Excellence at IKEA

The chain-linked activities should form an unusual grouping such that expertise in one does not easily carry over to expertise at the others. 

For IKEA'S set of policies to be a source of sustained competitive excellence, three conditions must hold:

• IKEA must perform each of its core activities with outstanding efficiency and effectiveness.
• These core activities must be sufficiently chain-linked that a rival cannot grab business away from IKEA by adopting only one of them and performing it well.  That is, a tradition furniture manufacturer that adds a ready-to-assemble line is no real threat to IKEA, nor is a traditional retailer that adds a catalog.
• The chain-linked activities should form an unusual grouping such that expertise in one does not easily carry over to expertise at the others.  Thus, a traditional furniture retailer that did add a catalog would still have to master design and logistics and build vastly larger stores to begin to compete with IKEA.  Plus, looking beyond traditional furniture companies, there are no potential competitors that possess the this mix of resources and competencies.

ACTION POINT: Build a sustained strategic advantage by creating constellations of activities that are chain-linked.  It will add extra effectiveness to the strategy and makes it difficult of the competition to imitate.