Parag Parekh, Chief Digital Officer of Ingka Group (IKEA) | We Were Very Late to Digital

Parag Parekh, Chief Digital Officer of Ingka Group, the largest IKEA franchisee, talks with Robert Valentine and Kayvan Nikjou at HumanX in Amsterdam. An engineer from Mumbai, he wrote software at Honeywell, joined GE's IT leadership program and worked at Adidas before IKEA came calling. He says a small screw made the decision easy: IKEA mailed it to his home in Germany, two weeks after he asked for it in a store. During the first question someone brings in the bag he left in an Uber. Parag explains how IKEA is organised, from Inter IKEA as the franchisor to Ingka as its biggest franchisee, and why the restaurants matter. He admits IKEA was very late to digital: it was so successful in its stores that it missed how smartphones changed the way people shop. With AI it does not want to be late again. IKEA will not use customer data to manipulate people or AI to monitor its employees, and it wants to move its coworkers from being anxious to being curious. He compares the work cultures of GE, Adidas and Sweden, where everyone is in it together but it is not always clear who is accountable. He furnished his new apartment in India almost entirely with IKEA, and his mother-in-law's kitchen too. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Recorded at HumanX, Amsterdam. Chapters 0:00 Cold open 1:02 We just want to know you as a person 1:23 What if IKEA stopped existing? 4:15 Growing up without IKEA and the missing screw 7:22 From engineer to GE and Adidas 9:39 Why so many Indians lead global companies 11:45 How IKEA is structured 16:00 Småland and 80 years of retail firsts 17:38 IKEA's restaurant business 18:33 Democratic design 20:30 Investing in lower prices 22:20 Margins and the cost of delivery 25:52 Smaller stores in city centres 27:15 Very late to digital 30:54 Who is IKEA's competitor? 32:07 AI and interior design for everyone 34:44 What IKEA will not do with AI 36:07 From anxious to curious 39:21 Ingka Centres and Ingka Investments 41:36 GE, Adidas and Swedish culture 44:24 IKEA in his own home White Box Rodeo is for information and entertainment only and is not investment advice. The hosts may hold interests in companies they discuss. Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1LZzgezimk White Box Rodeo: https://whiteboxrodeo.com Hosts: Robert Valentine and Kayvan Nikjou