The Netherlands: Hand sanitizer in Netherlands Ikea replaced with drain cleaner

At least three people suffered chemical burns at an Ikea in the Netherlands after the contents of a hand sanitizer bottle were replaced with drain cleaner.

Police say a cleaning woman who was not a native Dutch speaker made the swap accidentally, according to NOS.

IKEAs across the Netherlands closed voluntarily in response to the coronavirus pandemic. They are reopening, but allowing fewer customers inside.

Read more at
Hand sanitizer in Netherlands Ikea replaced with drain cleaner - Insider

Sweden - Furniture Industry: Ikea to slash 7,500 jobs, focus on smaller stores in city centers - by James Rufus Koren

Furniture giant Ikea plans to cut 7,500 jobs worldwide as part of a plan to cater more to online customers, the company said Wednesday.

The shakeup at the Swedish firm, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, shows that even Ikea - known for its massive suburban stores and affordable assemble-yourself furniture - is not immune to the online competition that has affected other brick-and-mortar retailers.

Most of the job cuts will not hit Ikea's retail workers, but rather those in office positions including human resources and communications, the Journal said.

Read more: Ikea to slash 7,500 jobs, focus on smaller stores in city centers

Sweden - Cash-Free: Ikea to test cash-free store in Sweden

Swedish furniture giant Ikea is going to use its Gävle location to test out whether it can go completely cash-free nationwide.

Ikea said that customers in Gävle, an eastern city best known for its giant straw Christmas goat, were strongly in favour of abandoning cash.

“In our surveys, the vast majority of customers have said that cash payments are no longer important.

Today we use a fair amount of resources on handling cash but we’d prefer to use them on something else,” Patric Burstein, the head of customer relations at the Gävle store, told Dagens Nyheter.

Ikea said that its cashless test would begin in Gävle on October 1st. If all goes well, the company plans to eliminate cash payments in all of its Swedish locations.

Department store Åhléns is also testing the idea of going cashless, with three of its locations currently not accepting cash payments.

Swedes use their debit cards three times as frequently as most Europeans and with the popularity of smartphone payment apps like Swish, it has been predicted that Sweden will be completely cash-free by 2030

Read more: Ikea to test cash-free store in Sweden - The Local

Sweden: Apple is working with Ikea to bring virtual furniture to your home

Jim Cook gave a brief mention of plans for a collaboration with Ikea, with the furniture chain bringing 3D models of its various wares into Apple’s nascent augmented-reality platform,

Now, an interview in a Swedish publication has shone a little more light on what shape this partnership will take. As reported by 9to5Mac, Ikea’s digital transformation manager Michael Valdsgaard told Digital.di that the company plans for all of its beds, chairs, cabinets and so on to come in both physical and AR versions.

“This will be the first augmented-reality app that allows you to make reliable buying decision […] When we launch new products, they will come first in the AR app.”

According to Valdsgaard, users will be able to use an Apple device to look around their home, plonking virtual items of furniture on their actual carpet with “millimetre-precise” positioning. Not only with the scale of the virtual object keep in line with its real surroundings, but so will the lighting.

The idea is that you’ll be able to see an augmented-reality layout of your home, to get a better sense of, say, what shade of leather chair looks good beside your enormous stuffed moose.

9to5Mac believes the tool might initially be used in-store, although this seems to defeat the point of the AR app, which is presumably centred on bringing Ikea items (in virtual form) into your own living room. Of course, the heart of all of this is ecommerce, and Ikea is sure to have very obvious links between its 3D models and ways to buy the actual products. What? Did you think Apple and Ikea wanted to make an AR Sims game? Not that that’s completely unheard of...

Valdsgaard said that Ikea is working on a “tight deadline”, so whether or not this tool appears in times for iOS 11 remains to be seen. We wouldn’t be surprised if Apple does a showcase of the tech during its iPhone 8 launch in September

Read more: Apple is working with Ikea to bring virtual furniture to your home |

Sweden: How IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad became a billionaire - by Tanza Loudenback

Swedish business magnate Ingvar Kamprad has been at the helm of IKEA, one of the world's largest furniture stores and most beloved brands, for more than 70 years.

With a net worth of $48.1 billion, he's now one of the world's richest self-made billionaires.

Kamprad remains boldly innovative, inherently simplistic, and incredibly wealthy.

From humble beginnings selling holiday tchotchkes to his neighbors as a child, here's how Kamprad started a privately held $11.8 billion furniture revolution and became a billionaire.

