I have posted this blog before on my website about how IKEA adjusts its business model for localisation, thinking it is a good chance to share with you to discuss. Any thoughts and comments are welcomed 🙂

“宜家(yi jia)” is the Chinese name of IKEA, which literally means “Suitable and nice for your home”. Efforts can be seen in the process of expanding IKEA’s market from Europe to North America, from western countries to the oriental world, like Japan, China, South Korea, etc.

In order to set foot in local markets in different countries, IKEA does do many changes to its business model. I want to share some interesting points that I found about how IKEA adapt to the Chinese market.

Target customer segment: In western countries, IKEA serves as the furniture provider for everyone and gets its popularity especially among families with middle or low level income. But when IKEA opened its first store in Beijing in 1999, IKEA products’ high prices scared aways many price-sensitive consumers in China. After realising this, IKEA decided to target its consumer group of young middle-class professionals, who get relatively higher salaries, are better educated and have better understanding of western cultures and design styles. This major strategy change helps IKEA to build the impressions of itself as an aspirational western brand and get many customers.

Value Proposition: in Europe, the value proposition mostly focuses on good quality and stylish furniture with affordable prices for everyone. In China, it slightly changes to good quality, western or more nordic designed aspirational brand for middle-class consumers.

Store location – How the customers are reached? As we can see in many cities, like in Stockholm, IKEA stores are mostly in suburbs with easy access by car. The driving time from Stockholm central to both of the two IKEA stores nearby is about 20 minutes. But considering the situation in China, “Only 20 percent of visitors in Shanghai have cars”, says the marketing manager of IKEA China, Ulf Smedberg, you often find the IKEA stores in the outskirts of cities near public transportation station. Actually I have been to one IKEA store in Shanghai which is quite in the city center, just walking distance away from Shanghai Stadium and two nearby metro stations.

Due to the efforts that IKEA has put to the Chinese markets, IKEA becomes more and more famous and popular in China now. Currently there are 18 IKEA branches in the mainland of China, including 8 of 10 largest IKEA stores in the world. And IKEA China is becoming one of the most important space in business growth thanks to the rapid growing middle-class population in the big cities.

References:
http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/ikea-with-chinese-characteristics/
http://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/lbs-case-study/how-ikea-adapted-its-strategies-to-expand-in-china/story/196322.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA
http://brandongaille.com/ikea-business-model-and-marketing-strategy/
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/09/ikea-sales-rise-china-middle-class

By Zhihao Yang

It’s been an inspiring experience to attend the Start Up Day 2016 to get a “tangible” feeling of the ecosystem of entrepreneurship and innovation in the startup hub – Stockholm.

Here are some of the notes which I made during the speeches that I found interesting and worth spreading.

The day was started by the talk by Nick Kaye, Co-funder of Klarna:
– “Success is luck combines a lot of work.”
– “You need time to do some reflection to know how you are satisfied.” (Nick has found the “White Space” during his vocation, which is doing good by his social entrepreneurship project to be launched during this summer and he referred it as a way to refuel.)
– “Don’t go to all the network events, office is where all the work is done.” (He mentioned that it is important to meet people and exchange ideas, but don’t be obsessed about it.)

Niklas Adalberth, Co-founder, Klarna

The talk “Can our society cope with AI?” given by Christoph Auer-Welsbach, IBM Waston BD Leader Europe, also impressed me a lot.
– “A machine will always reflect the values of its creator.”
– “Human need to adapt quickly and be changed for the new era.”
– “AI is a tool to assist human, not to replace them.”
– “AI could be considered during startups’ product design and development process.” (To my understanding, he was suggesting that startups could adopt AI as new features to improve their products and services, and create more values for users.)

Christoph Auer-Welsbach, IBM Waston BD Leader Europe, IBM

The whole day speeches was ended by Simone Giertz, the famous “Queen of shitty robots”. She builds many robots that are fun but spectacularly useless things. Her videos went virus and famous worldwide. In the talk she explained why she is doing this:
– “The best way to learn is by doing it.” (Learning by doing is her motto.)
– “Idea first, tools later.” (For me, this concept that it is not difficult to implement as long as you have the idea, is little bit hard for me, an engineer student, to understand at first. When we want to build something, the first thing come to our minds is “Is it feasible?”. However, I think, for a creator, innovator, entrepreneur, feasibility might be an constraint for thoughts and innovation.)
– “Your ideas might be smarter than you.” (She said she always got many comments about her video on how her robots could be used to help others’ lives, which she didn’t thought about before. The idea you think is useless might be useful for others.)

Simone Giertz, Inventor / Queen of Shitty Robots

Here is a short video about her “shitty” projects:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcxlSLNH5M0

It’s an intensive day full of ideas and knowledge. The words “#Luck” and “#HardWork” said by Nick in the beginning are used throughout the day by Moderator, Aurore Belfrage. Let’s see how these two words accompany us in our journey of entrepreneurship.

