IKEA - Five Forces/Profitability Recommendations

Focus on the market structure and sustainability of IKEA and recommend ways on how it can maintain and maximize its prolonged profitability. You are to focus on the Five Forces approach. (Focus more on the threat of substitutes and industry rivalry, therefore entry, power of buyer, power of seller can be briefly touched on but more focus should be on Threat of substitutes and Industry Rivalry) In addition, give insightful and inventive recommendations for maintaining and attaining sustained profitability for IKEA for it to continue to be the #1 Furniture retailer in the world. Focus on answering the following questions. You are to find relevant findings and three recommendations on how to ensure profitability can continue to be sustained. Threat of substitutes • Again, what is the elasticity of the product? • How are business decisions in this industry affected by substitute or complement goods? • Additionally, are there complements that have a significant impact on the market for this product or industry? Industry rivalry • What is the market structure of this industry? • Are there many rivals, such that price competition is strong? • Or are there few if any rivals, such that each firm exhibits market power and has the ability to price above marginal costs? • And if rivalry is low, what can we either show or speculate about economic performance? It should be in 1. Chicago Manual of Style footnotes. Footnotes should cite specific pages from published works. 2. Endnotes or references (separate page) may be used to summarize the footnotes in footnote order 1. 4 Pages - No cover page or background information at the start of the page is needed. 1.5 Spacing and Font style is Times New Roman, 12-point size. 2. Headings should be bolded, and subheadings should be italicized 3. Page numbers should be in the bottom right corner only. Use footers for page numbers 4. All data should be footnoted. Only use quoted material sparingly. Instead, paraphrase, cite correctly and analyze. The focus should be less on descriptive writing, and more on analysis and examples. 5. Must be written at the graduate level