IKEA Catalogue App Innovation

This assignment analyzes the potential of an IKEA Catalogue app to enhance customer experience and drive business growth. It delves into how the app can address consumer challenges by enabling them to visualize furniture in their homes and access comprehensive product information. The report also explores alternative project options, emphasizing the importance of customer surveys to understand their needs and expectations regarding the app.

THE BUSINESS CASE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Aim..................................................................................................................................................3
Innovation........................................................................................................................................3
Possibilities .....................................................................................................................................4
Business case document ..................................................................................................................5
The problem innovation can solve...................................................................................................5
Benefits of the innovation................................................................................................................5
Strategic response or plan................................................................................................................7
Project option analysis.....................................................................................................................7
Delivery of the recommended solutions..........................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10
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INTRODUCTION
IKEA is multinational company which makes furniture, home appliances and kitchen
accessories. Its has its headquarter in Netherlands. It is one of the largest retail company in UK
(IKEA. 2016). The company designs self assembled furniture. Ikea furniture and home
accessories are practical and well designed (Rajappa and Raj, 2016). Company sue cabinet grade
furniture garde MDF in all of its MDF products. Present report describes about new innovation
that can be mad in the company. The study will showcase the innovation IKEA is trying to do.
Present report describes about problem that can be solved by launching app in the market. In
addition to that it also illustrate the benefit that are associated with the launch of app. Report
will focus on project option analysis that need to be done by IKEA before launching the app in
the market. It will also highlight the recommendations that needs to be taken in account by the
company.
AIM
The aim of this report is to study the launch of catalogue app by IKEA.
INNOVATION
Market globalization is continuously increasing these days. Due to this reason every
company needs to make innovation in their marketing approaches to maintain position in market.
IKEA is making innovation in its marketing by launching its catalogue application in the market.
Catalogue application is web application which helps user to buy products online (IKEA APPS.
2016). This application will allow the customer and buyers of the home furnishing company to
keep updated about latest releases of products, furniture , and home appliances. This app will let
customer see how its products would fit in their homes and how they will look in reality. App
can list different categories of the product , product specifications,. It will also include
multimedia resources like videos and pics of the furniture and home appliances.
This app will use a print catalogue which is placed on the floor to get a rough idea about
products fitness in real life. This will let user a real experience like they are trying the furniture
product in their room itself. From this app the IKEA can get customers feedback about the
product . IKEA can conduct a research on the customer to determine the ned and expectations of
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them so that app can be evolved according to their preferences. By conducting research they can
identify the problem faced by the buyers when buying furniture and questions they have in mind
like if the product will get fitted in their rooms or not. IKEA is planing to launch the print
version of catalogue app which will feature more than 50 page. Customer can scan with their
mobiles to get supplementary information about the product (Martinez and et.al, 2014).
POSSIBILITIES
To determine possibilities like strength , weakness , opportunities and threats of IKEA
Catalogue mobile app swot analysis can be used for it. In SWOT analysis is a framework that
helps in analyzing the situations and finding out the best solution.
Strength of Catalogue mobile app: IKEA has solid financial position and good brand image in
the market . Is also design attractive furniture products. Launching app will help company in
gaining more customer attraction (Cardamone and et.al, 2016). Customers will have faster and
easy access to furniture store. They can see the product online and experience the real life
applicability of the product in their home. This app will make customer m easy to navigate
thorough one product to another. By launching app the company can easily give information
about the product to their customers. Ikea would be able to achieve market leadership by
launching app.
Weaknesses of Catalogue mobile app: it is difficult to identify need and requirement of
consumers due to which challenges will be faced in developing the app. Company will face issue
like security of app. After downloading the app there is a long subscription process. Due to
which some customer will never download the app. Text displays on the app is sometime
difficult to read for consumer, so this is also a weakness for the app to be launched. Poor mobile
optimization would also be a problem for the app (Benmoussa and et.al, 2015).
Opportunities of Catalogue mobile app: Mobile app market is growing very fast. So this is will
be proven strength for app to be launched by the company. There is huge market in demand of
mobile application for everything that make the life of people better and easy going. So there is
an opportunity for IKEA by launching app.
Threats of Catalogue mobile app: There is fierce competition in global market and exclusive
social media engagement of people. Apps have inimitable functions that leads users in difficult
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situation. Apps now a days required some basic information of the consumer ,so there is a
possibility that customers of IKEA might not want to share the information.
