Digitalization and Optimization of Core Sales Process

IKEA staff relied on Excel, emails, and calendars to manage the entire sales process.

Communication across departments, suppliers, and customers was fragmented across multiple channels with no unified system. This was causing miscommunication issues and a lack of effectiveness in day-to-day operations.

With stores across multiple countries, the complexity only grew — different processes, different tools, and no visibility into the overall sales workflow from first appointment to final deal.

Then COVID-19 changed the rules overnight.

Customers could no longer browse stores freely. IKEA needed to rapidly enable remote appointment scheduling and online order management — while keeping in-store sales running.

The challenge wasn't just going digital. It was doing it across 8 stores in 3 countries, supporting 4 languages, and integrating with IKEA's existing infrastructure — all under extreme time pressure.

IKEA maintained its sales performance — with zero layoffs.

The solution enabled customers to schedule sessions at stores or remotely. All departments were connected through a single workflow. Despite the disruption, IKEA maintained approximately 50% of in-store sales compared to the previous year, with no staff layoffs.