Richest man

Chapter 3 Europe: Ingvar Kamprad (1)
People who regard the company as "home"

Combining the commercial motive of chasing profit with the eternal ideal of human society.

- Ingvar Kamprad Kamprad wealth more than Gates
April 2004, 4 was just an ordinary day for most people.

However, on this day, a report about wealth caused an "earthquake" in the world: Sweden's largest financial magazine "Business Weekly" stated that due to the impact of the depreciation of the US dollar, the founder of the famous Swedish furniture company "IKEA" Ingvar Kamprad, with a personal asset of nearly US$526 billion, surpassed Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has a net worth of US$466 billion, to become the new richest man in the world.

As soon as the news was released, it caused an uproar. You know, Bill Gates has been sitting on the throne of the richest man in the world for ten consecutive years, and this unknown Ingvar Kamprad's wealth exceeds Bill Gates.

As a result, two people became extremely busy because of this matter: one was Peterson, the editor of the Swedish "Business Weekly", who insisted that the results he announced were correct, "More than a year ago, the dollar was still at 1 to the Swedish krona. : about 9, but now it has fallen to about 1:7.6; the difference between this entry and exit is billions of dollars.” Peterson added Kamprad’s bank deposits, securities, various real estate, and The entire IKEA company finally calculated that the total value of his assets was about 4000 billion Swedish kronor, equivalent to 526 billion US dollars, thus surpassing Gates and Buffett.

Another busy person is IKEA spokesperson Marianne Barna, who was eager to refute the rumors. He pointed out that since Kamprad transferred the ownership of IKEA to a Dutch foundation in 1982, he no longer owns the entire The property of the group has been lost, so the assets of IKEA cannot be deducted from Kamprad.While refuting the rumors, Marion Bana acquiesced to the statistics about Kamprad's wealth on the "Forbes" global rich list. In that list, in 2004, Kamprad's personal net worth was 185 billion U.S. dollars, ranked 13th; in 2005, it rose to 230 billion U.S. dollars, ranked 6th.

The final result of the debate is not important, what is important is that such a billionaire has become the focus of attention.But compared to the hustle and bustle outside, Kamprad, the protagonist of the debate, is the quietest person. He avoids people's discussion of his wealth with an unusually silent attitude.Kamprad once had a wonderful remark: "When the first million arrived, I was really happy as hell, but now I have forgotten everything except the number on the money order. Money cannot Eat it for food, it just makes you rich. For me, the motivation for making money is to fulfill my dreams for my parents, for myself or other people who are very important to me.”

This is Ingvar Kamprad, a man who has created a business miracle.

IKEA's Growth History: From Mail-Order Company to Home Furnishing Empire

Today, when we look back on the growth process of IKEA and Kamprad with a calm mind, we will be surprised to find: how much Kamprad’s business talent has been carved in the growth history of IKEA. Deep marks.

Ingvar Kamprad was born in Elmhalt in southern Sweden on March 1926, 3. His father was a farmer and his grandparents were German immigrants. They obtained a forest in Småland, Sweden through mail order. Then settle down.After two generations of hard work, after Kamprad was born, his family was relatively wealthy and he no longer had to worry about livelihood. However, due to the twists and turns of life, the family has always maintained the habit of frugality, which is also why Kamprad's later developments set the tone well.

Kamprad started his first business trip at the age of 5.One day, a friend of Kamprad wanted to buy matches with him, but the friend kept complaining that the journey to the store was very long, and said that he would rather spend some of his pocket money, even if it was more expensive. Walked so far to buy matches.Kamprad remembered that he had extra matches at home, so he told his friends that he could do this business with him, so they made a deal—Kamprad earned his "first pot of gold" in his life, although This bucket of "gold" is so insignificant, but it is so significant to Kamprad's life.

After a little longer, he began to sell matches to his neighbors on a bicycle. At that time, he had realized the benefits of "economies of scale". profitable.At the same time, Kamprad also pays attention to the difficulties and needs of the neighbors during the transaction, and he will take the trouble to buy for them any commodities that the neighbors are in short supply. In this way, Kamprad has earned a certain amount of profit. It also strengthened the relationship with his first clients.As time went on, Kamprad's business became bigger and bigger, so that when he could no longer walk on the street, he began his first transformation: he replaced the street peddling with mail order, and created an original notebook made of Mail-order catalogs were used to sell products-this is the earliest prototype of the catalog that IKEA now publishes hundreds of millions of copies every year.

At 17, Kamprad was going to school in Gothenburg.But before he left, he had a whim and wanted to start a company. However, according to the Swedish law at that time, the person who started the company must be at least 18 years old, otherwise someone must provide a guarantee.So, disregarding his family's advice to let him wait for a while, Kamprad Jr. resolutely rode a bicycle to his uncle's house. With his uncle's help, he submitted an application to the county council.In this application, he used the words "IKEA" (now IKEA) for the first time, and the meaning of these words is only his name Ingvar Kamprad (Ingvar Kamprad) and The abbreviation of the farm Elmtaryd (Elmtaryd) and the village Agunnaryd (Agunnaryd) where he grew up, who would have thought that after a few decades, the value of these words would reach more than 70 billion US dollars Giant (2004 US "Business Week" statistics)

It should be said that Kamprad founded IKEA just in the best historical period.It coincided with the end of the Second World War, and although Sweden, which was neutral during the war, was spared the baptism of war, it was also facing a situation of waiting to be rebuilt.At such a moment, Kamprad keenly saw the huge potential for the development of the furniture market, so in 1953, Kamprad decided to give up all other businesses and specialize in the operation of low-priced furniture, and the era of IKEA began. .

