IKEA

In my role at IKEA as a Sales Steering Specialist/Customer Experience Specialist I was responsible for managing the business, supply and logistical store actions and presenting the product range for 5 different departments out of a total of 18 home furnishing departments. While working in this role I was required to work on a multitude of tasks and different projects for each of my departments and for the sales and supply management of the articles within these departments. My role was structured as a team of four to five other specialists with no direct reporting team that worked with us, so we were essentially each an entire ‘team’ that was responsible for the areas and departments we were assigned to manage.

The departments were divided up along the three ‘core areas’ of home furnishing at Ikea - Kitchens, Living Room & Storage, and Bedrooms. I was responsible for the bedrooms ‘core area’ and managed the bedroom furniture and mattress department, clothing and storage department, children’s department, bed and bath textiles department and the bathroom furniture department.

The bedrooms core area was the highest sales volume area of the store and the bedroom furniture department was the largest department in terms of sales volume and gross profits, with a large business focus on the growth of this section over a span of two to three years with planned products and new offers outlined from home office.

I was asked to lead a bedroom furniture department remodel as the focus and growth on the bedrooms department meant that all stores were recommended to begin a large effort and focus on driving business growth through a number of actions and approaches.

This remodel project that I directed and managed with a group of almost 20 people helping alongside me, including some co-workers from our field office and other co-workers from outside of Minnesota was a large undertaking but well worth the energy, highlighted from the results that came from all the work and effort put into this.

Below I outline the department and bedroom compact in the showroom area with the ‘before’ state and layout, the opportunities identified to better improve the overall business and customer shopping experience, and the ‘after’ state with the sales results of the remodel. I have also provided my individual actions and tasks within the remodel that are in addition to my managing the project from start to finish.

I only had a day to execute the floor plan and layout on the Monday the project started, with the entire project completed by Friday of that week. Working on this in an agile environment with multiple co-workers from all different functions and areas of the store was both a challenge but an extremely rewarding experience.