By Zhihao Yang

San Francisco is now the largest city in US to legislate all new buildings of 10 storeys or under to install rooftop solar panels. It is not surprising that San Francisco, US’s leading cleantech hub and head area of start-ups and entrepreneurs, makes this resolution for the environment.

I believe that this is a great step toward a stronger environmental situation in the US and hopefully, if successful, will lead to further legislation in the favour of green energy. Scott Wiener, who introduced the legislation in San Francisco, said in the article; “This legislation will activate our roofs, which are an under-utilised urban resource, to make our city more sustainable and our air cleaner”. Hopefully, the technology of solar panels and perhaps also the strength of the legislation will diffuse into regionally near cities and also across the sea to other continents with a great amount of sunlight.

From an entrepreneurial perspective, this new law is interesting since Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, also was the co-funder and still is the largest shareholder of SolarCity, one of US largest provider of solar power systems. They claim to decrease the electricity cost for the users even though there is an investment cost to get it installed. This new legislation will increase the number of solar panels installed which eventually will lead to economies of scale and the cost of the product will drop further. The solar industry will grow and Elon Musk will be seen as even more successful. It’s all about timing when it comes to be an entrepreneur.

You can read the article about the legislation here: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/21/san-francisco-adopts-law-requiring-solar-panels-on-all-new-buildings

Today, I took part in the Startup day event organized by the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship. It is an event that gathers a thousand people(founders, entrepreneurs, students, VCs, press……) for a full day of eclectic startup inspiration and once-in-a-year networking.

Thanks to this event, I got a chance to listen to many impressive speeches given by some infamous and successful entrepreneurs. The co-founder of Klarna,Niklas Adalberth, talked about how hard-working and lucky he was on the way to make Klarna a billion-dollar Unicorn and now they are devoting to charity to make this world a better place. The Chief Coffee Drinker, York Zucchi, impressed us with his sense of humor and also shared his experience in building startup in emerging market like Africa. Besides, Professor in KTH, Danica Kragic Jensfelt, talked about how robot is changing our life. There were many other amazing speeches and experience-sharing from which I got more or less inspirations.

But there was one speech impressing me the most. It was given by Natalia Brzezinski, who is the CEO of ymposium Stockholm, a feminist as she addressed herself, and to me a really good story teller.

She started her story with story between her daughter and herself. She was born and raised in USA, where people are taught to always be the best. When she moved to Stockholm with her Husband and her 3-year old daughter, She said to her daughter to always be the best at school as that was what she believed in at that time. But Graudually , she found out it was not the same situation here in Sweden. Not like in America, here in Stockholm, no one is the best. She started to feel it and figured out that this was exactly the secret of success in Sweden.

Stockholm is a symbol for new leadership models, new definitions of success and community, and a path -breaker in connecting people around exciting concepts. Entrepreneurs in Sweden,  push  themselves to boundaries and always reach the future first.  This is why Sweden becomes the most creative country and Stockholm becomes a dream place for new ideas and startups.  Think big. Dare to fail. Get out of your comfort zone. This is entrepreneurial spirit all about.

Please give your opinion and discuss in the comment section!

Spotify came out with an open letter bringing up problems with wanting to be located in Sweden, but Sweden nog being compatible for Spotify or other companies (main focus on startups) to grow. Two articles about the open letter, and the open letter from Spotify are linked down below.

Spotify’s structure

Looking at the structure of Spotify, it is clear that Spotify has already begun to move out of Sweden from the beginning. Spotify Technology SA is a holding company incorporated in 2006, based in Luxembourg and is the parent company. Spotify AB is based in Sweden with around 650 employees and handles research and development. Spotify Ltd. is based in England, and operates as the parent company. In total there are 26 offices around the world, and around 1500 employees in total.

What do you think is a better option for Spotify AB (research and development); do be located in Europe, US or Asia?
What do you think about Spotifys claims?
Have you personally experienced problems with housing situations?
The education system – to all the exchange students; did your curriculum involve programming from a young age?

http://swedishstartupspace.com/2016/04/12/spotify-founders-threaten-to-move-from-sweden-in-open-letter/

http://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-founders-blast-swedens-business-environment-in-open-letter-1460479684?shareToken=std597e9a3e46846da9443b2f6a8d26791%3Fmod%3De2fb

The open letter (in Swedish): https://medium.com/@SpotifySE/vi-m%C3%A5ste-agera-eller-bli-omsprungna-383bb0b808eb#.bwjxv2u78

[Side note: Spotify is owned about one-sixth by the four big record labels; Universal Music Group, EMI Music, Warner Music Group, and Sony BMG.]

I attended a lunch seminar held by Stockholm Business Region that presented the Economic Graph based on information from LinkedIn. The main speaker of the event was Sue Duke, Director of Public Policy for Europe LinkedIn, with a panel consisting of Karin Wanngård (Mayor of Stockholm), Lisa Gunnarsson (Head of LinkedIn Nordics), Joseph Michael (Project Manager, Startup/Tech, City of Stockholm), Philip Ahlsén (Talent Acquisition Manager, Klarna) and Martin Ganeteg (HRIS Manager, SCA).

