Digital Innovation & Virtual Organizing in a Global Setting
A business case for shifting IKEA from reactive to proactive customer service with Salesforce and Einstein AI.
The need
IKEA's customer-service reputation had slipped (around 1.5 out of 5 across roughly 26,000 reviews) on the back of delivery delays and slow, unresponsive support. The opportunity was to stop reacting to complaints and start preventing them.
The challenge
The tempting answer is 'buy better software'. The harder, truer reframe is organisational: moving a giant from reactive to proactive support changes roles, processes and culture, not just the tooling. And we had to make the case stack up financially and operationally as a distributed, virtual team.
What I made
I led the business-model work and coordinated the team. I built a Business Model Canvas around Salesforce Service Cloud and Einstein AI, then a costed three-year case with a phased rollout (pilot, then Europe, then global) and a risk and governance plan covering AI misinterpretation, customer resistance, GDPR, and an AI ethics committee.
The outcome
A complete, defensible business case for proactive, AI-assisted service, framed as an organisational shift rather than a tool purchase.
Key points
- Led the business-model design and coordinated a distributed, virtual team
- Reframed the problem as reactive-to-proactive, not a pure technology fix
- Built a Business Model Canvas around Salesforce Service Cloud + Einstein AI
- Produced a costed three-year case with a phased rollout and a governance plan