Read more: How IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad became a billionaire - Business Insider

Energy Renewables and the Private Sector: IKEA a shining star when it comes to efforts made by the private sector

The lion’s share of debate about the progress of renewable energy is missing an important dimension. It seems that the media, banks and NGOs largely value the worth of each renewable source by their rate of adoption at the national and international level. These measurements seem to rely on macro-economic indicators or on agreements such as that made last week by the U.S. and China. However, the efforts of private corporations to go green, while not wholly unnoticed, do not seem to weigh in. It would make no sense in most other industries to measure their health purely by public efforts. In fact, many renewable energy developers today are seeking to change their industry’s reputation as being dependent on government subsidies and costly to the taxpayer with little return. One way to fight this reputation is to show concrete evidence of global corporations going renewable. This week has given plenty of evidence of just that, with IKEA, Google and Amazon all making real commitments.

Back in March, IKEA acquired the Hoopeston wind farm in Illinois, which is set to produce more than enough energy to power all its stores and distribution stores in the country. 65% more. But this energy will not be sent to IKEA’s stores, instead, the Swedish retailer will sell it off as part of a strategy to offset its entire consumption by 2020. This week, an ever bigger announcement came. IKEA has purchased a 165MW wind farm in Cameron County, Texas, marking “the single largest renewable energy investment made by the IKEA Group globally to date.” IKEA goes on to say that it will invest $1.9 billion in renewables by the end of 2015.

Where IKEA is investing in renewables to offset its energy usage, Google and Amazon are doing so for a far more practical reason: data centers have incredibly high energy consumption and renewable projects can be a good way to reduce that burden. To power its new 600 million euro data center at Eemshaven in the Netherlands, Google has agreed to buy a wind farm being built by Eneco near Eemshaven. The 19-turbine 62MW wind farm will power the data center from day one, and comes on the heels of Google buying two other wind farms in Sweden to provide for its data center in Finland.

Other tech and retail leaders are making forays in the same direction, albeit with less emphasis. After being slammed on Greenpeace’s ranking of the green track records of IT leaders, Amazon seems to want to become more sustainable. Amazon Web Services, responsible for cloud computing, stated that it was taking a “long-term commitment to achieve 100 percent renewable energy usage for our global infrastructure footprint.” Unlike Google and IKEA, though, Amazon has not stated any outright investments it is planning on making. It will likely take years for Amazon to become fully renewable, but even doing so for its cloud computing needs would be a major achievement, given how the likes of Pinterest, Netflix and Spotify rely on Amazon’s cloud.

On the negative side of the equation, Walmart is slipping backwards, having used renewables for 3 percent of its energy needs in 2013, as opposed to 4 percent in 2011. Although long identifying itself in its corporate branding as a green leader, a new think tank has revealed that Walmart is relying on coal for 40% of its energy needs in the U.S. This is a particularly damning accusation since Walmart’s stores use more power than Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont combined, according to the report. Walmart immediately rebutted the report, saying it gets 24 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources—and that it would “expand its renewable energy projects and procurement to reach 7 billion kilowatt-hours of wind, solar, hydroelectric and biogas globally by 2020, up from 2.2 billion kilowatt-hours today.”

Whether companies are making quantifiable commitments to renewables or are fudging the statistics to look sustainable, it is becoming increasingly nonsensical to weigh up the value of renewable energy sources through public investment alone.

EU-Digest

France: IKEA bosses in France questioned over illegal spying claims

Two executives at IKEA France are being questioned by police as part of an investigation into allegations the company purchased police records to snoop on staff and customers, a legal source said.
Ten individuals, including four police officers, have been placed under investigation.

IKEA France CEO Stefan Vanoverbeke, his predecessor Jean-Louis Baillot and chief financial officer Darius Rychert were formally detained for questioning after more than a year and a half of investigation, AFP reported, quoting an anonymous legal source.

French prosecutors opened a criminal investigation in April 2012 following allegations that IKEA paid to illegally acquire secret police files in an effort to gain information about staff and customers, including one who was attempting to sue the world’s largest retailer.

The reports alleged IKEA France attempted to gain information on its own workers, including union members, the owners of particular car registration numbers and names connected with a list of mobile phone numbers.

Police conducted a search of the company's headquarters on the outskirts of Paris 11 days ago. 

Read more: IKEA bosses in France questioned over illegal spying claims — RT News

Sweden - Renewable Energy: Ikea wants all its stores using only renewable energy by 2020 - Invests euro3 billion

Bloomberg News Group, reports that IKEA the world's biggest furniture retailer, will double its investment in renewable energy to euro 3 billion ( US 4 billion)  by 2020 as part of a drive to reduce costs as cash-strapped consumers become more price sensitive.

The additional spending on projects such as wind farms and solar parks will be needed to keep expenses down as the company maintains its pace of expansion, Chief Executive Mikael Ohlsson said in an interview in Malmo, Sweden.

"I foresee we'll continue to increase our investments in renewable energy," said Ohlsson, who plans to step down this year after 3 1/2 years at the helm. "Looking at how quickly we're expanding and our value chain, we will most likely have to double the investments once more after 2015."

