What to expect  from the global brand in the city

HYDERABAD:  Mr John Achilea, Managing Director, IKEA, Telangana sat down with a quick tête-à-tête with us about his plans for the label in Hyderabad and India. 

When you decided to move to India, why is it that was Hyderabad chosen for Ikea’s first home?
The local government was keen to help us come to Hyderabad as the first location in India. They opened doors for us and worked with us closely which made the process simple. 

What kind of research was involved to customise IKEA furnishings according to Indian needs?
We have been doing about 800 home visits! Our marketing department has been working hard to do as many home visits as possible. Figuring out how do local people live in Hyderabad and what are their desires comprised the crux of our research. We also know how they want to live in the future. Many of the things that you see here today come from the inputs we have received from the home visits. We want to meet families, say a mum and a dad, young people starting out and we want to meet people. We want to represent Hyderabad as much as possible! 

Hej home is here, but when is Ikea coming to town?
Spring 2018 is when we will open the store! The store will be set up in Hitec City; the framework is up and under construction.

Can you give us a glimpse of what the store might look like?
The store will be around is going to be around 4 lakh sq. feet. There will be a huge restaurant with around 1,000 seats and we will be serving both Swedish and Indian food. So we will have Swedish food with a slant of Indian. We will have our veggie bowls with an Indian touch as well as the biryani. We will have huge stores for furnishings and accessories. There will be room set-ups so buyers can relate to it as well.