BUSINESS CASE DOCUMENT
THE PROBLEM INNOVATION CAN SOLVE
New mobile Catalogue app by IKEA will solve various problems which are faced by the
customer and buyers of the company. In a research conducted by the company in which 70%
customer are facing problem like they do not know really how bog their room are for the
furniture they bought. While some of the customers bought the wrong sized furniture. Company
has also discovered in survey that their customers want to be able to test the products they get
attracted to in the catalogue. Especially in the cases of bog furniture's . So these problems can
be solved using catalogue app. This app will give the consumers to see how the products would
fit into their rooms.
The app uses print catalogue which is placed on the floor to get approximate idea about
the furniture fit. Its will give users areal life environment to create elevated picture. The picture
that appear on the screen would make customers to experience like they are in the customer's
room. By this innovation of mobile application the company can enable its customers to test
products and this practical purpose will really helps customers to see how their home s would
look like. The app is also providing the print catalogue of the furniture product so that customer
can scan with their mobile phones to get extra information about the product they are buying
(Hye and et.al ,2015) . Using virtual floor in application, user can assemble the furniture in their
mobile screen and see the furniture look and fitness in their room . Sometime people face the
issue of not getting all information about the furniture like quality , material used, bar codes of
furniture etc. The app can solve this problem also in which all the information about the product
will be made available on the app by the company.
BENEFITS OF THE INNOVATION
IKEA app has various benefits for the customers. Here are some benefits for the company an d
customer:
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 The app has built a platform for the customers to see the product fitness in their homes.
 The app will provide more value to the customers of the home furnishing company.
 More customers will interact with business of the company by creating loyalty program
on the app.
 The app will be proven cost effective for the customer.
 Customer time will be saved because they can deal online whatever they want to buy
from the furniture store.
 App would be able to convince moire customer by giving virtual experience of the
product in their home.
 App will help organization in building stronger brand .
 Catalogue app will aware consumers about the IKEA . By regularly interacting with the
target market the app can foster customer's trust (Martinez and et.al, 2014).
 The more audience trust the brand more they will committed to the brand. With an app
IKEA can demonstrate the their users what their brand stands for.
 Company would be able to connect in better way with the customers. Thorough
Catalogue mobile application , organization will always know what they are offering to
the customers.
 It will provide an interface to the users to give the b est experience of deciding and
examining that if they want to buy the product or not.
 This app will help company inn boosting its profits because when customer satisfaction
increases ,sales also increases.
 Consumer base of the company will also increase by launching catalogue app.
 App will help company to inform user of new product and offers it have for their
customers.
 Company would be able to stand out form the competition by launching catalogue app.
 Organization can reach out to younger competitors.
 By regularly sending emails and messages using app the company would get more
customers .
 Consumers will have the ability to change the color of drawers and cabinets with one
click, that feature will help better visualization of the product.
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STRATEGIC RESPONSE OR PLAN
IKEA to launch mobile application need to make some strategies and plans before
making it. The company is required to conduct a survey on the customers.. in research they need
to determine the needs and expectations of the customers. By getting information about the
customers and the issues they faced in buying the furniture from store, company will get idea
how to make the app integrated user friendly. Company can make the launch of the app by using
different platform like advertising about the app on company's official website.,sending emails
to the customer, providing them link on emails to download the app.
In making strategy for app launching, company need to hire technical experts who will
make the app according to the needs of the user (Frenz, Kirschbaum and Moorjani, 2014) . IT
experts are required to make the catalogue app for IKEA. Mobile app developer would require a
robust application interface in order to achieve the user satisfaction. To gain customer attraction
company can also organize an event to launch the app. Before final launching of the app
organization can conduct a pre launch of app so that hey can identify the popularity of its app
among customers. Pre launch strategy will help company to determine that if app is working
properly , customers are getting what they want from the app .User friendliness will also get
recognize through pre launch. This approach will help for evaluating flaws in the development of
mobile catalogue app, so that the developers can make appropriate enhancements in the app.
PROJECT OPTION ANALYSIS
Before launching app IKEA is required to analyze the project option . Project option
analysis is done to check the feasibility and options available to given project . This documents
assist ion determining the alternative that are available to project. It also help to identify the vest
option to be selected for project. This analysis also provides effective solution for the project. So
IKEA can do this analysis to find out the alternative of the app they are planning to launch.
Company need to discover if any substitute like website or any other social media platform is
available. The process of analyzing project substitute follows option identification, feasibility
analysis and option selection. These are as follows:
Option Identification: In this a scenario is made for the future without the reference of the
project. IKEA is required to forecast future applicability of the app. Company need to make
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scenario in which they can evaluate the substitute of the app. Through this they may get some
alternative of app which might be cost effective and require lower investment.
