Interior Designer & Visual Merchandiser - IKEA

Job description / Role

Interior Designer & Visual Merchandiser - IKEA - Al Ain

Purpose:
- Inspire and surprise visitors by presenting and communicating the IKEA home furnishing offer with strong visual impressions that exceed visitors’ expectations. This will strengthen the IKEA Brand and convert more visitors into customers.
- Explore inspiring store solutions for an easy and convenient shopping experience and increasing vitality by translating deep knowledge about consumer buying behavior, store layout, range presentation and local market knowledge thereby contributing to positioning the IKEA Brand in the local market as the home furnishing specialist and the IKEA store as an up-to-date and innovative destination that always offers something new.
- Create relevant, functional, aesthetic and commercial home furnishing solutions that contribute to positioning the IKEA Brand in the local market as the leader in life at home.

Description of the Accountability:
- Use home furnishing competence to create home furnishing solutions in room settings, homes, vignettes and sales support areas that reflect the IKEA identity.
- Actively contribute in the gathering of insights from home visit interviews and translating this knowledge into locally relevant, functional, aesthetic and commercial home furnishing solutions that exceed customer expectations and reflect home furnishing the IKEA way.
- Contribute to the creation of a Showroom matrix that reflects a wide variety of styles, living situations and price levels to create a good tempo with distinct visual impressions.
- Secure high quality, simplicity, efficiency and cost consciousness when planning and implementing all range presentation solutions using global tools and best practices.
- Stay up to date and knowledgeable about home furnishing, retailing and trends in order to contribute in workshops to generate creative ideas.
- Contribute to the content of the department action plan with initiatives that will grow the business and support long-term profitability and execute the agreed plans together with the Com&In team and other functions.
- Respect routines and responsibilities, work together with Com&In team and other functions, act quickly to exploit commercial opportunities and understand the impact of your actions on the financial results.
- Keep visitors in mind when working on the shop floor, ensure disruption is minimised and stay aware
- Maintain store standards to the required level
- Use visual merchandising competence to strengthen the uniqueness of the IKEA identity in range presentation solutions in the store by working with store layout, range presentation and vitality.
- Actively contribute to the department action plan with initiatives that will grow the business and support long-term profitability and execute the agreed plans in close co-operation with other functions.
- Use the knowledge of people's needs and dreams in the local market to plan and implement relevant, inspiring, affordable and commercial range presentation solutions that reflect a wide variety of styles, price levels, meet the many individual tastes and exceed our visitor's expectations.
- Keep visitors in mind when working on the shop floor, minimise disruption and remain aware at all times of the importance of safety and the visual impact for visitors.
- Respect routines and responsibilities, work together with the Com&In team and other functions, act quickly to exploit commercial opportunities and understand the impact of actions on the financial results.
- Secure high quality, simplicity, efficiency and cost consciousness in planning and implementing all range presentation solutions by applying national directions and using global tools, proven solutions and best practices of life impression.
- Suggest means of improving sales to his supervisor as well as determine “slow moving” or “non-selling” items and suggest sales action.
- Be an ‘expert’ on the product range within HFB.
- Be up to date with changes in the company’s products range such as new items or changes in existing items; Keep the Sales Manager informed of any customer’s problems/comments on the product range and/or any gaps in the range.

Requirements

Job-Specific Skills:
- Ability to combine commercial, aesthetic and practical skills.
- Ability to generate, visualize and present new ideas.
- Ability to work together with others in a team.
- Confident in approaching and communicating clearly with different people in various situations.
- Have a flexible and hands-on approach to responsibilities as well as the ability to meet set deadlines
- Strategic Planning and Analytical Skills
- Sales Driven
- Customer Focus
- Effective Communication

About the Company

Established in the 1930's, the Al-Futtaim Group initially operated as a trading enterprise. Rapid development throughout the 1940's and 50's saw it establish itself regionally as an integrated commercial, industrial and services organisation, positioning itself one of the leading business houses in the lower Gulf region. Today, it operates collectively over 40 companies bearing the Al-Futtaim name, dominates many market segments in the UAE, and has expanded its sphere of operation to include Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Egypt.

The Group comprises a diverse range of strategically positioned operating subsidiaries and associate companies, structured to give the Al-Futtaim Group the flexibility and versatility to keep ahead of local competition while keeping pace with the ever-evolving global business scenario. The Groups continued investment in world-class systems technology is clear evidence of its commitment to maintain leading edge performance and service delivery.

The success of the Al-Futtaim Group can be attributed to a business approach that combines the ability to change with the traditional values of integrity, service and social responsibility that define its core business philosophy. This, linked with the Groups belief in decentralisation, gives the heads of the operating companies a high degree of functional autonomy and authority, providing the Group with essential flexibility, and individual employees a clearly defined work culture and sense of responsibility.