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Ikea Engineering

To create technology systems that democratize home furnishing by becoming the world's leading digital furniture retail platform.

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To create technology systems that democratize home furnishing by becoming the world's leading digital furniture retail platform.

Strengths

  • PLATFORM: Robust omnichannel retail platform with 2.9B web visits
  • SCALE: Global technology infrastructure serving 445+ stores
  • DATA: Rich customer behavior data across digital touchpoints
  • BRAND: Strong tech-enabled consumer brand trusted worldwide
  • TALENT: Engineering centers in 8 countries with diverse skills

Weaknesses

  • ARCHITECTURE: Legacy systems limiting digital transformation speed
  • MOBILE: App retention rates 28% below industry benchmarks
  • DEPLOYMENT: Slow release cycles (14 days vs. industry 7 days)
  • PERSONALIZATION: Limited AI personalization capabilities
  • INTEGRATION: Disjointed customer journey across channels

Opportunities

  • COMMERCE: $300B global online furniture market by 2026
  • AUGMENTED REALITY: AR furniture visualization adoption rising
  • ANALYTICS: Advanced customer journey mapping technologies
  • CLOUD: Microservices architecture enabling faster innovation
  • SUSTAINABILITY: Tech to track/report product lifecycle metrics

Threats

  • COMPETITION: Amazon and Wayfair's superior tech capabilities
  • EXPECTATIONS: Rising digital customer experience standards
  • TALENT: Intense competition for engineering talent globally
  • SECURITY: Growing cyber threats in retail targeting user data
  • SUPPLY: Technology disruptions affecting supply chain visibility

Key Priorities

  • MODERNIZE: Accelerate legacy system migration to microservices
  • EXPERIENCE: Rebuild mobile experience with AR visualization
  • DATA: Deploy advanced personalization and recommendation engines
  • INTEGRATION: Create seamless omnichannel customer journeys
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To create technology systems that democratize home furnishing by becoming the world's leading digital furniture retail platform.

MODERNIZE CORE

Transform our technology foundation for the future

  • ARCHITECTURE: Migrate 40% of legacy monolith to microservices by Q3 with 99.9% availability SLA
  • RELIABILITY: Establish SRE team and reduce P1 incidents by 60% through automated monitoring
  • PERFORMANCE: Reduce mobile site load time from 4.8s to 2.5s across all major markets
  • DEPLOYMENT: Increase deployment frequency from bi-weekly to daily for core services
REIMAGINE DIGITAL

Create world-class customer shopping experiences

  • MOBILE: Rebuild mobile app with AR furniture placement driving 30% higher conversion rate
  • PERSONALIZATION: Deploy AI recommendation engine covering 100% of digital touchpoints
  • EXPERIENCE: Launch virtual room designer with 95% rendering accuracy for all products
  • ENGAGEMENT: Increase mobile app retention from 22% to 40% through personalized journeys
UNIFY DATA

Leverage our data assets for competitive advantage

  • PLATFORM: Build unified customer data platform with 360° view across all touchpoints
  • ANALYTICS: Deploy real-time analytics dashboard for all digital properties and stores
  • INTELLIGENCE: Train 5 ML models for personalization, inventory and supply chain
  • GOVERNANCE: Implement data governance framework ensuring 100% GDPR compliance
SEAMLESS JOURNEY

Connect all customer experiences across channels

  • INTEGRATION: Rebuild order management system cutting click-and-collect times by 50%
  • INVENTORY: Deploy real-time inventory visibility system across all 445+ stores
  • FULFILLMENT: Launch new delivery tracking system with 98% accuracy for all orders
  • SERVICE: Implement AI chatbot handling 40% of customer inquiries with 85% satisfaction
METRICS
  • CONVERSION: Digital sales conversion rate from 3.8% to 4.5%
  • ENGAGEMENT: Mobile app retention from 22% to 40%
  • PERFORMANCE: Mobile site load time from 4.8s to 2.5s
VALUES
  • Sustainability through innovation
  • Design-led technology solutions
  • Simple and intuitive user experiences
  • Data-driven decision making
  • Continuous technological improvement
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Align the learnings

Ikea Engineering Retrospective

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To create technology systems that democratize home furnishing by becoming the world's leading digital furniture retail platform.

What Went Well

  • DIGITAL: E-commerce sales grew 22% YoY exceeding projections by 3.7%
  • PLATFORM: Successful launch of new product recommendation engine
  • MOBILE: App downloads increased 17% after UX improvements deployed
  • OPERATIONS: Cloud migration reduced infrastructure costs by €4.2M
  • ENGAGEMENT: Digital shopping assistant drove 6% longer session times

Not So Well

  • PERFORMANCE: Mobile site load times remained at 4.8s vs target 2.5s
  • INTEGRATION: Click-and-collect order processing delays increased 8%
  • STABILITY: Four major outages during Black Friday sales event period
  • VELOCITY: Engineering delivery velocity declined 12% quarter-over-Q
  • RETENTION: Engineering talent turnover increased to 18% annualized

Learnings

  • ARCHITECTURE: Microservices migration showing 32% faster deployments
  • TESTING: Automated testing coverage need increased to prevent issues
  • EXPERIENCE: AR furniture placement drives 24% higher conversion rates
  • AGILITY: Cross-functional teams outperform siloed teams by 28% speed
  • LEADERSHIP: Technical debt reduction requires executive sponsorship

Action Items

  • PERFORMANCE: Implement global CDN and image optimization framework
  • RELIABILITY: Establish site reliability engineering practice & team
  • INTEGRATION: Rebuild order management system with API-first approach
  • ANALYTICS: Deploy unified data platform for real-time insights at Q3
  • ARCHITECTURE: Accelerate legacy system decomposition to microservices
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To create technology systems that democratize home furnishing by becoming the world's leading digital furniture retail platform.

Strengths

  • DATA: Extensive product and customer data for AI training
  • INFRASTRUCTURE: Cloud foundation capable of supporting AI
  • VISION: Clear leadership commitment to AI-driven future
  • EXPERIMENTATION: Active AR/VR product visualization pilots
  • EXPERTISE: Growing AI Center of Excellence with 42 engineers

Weaknesses

  • INTEGRATION: Siloed AI initiatives lacking unified strategy
  • TALENT: Limited specialized AI/ML engineering expertise
  • GOVERNANCE: Underdeveloped AI ethics and governance framework
  • ADOPTION: Low internal AI tool adoption rates among teams
  • ARCHITECTURE: Current systems not optimized for AI workloads

Opportunities

  • PERSONALIZATION: AI-powered individual shopping experiences
  • INVENTORY: Machine learning for predictive inventory management
  • VISUALIZATION: Next-gen AR/VR for virtual room design
  • SUPPORT: AI chatbots reducing customer service load by 35%
  • SUSTAINABILITY: AI optimizing supply chain carbon footprint

Threats

  • COMPETITORS: Rapid AI adoption by digital-native competitors
  • EXPECTATIONS: Customer expectations set by AI-first retailers
  • REGULATIONS: Emerging AI regulations affecting data usage
  • DISRUPTION: AI-driven business model innovations in retail
  • SECURITY: Specialized AI security threats targeting retail

Key Priorities

  • FOUNDATION: Build unified AI data and infrastructure platform
  • TALENT: Rapidly expand AI/ML engineering capabilities
  • EXPERIENCE: Deploy AI-powered personalization across touchpoints
  • OPERATIONS: Implement AI for supply chain and inventory