Maersk undertakes the logistics task of IKEA in 29 countries, with more than 2,000 suppliers, 164 specialty stores and 10000 kinds of furniture materials. IKEA and Maersk have an unbreakable "bond" because IKEA's "supplier family" has cooperated with Maersk for many years. The long-term cooperation between the two companies and the similarity in business model, values and business purposes.
During 1995, IKEA set up an office in China. At that time, only a small amount of raw materials were purchased from China, and they were not produced and sold in China. However, even such a small logistics business at that time made IKEA frown. Ikea is strict with logistics service providers: the other party must meet their requirements in transparency, cost, logistics capacity, efficiency and quality control; You should even have "environmental awareness"-choose equipment, machines, logistics tools and fuels that do not pollute the environment, and scientifically deal with sewage and gas emissions during transportation. However, how many logistics companies in China can be so standardized?
At this time, IKEA "misses" Maersk even more. At that time, Maersk could not set up a logistics company in China, but only registered a China office of "Maersk Favorable Container Transportation" in Shanghai. However, Maersk quickly deployed the raw material export logistics plan of IKEA China market. Maersk provides logistics agency services for IKEA through "favorable container transportation" in Hong Kong and Singapore. Meanwhile, Maersk's office in Chinese mainland has been expanded to nine.
From 65438 to 0998, IKEA felt that the China market was promising, and the focus of Asia-Pacific strategy began to shift to China. In the same year, IKEA opened its first home shopping mall in Shanghai and its second one in Beijing on 1999. Subsequently, IKEA became popular in China. Within two years, its sales in China increased by 43.6%, and 65,438+00% of global purchases were transferred to China. At this time, the number of suppliers increased, the geographical distribution widened, and the production network and sales network in China were laid out, which made the logistics business volume expand rapidly. Including raw material procurement, raw material import, products and raw material export, domestic transportation, warehousing, distribution, etc., which obviously requires logistics service providers to make an overall plan for SCM (supply chain). At this time, Maersk's office obviously can't meet the needs of IKEA in China.
Just as IKEA was popular in China, Maersk was not idle. After layers of efforts, we finally registered "Favorable Container Transportation" as a wholly-owned company. After the authority was expanded, the wholly-owned company subsequently set up branches and offices in coastal cities of China, and rapidly expanded its network. In April, 2000, Favourable Container Transportation was officially changed to "Maersk Logistics China Co., Ltd.", and eight branches and five offices were established in 13 city, and the network expanded from the coast to the inland. Someone said with a smile: "Maersk's logistics service has almost expanded with the expansion of IKEA. As long as IKEA finds suppliers in new areas, Maersk will try to expand there. " The cooperation between Maersk and IKEA in the logistics field is a classic "point-to-point" chain relationship. This chain relationship is not only a business need, but more importantly, their long-term cooperation promotes each other. Of course, Maersk's "transnational chain" can't be only connected with IKEA. This chain is constantly connected with Maersk's global agreement partners, such as Nike, Michelin tires and Adidas. Maersk followed them.
This point-to-point chain phenomenon is common among multinational companies in various industries. Obviously, they prefer to bring their partners to China for reclamation rather than choose small enterprises in China. A multinational company like IKEA is more like a flagship. In its "joint fleet", of course, it does not want to have an old "motorized sailboat".