Project report-Ikea Estates Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Project report-Ikea Estates - Essay Example As far as the marketing plan is concerned, strategic and marketing concepts such as the SWOT analysis, PEST analysis, Segmentation, targeting, positioning and the 4 P’s of marketing has been used (Kotler, 2001, p. 25). As mentioned earlier Ikea, the master of self assembly, flat pack furniture manufacturer entered the prefab housing business. The company joined forced with a construction firm name Skanska in the year 1996. The prefab houses developed were named as ‘Boklok’. The houses were made available in Finland, England, Denmark and Norway (Kohler and Fetters, 2006, p. 54). Prefabricated housing has attracted many businessmen, architects and politicians over the years. The factors behind the attraction are the promise of an expedient, affordable housing at a relatively modest price. However, many perceive this as a solution provided o solve the housing crisis. Prefabrication can be defined as the assembling of components of a construction structure in a factory unit and transporting the completed the assemblies to the designated site. This approach contrasts the traditional approach of construction, where the raw materials are taken to site and assembled to develop construction structure. The principle of prefabrication is applicable on the grouping of similar tasks using assembly line techniques during the availability of skilled workers. Prefabrication is very effective in the presence of modularization. Application of prefabrication was pursued in construction industry to counter the aftermath of the world war two crises, especially in the UK, US an d Japan market. However, over the years the success of prefabricated housing has been questioned over the factors like quality, social status. Therefore the traditional housing still reigns supreme over the prefabricated housing techniques (Biswas, 2011, p. 105). In UK the construction housing is mainly dominated by the brick related construction methodology.