Ikea plans to get 100% of the energy consumed at its stores and by subcontractors from renewable sources by 2020. The Swedish company owns 250,000 solar panels, mainly in the U.S., and invested in 126 wind turbines in northern Europe to cover 34% of its energy consumption.

Ohlsson said the retailer will have opportunities for "strong growth" in Europe for "many years to come" because many customers still do not have an Ikea store near them.

EU-Digest

IKEA regrets use of forced labour in East Germany - by Frank Jordans

Swedish furniture giant IKEA expressed regret Friday that it benefited from the use of forced prison labour by some of its suppliers in communist East Germany more than two decades ago.

The company released an independent report showing that East German prisoners, among them many political dissidents, were involved in the manufacture of goods that were supplied to IKEA 25 to 30 years ago. The report concluded that IKEA managers were aware of the possibility that prisoners would be used in the manufacture of its products and took some measures to prevent this, but they were insufficient.

“We deeply regret that this could happen,” said Jeanette Skjelmose, an IKEA manager. “The use of political prisoners for manufacturing was at no point accepted by IKEA.”
But she added that “at the time we didn’t have the well-developed control system that we have today and we clearly did too little to prevent such production methods.”

Read more: IKEA regrets use of forced labour in East Germany - The Globe and Mail

Saudi Arabia: Women's images removed from Ikea catalogue earmarked for Saudi Arabia

Ikea the Swedish mega chain said excluding women from the Saudi Arabian version of their catalogue is in conflict with the company's values but has not retracted the catalog so far.

The move has also resulted in numerous protest against IKEA at home in Sweden and abroad.

Islamic Sharia law is applied strictly in Saudi Arabia, where the ruling Al Saud family espouses a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism, the BBC reports.

Women live under various restrictions, including no right to drive, and must be covered whenever they are outside the home.

Saudi leader King Abdullah is seen as trying to cautiously introduce reforms, some aimed at loosening restrictions on women's right to vote. Unfortunately it has been more talk than action.

Ikea operates three branches in Saudi Arabia.

Read more: Radio New Zealand : News : World : Women's images removed from Ikea catalogue

IKEA to build 100 hotels across Europe

Ikea is looking to build 100 budget hotels across Europe — but no, you won’t have to build your own bed.

The Swedish furniture giant is launching its biggest real estate development yet with the “budget design” hotels, which could be located in Germany, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, Britain and Poland.

But travelers expecting to stack souvenirs on Billy bookcases or rest their heads on Malm beds may be disappointed. The hotels will not feature the Ikea name or its signature build-it-yourself furniture.

The company is identifying and buying sites in countries where it already owns hotels while launching its first major push into Germany.   The first new hotel will likely open in Germany in 2014, he said.

Read more: IKEA to build 100 hotels across Europe 

Bradington Herald: Don’t just survive the economic crisis, profit from it - like IKEA did

For the complete report from the Bradenton.com click on this link

Don’t just survive the economic crisis, profit from it - like IKEA did.

Swedish furniture store IKEA probably provides one of the best examples of dealing with crises. The company started out as a mail-order firm, but built its first brick and mortar store when competition became tough in the mail-order furniture business. Then a fire came along, and they had to build bigger and more profitable stores. Next, IKEA had a supplier boycott so they responded by designing and manufacturing their own furniture. Finally, they had to deal with their inability to staff their stores with a trained sales force. In answer to this crisis, they developed the self-service portion of their stores with huge success. Obviously, IKEA has used each of its crises as valuable opportunities to reshape itself in an improved model. There are many areas of your business that you can review now in order to ensure that you are set for the future. Obviously, the first is to ask yourself if you have the right staff in each of your critical positions. Sometimes it helps to seek advice here as most entrepreneurs have a hard time seeing real flaws and limitations in their staff, especially if they have been with them a long time.

Dutch police arrest 7 suspected of planning attack

EU-Digest

AP-Dutch police on Thursday arrested seven people suspected of preparing a terrorist attack in Amsterdam, including a relative of one of the attackers who died in the 2004 bombings in Madrid.Police received the tip Wednesday night from an unregistered cell phone in Belgium. The tip also included names of one suspect and locations for police to search. Mayor Job Cohen said police were acting on an anonymous tip that warned an Ikea outlet or other stores in the southeast of the city might be targeted. "It wasn't a regular bomb warning, but a warning of a planned action aimed at creating casualties in shops," Cohen said. "Men were planning to put explosives in the shops and wanted to cause casualties in busy places," he said. District Attorney Herman Bolhaar said six men and one woman, aged 19-64, were arrested in Amsterdam. All are Dutch nationals of Moroccan ancestry.

Police Commissioner Bernard Welten said he believed the arrests had "reduced the immediate threat" of an attack in Amsterdam, but that further arrests could not be ruled out. He said the area around the Ikea store was likely to remain sealed Friday.