Ikea: Better CoLiving – reinventing IKEA for Gen Z

An ecosystem of services and products to support people living together
| minute read

Servitisation, new sustainability regulations and changed consumer behaviour is affecting many consumer industries. EGGS have worked with IKEA to develop the BetterColiving concept – an ecosystem of services and products to support people living together. IKEA aims to create life-lasting relationships with younger generations – offering services and products for sustainable, smart, and connected living.

The challenge

Reaching the Gen Z as consumers
IKEA has always been an obvious choice for previous generations when starting their first family home or apartment. Compared to previous generations, Gen-Z have other habits, and they 'grow up' later than their parents did. Because of this, IKEA needs to approach the challenge of offering value in new ways, providing Gen-Z with what they need also before establishing their own homes.

“We, as an industry, have an opportunity to support people on their journey towards a sustainable life. We can use our knowledge to do that and to develop our business along the way.” - Siri Engelschøn, Innovation and Co-creation Manager, IKEA

The outcome

Better CoLiving – a concept to facilitate collective living
To better understand their younger – and future - customers and to be able to design services that are relevant to them, we worked with IKEA in a corporate startup format, to gather insight from the Gen Zers. By gathering User insights, and working in a co-creative manner, IKEA Norway is now working to reinvent themselves.Together with IKEA Global, using Norway as a pilot market, we explored the concept of BetterColiving. In this 
Business Model Concept, IKEA identifies and creates services and digital products to help people improve the experience of living with others. The first product, was an app called SVEN. The app has a unique collection of features designed to help you with communication, tasks, finances, and house rules.

Delivered value

Becoming an enabler of healthy and sustainable living
An essential part of the consumer market adapting to more sustainable operations is the shift from linear to circular value streams, and going from physical to digital products and services (Servitisation) is part of the solution. A concept like the BetterColiving project does precisely this and can facilitate and improve the experience of living in a way that has less environmental impact. The result is innovation for smart and sustainable solutions that are relevant to Gen Zers but also have the potential to grow into services and products that are relevant to IKEA's customers in general. Living comes in many forms, and health and well-being are essential to it. IKEA has the potential to be an enabler of healthy and sustainable living for people.

We believe that a better home creates a better life. And that goes beyond the four walls of a house. A part of our transition journey will be to challenge the idea of what a home is and what it's made up of. It's not only the furniture. Perhaps that's the smaller part. 

Siri Engelschøn, Innovation and Co-creation Manager
IKEA

design

sustainability

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