Mia Lundström, Ikea India: Creative Directions

It isn’t easy being Mia Lundström. Not when Ikea, the Swedish retail giant started by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943, is set to make inroads into India. It’s not easy because the Swede, creative director of Ikea India, is working on a market-relevant range for this diverse country. “Indian people love their homes and are open-minded. So the pre-conditions that we need are present,” says Mia, during an interaction in the small sleepy town of Almhult, the headquarters of Ikea. 

Like everything else it does, Ikea decided to power through into India on the back of substantial research. Led by Mia, Ikea surveyed homes, conducted home visits and met homemakers and families to get a specific “life at home” direction for India. The teams visited 500 families in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Delhi to understand what makes Indian family life tick and know more about their needs and wants. 

“It’s a challenge for sure and we’re working hard to ensure that we make beautiful homes affordable to the majority of people in India,” she says even as she remains committed to Ikea’s vision on Democratic Design “to create a better everyday life for many people”. In democratic design, every product is based around five design principles: form, function, quality, sustainability and low price. 

Mia, who started out with Ikea in 1978 as an interior designer at a store in Stockholm, is now combining her vast knowledge bank with her research on life at home in India to seamlessly connect the retail giant to the Indian consumer. 

“We’ve learnt a lot of things during our research. We know that the home is the glue for many, actually most people here. We know that we’re entering a market that loves colour. We’ve found that women are the ones who control the kitchen. Indians spend a lot of money on their living rooms, but don’t invest so much into their bedrooms – the rooms where they actually spend the most time,” Mia reveals. 

Ikea is keeping all facets of its research in mind as they target the Indian customer. “Our home visits also revealed that good storage options are lacking, be it in the bedroom or kitchen. We want to offer functional and aesthetic pieces that can transform the quality of life,” informs Mia. 

“We will offer products based on our insights, not put them into income brackets,” Mia says. “The focus is on the home, but the brand is adaptable to change and willing to try new tastes,” she adds. 

Mia feels their home visits revealed that most people don’t have proper storage options and ended up stacking things around the home. “We would like to help people by offering them better storage options, in the kitchen definitely but also in bedrooms and children’s rooms,” she says. “The home is the glue for Indian people. The more time I spend here, the more I realize how important this is."

Over the years, Ikea has moved away from the conventional way of looking at home furnishing. So instead of considering rooms while doing them up, they consider the activities those room are used for. What do the people do there? How do they do it? What are the peak times? Where is the traffic?

Apart from small spaces and organising, the last focus area of Mia’s life at home is life with children. “Children are the most important little people in every Indian home,” she recalls her research. That suits Ikea’s plans perfectly since living with children is a long-term priority for the company and is central to their home furnishing business. 

“Most Indian families have children, but their homes don’t reflect that. There seems to be no child-oriented or child-specific space, which makes this one of our focus areas. We want to show how children can be a part of the home environment, be it at play, study, sleep or for their storage needs,” Mia says.

Across the world, food is at the heart of good times, be it with family or friends. Seafood is part of the retailer’s heritage and is sold and served at Ikea’s restaurants every day – 389 of them in 48 markets. But Hyderabad will be home to Ikea’s biggest restaurant, a whopping 1,000-seater, topping Seoul - the current topper on this list. The famed Swedish meatballs will be on the menu, but so will local favourites like Biryani in Hyderabad and Pav Bhaji in Mumbai. 

Signing off, Mia has just one thing to say: “What we do at home is the same, how we do it is different.” We couldn’t agree more, and hope that her research improves life at home for millions of design-loving Indians.