Henning Wenzel & Andreas Förster 
Blue Ocean Strategy. How IKEA created a new market [PDF ebook] 

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics — Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1, 7, University of applied sciences, Cologne, course: International Strategy and Sales Management, language: English, abstract: This assignment describes the Blue Ocean Strategy as an innovation concept within the corporate strategic management on the example of IKEA. This is to be done by analysing the framework and the tools of the Blue Ocean Strategy by considering both basic principles and practical implementation.
The Blue Ocean Strategy aspires to turn strategic management on its head by putting “value innovation” in front of “competitive advantage” as the basically goal to create consumer demand and exploit untapped markets. When IKEA entered the market in the late 1950s they focused on the important factors that buyer value and make them to co-producers by implementing unique do-it-yourself mentality. Therefor IKEA combined differentiation with a cost leadership and created a blue ocean helping the founder Ingvar Kamprad to become one of the wealthiest people in the world. As the current business world continues moving towards a faster, more global environment in which there are more and more competitors trying to grab a piece of the pie, the need to develop blue oceans has never been greater.