自从英格瓦坎普拉德在1943年创办宜家以来，公司就一直致力于让“条件有限的人能够像有钱人一样布置自己的家”。

IKEA presents itself as a green company with a social mission. Mr Ohlsson boasts of its charitable work and its aim to use only renewable energy. He says he wants his “co-workers” to be happy, honest and inclined to think for themselves. He is proud that 40% of the company’s 200 top managers are women.

宜家给外界的印象是一个具有环保意识、社会责任感强的公司。奥尔森毫不掩饰他对宜家支持慈善事业和只使用可再生能源的肯定。他说他希望和自己一块儿工作的人是快乐的、诚实的、习惯于独立思考的。公司200名高管中有40%是女性，这一点令他也颇感自豪。

Business is good. In the fiscal year 2010, IKEA’s sales grew by 7.7% to €23.1 billion and net profit increased by 6.1% to €2.7 billion. Conforama, Habitat and other rivals do not come close. IKEA’s strong brand and low prices helped it to weather the downturn, even though 80% of its sales are in crisis-hit Europe. In 2010 its sales rose by 8.2% in Spain and 11.3% in Italy. The firm is doing well in Bulgaria and Romania and planning to expand further in central and eastern Europe.

宜家的经营业绩是相当不错的。在2010财政年度，宜家的销售额增长7.7%，达到231亿欧元，净利润上升了6.1%，达到27亿欧元。法国的Conforama和英国的Habitat及其他业内竞争对手都难以望其项背。尽管80%的销售额来自于经济受创的欧洲地区，宜家仍凭借其强大的品牌效应和廉价政策成功度过了经济危机。2010年宜家在西班牙和意大利的销售额分别上涨了8.2%和11.3%。在保加利亚和罗马尼亚，宜家也是经营的有声有色，并且正计划进一步拓展在中欧和东欧地区的业务。

Thrifty Germans are IKEA’s best customers, accounting for 15% of sales. It has become part of German culture: in 2009 a Hamburg theatre staged an opera about it, “Wunder von Schweden” (“Miracle from Sweden”), a biography of the “furniture messiah” set to Swedish folk tunes.

以节俭闻名的德国人是宜家最大的主顾，他们的消费量占宜家的总销售额的15%。