Karin Wanngård started the seminar by telling us the vision of Stockholm being a sustainable city, financially, democratically and environmentally, and being a hub for new recruitment and talent. Wanngård is also one of the people behind the project Dataslöjd, putting programming on the curriculum.

After that Sue Duke presented the Economic Graph, showing us why Silicon Valley is calling Stockholm Silicon Forrest and Tech-city of Europe.

Lastly there was a panel taking up some interesting thing. Big turnover is usually seen as a bad thing, but instead it should be seen as growing and getting new networks, fresh ideas and talents. Klarna has a mindset that the organization are getting the talents, rather than talents finding them.

For some reason my pictures don’t want to post in a good quality so I’ll tell you about some of the results and bring the report to our next class.

Top skills for Sweden’s workforce (consists of 20, top five listed below)
1. IT Infrastructure and System Management
2. Sales
3. Graphical Design
4. Software Engineering Management and Requirements Gathering
5. Management Consulting, Business Strategy and Analysis

What Stockholm’s workforce looks like – Top industries
1. Technology 16 % (exceeds global average by 15 %)
2. Professional Services 14 %
3. Government/Non-profit 13 % (almost double than global)

What Stockholm’s workforce looks like – Top job function
1. Sales 12 %
2. Operations 8 %
3. Information Technology 8 % (exceeds the global average by 68 %)

Unique/Standout skills of Stockholm’s workforce
1. User Interface
2. Software Engineering Management and Requirements Gathering
3. Strategy and Strategic Planning (including Entrepreneurship and Market Strategies)

Sue made a remark that Sweden has a unique width, from back to front end, that can be seen throughout the report.

Skills that are more likely to have been hired in the past 12 months
1. Social Media Marketing 39 %
2. Mobile Development 34 %
3. Digital and Online Marketing 29 %

Top alma maters of members
1. Stockholm University
2. KTH Royal Institute of Technology
3. Uppsala University

Distribution of degree types
Doctorate Degree 8 %
Master’s Degree 61 %
Bachelor’s Degree 30 %

The global average for Master’s Degree is 32 %

Attracting talent nationally and globally
Stockholm has talent inflow from Uppsala, Gothenburg, United States, United Kingdom and India. Stockholm has no talent outflow. This means that we loose no talent to what we gain, which is extremely rare.

Connection
Members in Stockholm share the most connections both nationally and internationally. Usually there are just local regions, but Stockholm has Copenhagen, London, Olso and New York. Great global hubs.

Some links to check out
http://www.investstockholm.com/news/stockholm-identified-as-tech-talent-magnet/
https://linkedin.confetti.events/
https://twitter.com/sthlmitregion
http://economicgraphchallenge.linkedin.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stockholm-identified-tech-talent-magnet-karin-wanng%C3%A5rd

economicgraph.linkedin.com
#economicgraph

/Paulina

As a student you always have a list of tasks that needs to be done. My personal task list range from programming a mathematical optimization model to doing my laundry. As any other student, I am my own boss in terms of deciding when these tasks needs to be done. This lies in sharp contrast to the working life that I have experienced so far, where you have other people depending on your work getting done in time and definite deadlines. While it may seem like sweet deal to have the freedom of deciding of when your tasks needs to be done, you also have different incentives for actually getting the tasks the done. Rather than letting down your team, you let down yourself when you do not complete your tasks on time. At least for me, this makes the stakes lower for completing tasks when studying compared to when I am working. This opens the door for procrastination, i.e. postponing your work.

According to this article in The Guardian, studies show that as much as 70 % of university students procrastinate in when studying. In the article you get helpful tips such as separating your workspace from where you have fun and avoiding answering emails while completing you tasks. While these are all helpful tips, I would like to make an addition in form of apps that helps you get motivated and more productive. This list should helpful for students and self-employed people (such as entrepreneurs) that have the freedom of choosing when you want work and what tasks you want to complete.

1. Streaks helps you form routines. Choose tasks that you want complete on a regular basis, whether it is daily, semi-daily or weekly. Once the task is completed you mark it as such. After a while, if you stick to your routines, you will have streaks corresponding to how many times in a row you have completed the task. As the streaks gets longer you get more incentive to keep the streak going. This helped me forming a habit of getting up at 7 am every weekday even though my lecture schedule allows me to sleep in basically every day.
   

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2.  Wunderlist is a smart way of keeping track of your tasks that needs to be done. You can categorize and prioritize your tasks and set reminders. Writing this blog post was on my under my todo-list for the course ME2603.
   

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3.  Noisli is a great way of using sounds to create a great environment for studying or working. It has been shown that a moderate level of noise increases creativity and I can personally say that Noisli is a great way of creating your own sound environment and drown out annoying noises.
   

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