Abstract
PurposeThe paper aims to clarify how an incumbent retail organisation explores digitalisation for its existing business.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws from an in-depth case study of home-furnishing retail giant, IKEA conducted with semi-structured interviews, participant observations and document analyses.FindingsIn the exploration phase of digitalisation, three major activities – interpreting, interrelating and integrating – illuminate how the exploration process can be organised in practice.Originality/valueAlthough digitalisation ranks amongst the most significant ongoing transformations in retail businesses, research on how incumbent retail organisations have engaged in exploring digitalisation in practice has remained scarce. The paper contributes insights into digitalisation processes in retail businesses that may also apply to other trends affecting the retail industry.
Highlights
Digitalisation, defined as the “integration of digital technologies into everyday life by the digitization of everything that can be digitized” (Hagberg et al, 2016, p. 696), ranks amongst the most significant ongoing transformations in business, one that has introduced new ways of doing business whilst challenging established ones (Leeflang et al, 2014)
Our in-depth case study focussed on IKEA, a global home-furnishing retail company, and its work with developing an understanding of digitalisation
We have provided an account based upon our in-depth case study of IKEA and how the company explored digitalisation at an early stage
Summary
Digitalisation, defined as the “integration of digital technologies into everyday life by the digitization of everything that can be digitized” (Hagberg et al, 2016, p. 696), ranks amongst the most significant ongoing transformations in business, one that has introduced new ways of doing business whilst challenging established ones (Leeflang et al, 2014). Participant observations and field observations of IKEA stores – Meetings with project manager, in total 11 h 36 min, recorded and transcribed together with field notes – In situ observations together with IKEA staff in Altona, Hamburg, Germany taking notes and photos within the store, in total 10 h – Complementary field observations focussed on digital solutions in IKEA stores in Gothenburg and J€onk€oping, Sweden, taking notes and photos within the stores Both written document and visual communication of three different types – Internal documents about the pre-study: “The Future role of the IKEA store in a multichannel environment”, the “IKEA Altona Store opening”, “IKEA Altona booklet”, the “E-Commerce Programme” and the “Multichannel Transformation Programme” – Public IKEA websites with information about their online services, the IKEA Vision and business idea and the IKEA history – Visual communication: Internal movie about the customer’s future digital journey “Shop with Laura”. We reorganised the material and wrote a case narrative structured according to the three abovementioned activities as presented
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