IKEA’s Blueprint for Global
Commercial Agility

The Catalyst for Change: A Labyrinth of Spreadsheets

Although IKEA is a very successful company with roughly €40 billion in revenue, they were not immune to the planning
challenges that face complex organizations. The millions of spreadsheets used to organize the chaos of promotions for
12,000+ products across more than 480 global stores made it challenging to collaborate and be agile.

Marcel shares a screenshot of the inefficient and ineffective labyrinth of Excel files that IKEA co-workers used to
manage plans and results for commercial activities across 480+ global stores [11:14].

While spreadsheets worked for a time, these disconnected documents were inefficient as the company grew [6:45].
Marcel outlined three of the critical challenges IKEA faced as a result of using spreadsheets:

1. Inefficient use of time was costing IKEA millions.

IKEA co-workers (what IKEA calls their employees) spent more than 8 hours a week collecting data, visualizing trends, and sharing campaign data since results were spread across different spreadsheets and systems—none of which had a common language or taxonomy. This was costing IKEA millions of euros each year in time that could be better spent elsewhere.

2. Limited visibility of performance data led to slower pivots.

IKEA didn’t have a central hub for viewing real-time performance metrics across markets or stores. This lack of visibility meant it would take the team about 30 days to change plans based on customer behavior. If a campaign was underperforming—or required more stock—it would take the business a while to realize it and make adjustments quickly.

3. Stores couldn’t keep up with digital campaigns

IKEA’s stores are one of their most prominent media channels. But, as IKEA began using more digital channels—like social media, email, and their website—to communicate promotions with customers, it became harder to keep coworkers in the loop on all of their campaigns. This meant co-workers were not always prepared when customers asked about specific products or prices they’d seen online, which was impacting the customer experience.

“It takes a significant amount of time from our co-workers—who actually need to focus on our customers in the store and to focus on operational excellence,” says Marcel. He knew they needed a better way to promote sales and drive growth without impacting the brand’s reputation—and that it wouldn’t be through giving everyone access to a spreadsheet.

How IKEA and Uptempo Solved the Planning and Calendar Problem

Marcel’s team and Uptempo set out to create a scalable foundation for planning and executing global commercial activities. IKEA and Uptempo co-created three major products to create a centralized system of record for co-workers [14:30]. Marcel describes the three new products that power IKEA’s commercial planning:

1. Uptempo’s marketing planning and calendar solution (dubbed “CAMP” internally).

Uptempo captures IKEA’s customer-facing campaigns and promotions in a centralized plan for the year, replacing most spreadsheets. “Uptempo more or less synchronizes and democratizes the planning for all commercial activities,” says Marcel. “You have a much better overview of what’s happening, not only on a market level but down to a store level.”

2. TAKT, their tool for viewing sales and campaign performance data.

This in-house tool connects planning data from Uptempo to other data sources to better show the performance of each campaign. “You can figure out if there is stock available for an increased volume campaign,” says Marcel.

3. CAMP TV, their in-store communication tool.

In-store screens show co-workers a centralized, up-to-date marketing calendar that shares which specific promotions are impacting their store. “We take a lighter version of CAMP and show it in each respective store,” says Marcel. This way, co-workers can be better informed if customers have questions about specific campaigns or products.

Marcel shares a view into CAMP and shows how IKEA co-workers can see all the commercial activities and campaigns planned for the entire year at every level: global, market, and store [21:40].

Marcel describes the three products together as a “fantastic synergy to address all of the commercial activities.” He shares that the highlight of all they’ve built is the real-time data. “You can actually look in all stores and see what store is overperforming,” Marcel says [23:40]. “You can reach out to them, get some lessons learned, and share them with other stores. Or if you see a store is underperforming, you can reach out to them while the campaign is still ongoing and help them to get back on track.”

Streamlined promotion orchestration for 180,000 co-workers

The team tracks 90% of customer-facing activities in CAMP, which makes visualizing performance metrics faster and easier. This real-time view of campaign data and calendar of activities helps IKEA adjust plans on the fly to improve promotion ROI. With the addition of CAMP TV, co-workers in stores can keep up with all of IKEA’s digital campaigns. They can quickly determine if they have enough stock, push the right products, and create a cohesive customer
experience.

124,000 hours in time savings

By automating reporting activities in Uptempo, IKEA reduced the time co-workers spent manually compiling and sharing data by 124,000 hours per year. Marcel shares that they expect to see 160,000 hours in time saved next year [19:20]. IKEA’s automated systems have also helped reduce human errors in their reporting process.

€20 million in annual ROI

The time co-workers spent collecting, visualizing, and reporting important data cost the company millions of euros each year. Marcel shares that by reducing the time spent on these activities through a central, automated reporting tool, IKEA has reduced these costs—and realized an ROI of €20 million each year with their new campaign planning and reporting products [35:00].

What’s next for the digital business planning team? Marcel shares that they want to grow adoption across IKEA coworkers and continue training current users on how to get the full potential out of these three products. They also hope to explore how AI tools could analyze their data and suggest improvements automatically.