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How Ikea Handled Covid-19

Instructions

CASE Analysis

This take-home exam provides you an opportunity to read and think about which theories, models, techniques and tools can be effectively applied to the management of change in the case organization suggested below. Choose only one of the cases and discuss which of the approaches from the literature can best be used to explain, and reflect upon, the situation since January 2020. Provide your advice to the managers of the Case that you have chosen. Identify the branch, business sector and management styles that can best manage the change that has been going on since the emergence or publicity of Covid-19. Your discussion should be based on realistic facts from the Case organizations, which means you should include information from the organizations or Companies or companies.

Evaluation criteria include

1. Completeness of the report (9-10 pages)
2. Critical comments and quality of your argument
3. Relevance of your recommendation to management and the extent to which they are anchored to the literature
4. Correct use of the structure of the Report. Follow the USBE thesis manual of references. Wrong us may not be appropriate for evaluation

Choose ONLY one the following Cases in your analysis

• IKEA, Umeå,
• Norrlands universitetssjukhus
• COOP or ICA in Umeå
• Umeå University
• Comfort Hotel Umeå City

How Ikea handle/handled Covid-19

Multinational corporations aspire to continue acquiring a larger market share in the current dynamic world. However, preparedness to embrace changes in times of crisis is a vital aspect to maintain this trend. The COVID-19 pandemic imposed negative impacts on businesses while necessitating the closure of others.  With the rapid demands to adjust to the crisis, organizational change poised an equally important aspect to embrace the market changing conditions. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how IKEA handled the COVID-19 pandemic through the theories of change management, as a multinational group that designs and sells furniture, home accessories, and kitchen appliances.  As the world’s biggest furniture retailer, Ikea’s range of possible responses to the pandemic are of different scale and order than most competitors.

Below is a discussion of the theories and models applied by IKEA in change management during the coronavirus era.

Digitalization Theory in caring for people

An essential aspect of any organization is its ability to establish strong immune system that can sustain it during threatening moments. While coronavirus did not allow companies to prepare in advance, IKEA was on toes during its onset to embrace the precautionary measures as ordered by the public health authorities. During the pandemic, various mandatory safety precautions were required to be put in place to control the spread of disease. Caring for people being among IKEA’s values, the company did not hesitate to put the measures in place. These measures were implemented at various services points of the company. For instance, once the workers report to work, they wear gloves and surgical masks, and sanitize regularly. Further, the company had long digitalized most of its operations which played a critical role during the pandemic in allowing social distancing between the customers and the co-workers (Haraldsson, Johansson & Lilja, 2020).  The enormous degree of automatization at IKEA was useful in altering the nature of tasks-operations such as the click and collect services.  However, the company has maintained its carefulness not to delete the employees’ value through replacement by technology through endorsing them to ‘up skilling’ programs that aid them to embrace a digital environment. As the ‘new’ world requires social distancing, the employees have continued to provide services to customers through online platforms (Haraldsson et al., 2020). Therefore, the connectedness between the company and customers has remained constant, even without physical interactions.