IKEA plans to Indianise products to woo Indians

Hyderabad: Swedish home furnishing major IKEA — the largest foreign investor in single brand retail — is all set to Indianise itself to cater to consumers with highly diverse tastes and profiles. The company on Thursday held groundbreaking ceremony for its first store in the country here. “There is a high level of diversity in India. We have visited several homes in different cities in India, so that we don’t give different solution to the entire India. In the process, for example, we realized that kitchen products are different in India. So we combine local function and IKEA design. So if you go an IKEA story in India and another IKEA store in say Sweden, you will find that IKEA’s style is the same but things are different,” Juvencio Maeztu, chief executive officer, IKEA India, told this newspaper.

The Hyderabad store is expected to come up here by the end of 2017 in an area of 4 lakh sq ft with an investment outlay of '700 crore. IKEA is pulling out all stops to make Hyderabad — its first store in India — a hugely successful. The company, which is known for its ready-to-assemble furniture, might have found a great dilemma. Indians are not used to assembling furniture by themselves. Mr Maeztu, however, claims IKEA has found a solution.

“For those customers, who can’t assemble their furniture themselves, IKEA will assemble it for them. We are going to have our staff and some other partner firms, who would provide this service. Having said this, our furniture would be made available in ready to assemble format as it allow customer to save on assembling. Flat packaging will also allow us to save on logistics and keep prices low,” he said. IKEA will hire 500 direct co-workers and another 1,500 engaged in providing services around the store. The company also plans to expand their procurement from India.