In the early days of IKEA, things didn't go very well.At the time, the Swedish domestic furniture market was monopolized by manufacturing and retailing cartels, which relied on order contracts with each other to exclude new competitors.Therefore, in order to deal with the blockade of IKEA products by various domestic furniture exhibitions, Kamprad found an old abandoned factory building and transformed it into the first IKEA warehouse and showroom. Since then, the first "IKEA store" officially born.He also found another way, creating a business model that integrates manufacturers and retailers.This move has greatly reduced the price of household products, which has been welcomed by consumers, and IKEA's business has become increasingly prosperous.Such a result has attracted even more frenzied suppression from competitors. They restricted IKEA from participating in various trade fairs and united to put pressure on IKEA suppliers. But at this time, Kamprad was no longer a child. Know how to use various means to tactfully bypass these restrictions of the opponent.At the time, he was known as "the monster with seven heads" because Kamprad set up a series of different companies with different roles in the market, which made it impossible for competitors to prevent him from attending trade fairs.At the same time, he also launched fierce counterattacks one after another, and the most ruthless move was to announce special prices that competitors could not imagine at the trade fair.

Since then, IKEA has expanded step by step under the indomitable leadership of Kamprad, and no competitor can deter him. On the contrary, the small space in Sweden can no longer accommodate Kamprad's ambition. In the early 20s, Kamprad went to Poland to find low-cost furniture manufacturers.He was impressed by the Polish tradition of wood craftsmanship, appreciation of furniture and low prices. His trip to Poland gave birth to IKEA's first overseas production base.By 60, Kamprad opened the first branch outside Sweden in Oslo, Norway, and the business soon expanded to Denmark and Switzerland. In 1963, IKEA opened up its largest German furniture market in the world, and then entered the Canadian and Dutch markets. In 1974 and 1985, IKEA successfully entered the US and UK markets, and successfully developed the two foreign markets into the current largest and second largest markets.

On the development path of IKEA, each new stage happens naturally, but it is advancing on a tortuous road.When Kamprad Jr. sold his first box of matches, his business talent was revealed, and the drive of material desire was also awakened; when the first mail-order furniture sold better than other small commodities, he felt for the first time An urge to develop from a street peddler to a furniture dealer, he needed many things he couldn't see besides money.In the process of competing with other mail-order companies, when the ever-lowering prices affected the quality of goods and made customers gradually suspicious of the business, he began to realize the relationship between price and popular demand, and then he decided to make an entry into furniture. The new actions in the world began to create a home furnishing kingdom... IKEA has achieved today's achievements by breaking through the rules time and time again, and Kamprad has become a giant that cannot be defeated in the mall by virtue of such an unyielding spirit .

The IKEA "Bible": the unity of harmonious culture and unique skills
Due to its successful operation, IKEA has now become one of the hot topics in many corporate research cases. The question of general interest is: what method made Kamprad, who was empty-handed, become a billionaire? Become a home furnishing empire like McDonald's and KFC in the catering industry, Wal-Mart and Carrefour in the retail industry
After investigation and research, more companies tried to import some of IKEA's store layout and business model, but few succeeded, just like McDonald's and KFC have never lacked imitators, but they have never been able to compete with them. A challenger appears—Is it possible that IKEA can take giant steps in 37 countries on five continents, simply by copying?

The answer is of course no.

You can learn from IKEA to make the same shelves, wear the same clothes as IKEA for employees, open a store as big as IKEA, and even boldly go to IKEA to poach people with high salaries, but the final result may still be "painting a tiger is not an anti-dog". The reason for this is that any simple imitation is only limited to superficial copying, while a successful multinational company going global, in addition to a complete set of external systems, has its deep essence of corporate accumulation, and the latter is precisely the most critical , is also the most difficult to learn.

What IKEA gives us is the harmony and unity of its harmonious corporate culture and unique management skills. Let us take a look at the wonderful experience presented by IKEA.

Company is home, home is company

For any company, corporate culture is the essence of the company and the foundation of a company's survival and growth.

Even more so with IKEA.It has developed from a small mail-order company half a century ago to a large multinational enterprise with more than 190 branches and 7.6 employees today. , Various crises, but it can always rely on a kind of perseverance to stand firm, this is the most valuable and most worth learning.

Kamprad said: "The true IKEA spirit is based on our enthusiasm, our persistent innovation spirit, our cost awareness, our responsibility and willingness to help others, our professionalism, and our simple behavior. As he leads IKEA forward, he will take the lead on many things personally: he will write product descriptions himself, because he feels that this is a direct-to-customer platform and must be taken seriously; he will He took out his wallet to pay the bill after eating a working meal in his store, because he believes that every employee must develop cost awareness; and the frugal behavior he has practiced over the years has now become an example for every IKEA member, and even IKEA cost The foundation of a system that is strong and not broken.

These habits of Kamprad are closely related to his growth experience, but more importantly, he passed this quality to his IKEA in his own way.

(End of this chapter)