IKEA

"The entrepreneur is often presented as a visionary, bearing from the outset the idea, the plan, the strategy that will lead to his success. Our care- ful study of career biographies suggests rather a process of improvement through trial and error, depending on opportunities, a sequence of im- provised adaptations gradually assembled into a coherent course of con- duct: the celebrated "strategy" was often only the rationalization after the fact of the conditions for success. The careers of Sam Walton and IKEA's"

"It’s rare for blueprints to encode enough information to be technologically valuable. Imagine if we were able to send the most detailed instructions for building any modern technology back to the past. The lead chariot engineer of a Roman caesar would get nowhere with the most detailed manual and finely drawn blueprints on how to produce a Model T. Nor would many of us in the present be able to do much if we got our hands on the instructions for producing an Intel processor or ASML lithography machine. I am not proud to have struggled with putting together a footrest from IKEA."

"the problem with pragmatism is that it rapidly becomes a habit, and short-term gratification – expressed in profits, cash and the praise which goes with them – becomes a drug that drives out long-term customer-related aspirations. It takes a rare visionary – people such as Henry Ford, Ray Kroc of McDonald’s, Ingvar Kamprad of IKEA, and Southwest Airlines’ Herb Kelleher – to insist on rock-bottom prices; or, as with Steve Jobs, fantastic products and a simple, intuitive customer experience. It takes an exceptional person to take on the risk of this approach – the risk of going bust."