Ikea

IKEA uniqueness of retaining their Scandinavian work style and adapting to different countries cultures and subculture had enabled them to establish themselves as a recognized home furnishing company in the world. For Globalization to take place, company has to plan well their strategy of targeting each country. Standardization and adapting strategy are some of the common strategy use to globalization strategy. Standardization strategy is the degree to which a product, service, or process is standardized across countries (Zou and Cavusgil 2002). Whereas the adapting strategy is to change in order to suit the culture of the particular area as each country has their strength and weaknesses. Ikea have standardized the Scandinavian lifestyle and all the retails are to portray a Swedish brand image while at the same time also adapting to the culture of the different country that they venture into. Culture can be defined as the learned beliefs, attitudes, values, norms and customs of a society or group of people. In addition, it is also adaptive, dynamic, and patterned. The society that developed the culture is continuously being exposed to new experiences, thus culture, society or group of people changes with time. Although there is substantial intra cultural variability, it is possible to identify core values that seem to define a culture. Sub culture possesses beliefs, values, and customers that differentiate from other members of the same society. People are usually segmented from the larger, more complex society into a distinct group. Each group has its own unique traits. Sub culture can be group into age, gender, religion, race, nationality, etc. Lastly, technology advancement has enabled information to be shared more quickly and efficiently. People are also easily influenced through the media and they are able to participate interactively with the media. However, due to ethnocentrism, some groups of people may not welcome foreign products that can well compare to others, this all boils down to their subculture and culture.