Capitalising on Uncertainty can prove to be pivotal to businesses.
How?
Let’s understand!
In the 1960s, IKEA was primarily a mail-order furniture company based in Sweden. They opened their second retail store in 1965, thanks to low real estate costs. But a major challenge was incoming- the Swedish government announced plans to raise sales taxes the next week.
As a result, 18000 customers flooded the store on the opening day itself. Obviously, there was not enough staff to manage the crowd and hence the overwhelmed store manager told customers to pick up their own items from the warehouse. He apologized to IKEA’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad, saying that this would never happen again.
However, Kamprad began contemplating and asked the manager once more to confirm if customers had been ‘willing’ to pick up their goods from the warehouse and bring them to checkout. The manager replied “Yes”, but in a nervous tone.
So, Kamprad announced that from then on this would be the norm for all IKEA stores. The unexpected crush on opening day drove a pivotal change to the company’s business model, which reduced staff costs and became a key element in IKEA’s future success.
The problem of understaffing was an opportunity in disguise and Kamprad capitalised on it through the right attitude.
#Milyin #Creation
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