Question

Ingvar Kamprad’s influence over IKEA may have even been stronger than that of Sam Walton over Walmart because IKEA is a privately held company, whereas Walmart is a public company (since 1970). Walmart entered a period of difficulties after Sam Walton stepped down (in 1988 at age 70). Do you think IKEA had similar difficulties after it endured a similar leadership transition in 2013 when Ingvar Kamprad stepped down? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Answer:

There are similarities in the way businesses are run, but the management and influencing capacity on both are completely different.

Though during the founding days both the organizations, IKEA and Walmart operated under direct influence of the founders.

Also,  power and responsibility is more shared, though there would be some adaptation and conflict changes that is expected, but it is differently structured than Walmart and would not suffer much.

Explanation:

Solution:

Now,

There are similarities in the way businesses are run, but the management and influencing capacity on both are completely different.

Though during the founding days both the organizations, IKEA and Walmart operated under direct influence of the founders.

Where as Walmart still had a lot of key decisions directly made through the founders,

• Key global expansion

• Key local management

Everything was micro managed from the HQ through Sam.

But after the few years of success, the model of IKEA remained same but they went to several countries and became more regional.

Global decisions were made from The HQ under the direct supervision of Ingvar  But all the key regional war was given to a CEO, who had all the decisions to make.

This way there was a lot of power sharing and responsibility distributed. In case of any problem, HQ has interruptions to make it correct.

This implies power and responsibility is more shared, though there would be some issues and adaptation changes that is expected, but it is differently structured than Walmart and would not suffer that much.

Therefore, No the effect would not be similar to that of Walmart leadership transition.