Design thinking is a new concept for innovative problem solving that nowadays a lot of business… 1 answer below »

1. Introduction
Design thinking is a new concept for innovative problem solving that nowadays a lot of business organizations are using rapidly. However, still, for a lot of organizations it is unclear whether design thinking can actually bring positive impacts on an organization or not. The purpose of this report is to analyze the same by elaborating the impacts of design thinking on the world’s leading furniture manufacturing organization IKEA. In this report, the impacts of design thinking on IKEA is elaborated by using the strategic tool and business model canvas of the organization. In the end, recommendations are provided for IKEA to further improve its innovation process.
2. Background of IKEA
IKEA is a multinational business organization that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture products along with kitchen appliances and home accessories. Headquartered in Leiden, Netherlands, IKEA has over 400 stores active in over 50 nations around the world. IKEA was founded in Sweden in 1943 by a 17 years old carpenter named as Ingvar Kamprad who was listed as one of the richest persons in the world by Forbes in 2015. The main competitive advantage of IKEA is its huge product as the online website of IKEA includes over 12,000 products. That is why IKEA experienced over 2 billion visitors to its website from 2015 to 2018 and in the financial year of 2018 IKEA sold over $44 billion worth products. IKEA is also responsible for almost 1% of the entire world's commercial-product wood consumption that makes it the largest user of woods in the retail sector ("Company Information – IKEA", 2019).