Feasibility analysis: This analysis is conducted to evaluate the current demand and forecast
demand of the project. IKEA need to asses the current demand of app and available technology .
An assessment on customer is also need to be done to find out if they need a mobile app to
enhance their shopping experience . Organization can make feasibility report which will
conclude if the app is necessary to be launched or not.
Option selection: In this step cost effective analysis is done by the company in which
comparisons of available option is done by the project manager. Th goal of this step is to select
the option which can minimize the cost maximizes the output. Before launching Catalogue
mobile app company should look for the other options which can solve the issues faced by
consumers while buying furniture.
DELIVERY OF THE RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS
It is require d that Catalogue app for IKEA company should be designed and launched in
systematic and strategic way so that it will help company to boost its selling. Here are some
recommendations for company before launching mobile app:
 Company is required to evaluate the target audience like what benefit the audience will
get by app,if Catalogue mobile app will make the company lead the global market.
 Organization should register its domain and create a landing page where they will
launch their app (Page, 2014)).
 By claiming social media platforms company can popular the pap among audience before
launch. They can use social media account like Facebook ,Instagram to post news about
the new app launch and get feedback from various people on the internet.
 Venture can establish feedback loop for its new app by using several in app solutions.
 Company can notify its app availability using email messaging.
 Reporters and bloggers can do the publicity of the app. Business entity can choose
reporters to reach out to pre launch.
 After launch of app organization should encourage ratings and review from people.
 Monitoring the growth of the app like number of downloads.
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 Company should release updates of the app frequently. By sending regular updates
company can solve issues which arrive during the use of app by customer.
 Organization should optimize the recurrence of marketing communication. By identifying
tipping optimal value of app can be determine
 Company should get regular feedback from the customer by sending emails asking for
reviews and ratings of the app.
 After launching the app IKEA should partner up with other app developer so they can
expand the integrity of the app.
 Organization need to be engaged with its user and customers by asking question on social
media and responding the queries put by the audience
Two minute pitch
To
Manager ,
From this project we have learned about the Catalogue app will provide platform for the
consumer to see the fitness of the product at their home. App will support company to inform
the customer about their new products. We have acquired knowledge of boosting business by
launching apps for customers to make their shopping experience better. Enhancing profits of
company using apps and social media platforms is also learned .
CONCLUSION
Present report illustrates about IKEA that is home furnishing company which is planning
to launch Catalogue app for its customers. Company can innovate the user experience by
launching this app. This app will provide a platform to user for identifying the furniture product
fitness in their home. App will help in boosting the furniture business of the venture . The
problem that could be solved using innovation are also discussed. App will solve the consumers
issue of furniture fitness in their home and will also minimize the problem of getting full
information regrading the product they are buying . App has several benefits for both the
company and the consumer. Project options analysis has also been considered in the report in
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which IKEA can look for alternatives of the app. Company should conduct a cross examine
survey on customer to find out the need of the customers and expectations regarding app.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Benmoussa, R. and et.al, 2015. Capability/maturity based model for logistics processes
assessment: Application to distribution processes.International Journal of Productivity and
Performance Management. 64(1). pp.28-51.
Cardamone and et.al, 2016. Willingness to use mobile application for smartphone for improving
road safety.International journal of injury control and safety promotion. 23(2). pp.155-169.
Frenz, A., Kirschbaum, F.S. and Moorjani, P., 2014.Mobile application interactive user
interface for a remote computing device monitoring a test device. U.S. Patent Application
14/502,031.
Hye, K.J and et.al ,2015. Kidult contents development using mobile augmented reality.Indian
Journal of Science and Technology. 8(S9). pp.518-525.
Martinez, D. and et.al, 2014. Ambient intelligence application based on environmental
measurements performed with an assistant mobile robot.Sensors. 14(4). pp.6045-6055.
Page, T., 2014. Application-based mobile devices in design education.International Journal of
Mobile Learning and Organisation. 8(2). pp.96-111.
Rajappa, S. and Raj, G., 2016, January. Application and scope analysis of Augmented Reality in
marketing using image processing technique. InCloud System and Big Data Engineering
(Confluence). 2016. 6th International Conference(pp. 435-440). IEEE.
Online
IKEA. 2016. Available through: <http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/> [Acessed on 13th May 2017]
IKEA APPS. 2016. Available through: <http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/customer-service/ikea-
apps/> [Acessed on 13th May 2017]