The Truth About IKEA

Johan Stenebo worked at IKEA for about twenty years, including as an assistant to Ingvar Kamprad, and wrote this critical account after leaving.

The business material covers the operating model: the flat-pack design that transfers assembly labour to the customer and reduces shipping volume, the cost discipline applied to every component and process, the supplier relationships and the pressure applied to them, the store layout designed to route customers past the entire range, and the product development process that begins with a target price and works backward to a design.

The critical material concerns the corporate structure and the culture. Stenebo describes the ownership arrangement in which the operating business is held by a Dutch foundation, Stichting INGKA, with the trademarks held separately by another entity, an arrangement that minimises tax and makes the group effectively unownable and unaccountable to outside shareholders. He describes Kamprad's personal control despite formal retirement, the treatment of executives, and the gap between the company's public image and its internal conduct. He also covers Kamprad's wartime involvement with a Swedish fascist movement, which Kamprad acknowledged. The book is a disgruntled former executive's account and should be read as one; IKEA disputed parts of it. The description of the ownership structure is factually accurate and is the material least available elsewhere.