"The price of the LACK coffee table has not changed in 38 years"

2019.04.17.

Tibor Mandják is affiliated both with EM Normandie Business School and the Institute of Business Economics at Eötvös Loránd University. We asked Professor Tibor Mandják to explain why it is worth giving a course on International Business Networks.

Have you ever been to IKEA? Did you know that IKEA launched the LACK coffee table in 1981, which you can buy today for 9.9 Euros, just as you could have done it when IKEA launched the product 38 years ago? That is, the price of the LACK coffee table has not changed in 38 years! How is it possible? In the meantime, IKEA has implemented more than 100 projects to develop the LACK coffee table and has worked together with more than 20 international partners.

The established international business network made it possible for you today to buy the LACK coffee table, just as much as the equivalent of 9.9 Euros in Hungarian Forints… For IKEA, the connectedness of the international business networks, of which it is a part, has created the opportunity, for almost forty (!) years, to successfully manufacture and sell the same product!

If you would like to know how this is possible and how the various companies connect in the international business network, then this course is for you.