Homegrown The One ready to 'dominate' the world

The founder of the UAE-based furniture store The One is rewriting his business plan to make it easier to expand the brand globally.

The One, which was founded in 1996, has eight stores in the Emirates, in addition to branches across the region including in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Lebanon.

"We have some really cool new plans," said Thomas Lundgren, the Swedish founder and chief executive of The One. "We need to do that world domination thing."

Furniture retail across the world is in "bad shape", he said, with big brands such as Ikea taking over by selling mass-produced, low-cost items.

"The sad part is that a lot of retail mom and pops are disappearing and it becomes very impersonal and we are going to try and keep that personal part of it."

He intends to expand The One's brand worldwide and is in the middle of redrawing his business plan to make that easier. "I do a course at Harvard once a year, and this year it was actually twice.

"I was in Boston, and this year it was for the first time in Shanghai at the campus there," Mr Lundgren said.

"I was doing the first business plan since the first one I did 18 years ago to take us to the next level. Everything fell into place somehow. It was exciting again."

Mr Lundgren did not say where he will open new stores, but he knows how he wants them to look.

"If you look at the Abu Dhabi [The One Fusion store] today I am proud to say it is the most beautiful furniture store in the world. It is the whole atmosphere and the size. Whenever we can build, just exactly by the square metre, that store [we will]. We really have the whole place right."

The One prides itself on stocking products that benefit those who made them, and on being included on a list of the best UAE companies to work for.

The Great Place to Work Institute UAE draws up the list each year, and The One came in fifth this year, the highest place for a local company.

Mr Lundgren said he wants the company to expand and be successful, but not to lose its character.

"We are far behind people like Ikea and I am not interested in being Ikea. But there must be an alternative, and the alternatives are disappearing."

gduncan@thenational.ae