Team “AnonyMIS”: Julia Winter, Maximilian Philipp Schmidt, Julius Liebrecht, Djaky Agbadou, Nathalie Garro In-Class Case Study: 1 Introduction: Background Information 1.1 Company overview The firm Zara is a Spanish clothing and accessories retailer based in Galicia, northern Spain. In 1975, founder Amancio Ortega opened the first store in La Coruna, Spain. Zara is the flagship chain store of the Inditex group (Industria de Diseno Textil), encompassing many self-designed different fashion styles from daily clothing to formal suits, evening dresses and business wear. Their stores feature low-costs lookalike products of popular high-end clothing fashion. The Spanish corporation Inditex is the world`s largest fashion …show more content…
In the market the multinational retailers have the most power in order to sell their products but also concerning their buying power. 3.2 Business Model The firm formulated a unique value proposition: Zara combines moderate prices with the ability to offer new fashion styles faster than its competitors. To do so, the company developed a business model which includes the following operation goals: 1. Develop a system which requires very short lead times 2. Decrease producing quantity in order to decrease the risk of inventory 3. Increase the number of different available fashion styles (selling “state-of-the-art” fashion) With 1283 Zara stores worldwide (mainly in Europe and Asia), the company operates on an international basis. Zara provides affordable fashion for men, women as well as children`s clothing (Zara Kids). Each of these is subdivided into Lower Garment, Upper Garment, Shoes, Cosmetics and Accessories. Therefore the Spanish apparel retailer is able to attract a wide consumer range. Especially the textile industry is in constant flux, hardly driven by consumer demands. Therefore, the fundamental concept of the company is to maintain design, manufacturing and distribution processes which enable Zara to respond quickly to shifts in consumer demands. While other competitors outsource all production to Asia, Zara designs and produces in-house. By doing so, the company has tight control over the whole production process (the vertical integrated
Zara is a high-end street store offering the latest tastes in fashion for women, men, and children alike. Amancio Ortego, Zara’s founder, has made the store grow with rapid success in both its home country, Spain, and internationally. One of the distinct reasons why Zara is such a unique company compared to its competitors is its foundation of the quick response system. Today, Zara’s cycle time is six weeks, in which it responds to its customers’ demand very quickly, unlike most stores that take half a year. Overall, Zara is distinct from most apparel stores in its ability to travel globally and from its international strategy.
The business idea of Zara is to link customer demand to manufacturing, and to link manufacturing to distribution. And based on this general idea, Zara has several essential elements for its business model. First, speed and decision making, which means that in the external level, Zara need to respond very quickly to demands of target customers, and always keep in style. While for the inside, Zara treasure intelligence and judgment of common employees who enjoy a great deal of autonomy. Second, its marketing, merchandising and advertising strategy. Zara does not spend on virtually advertising, while it spends heavily on stores, and no selling online because of
There vertical integration allows small batches of produce to be distributed and tested out allow them to save more money and cut inventory backlogs. Zara maintains a low cost by avoiding outsourcing (where possible) and producing all its merchandise and produce in home soil in Spain. Also Zara own many fabric dying, cutting and processing equipment that provided Zara added control and flexibility to adopt new trends on demand. Effectively Zara is able to design and manufacture products as well as deliver them in less than two weeks in contrast to competitors such as Benetton and H&M which require at least between five weeks and 4 months lead time to fill orders from its retail operations. One major unique characteristic was that Zara own its in house production which gives Zara the flexibility of quantity, variety, and the frequency of the designs they produce.
Zara’s value chain differs from the other traditional models a lot. The design and creation rely extensively on copying fashion trends observed at the fashion shoes and at competitors’ points of sale, which based on buyers and designers alike.
Zara International was a retail shop originated in La Coruna, Spain in 1975. It was clothing and accessories shop and imitated the latest fashion trends and sold them at a lower cost. It became Zara International after entering Portugal in 1988 and then the United States and France in the 1990s. The distributor for this brand is Inditex and is considered the most successful retail chain in the world. Zara has a business strategy that is very different from the retailers nowadays. If a customer orders a product Zara’s distribution centers can have the items in the store within 24 to 48 hours of receiving the order, depending upon the country. The business plan that Zara’s executives made was very innovative and played a great part in the
The Spanish retail chain Zara has unique supply chain management practices that enable it to gain a competitive advantage over other fashion retailers in the industry. Zara’s rapid response time enables the firm to quickly respond to changing fashions while deliberately under producing products. This strategy, which is supported by competencies in logistic management, design and information systems, allows the company to maintain less inventory and higher profit margins and is a key factor to Zara’s success. The firm should continue to add value by seeking new opportunities to expand in the retail market and maintain their sustainable growth.
The basic strategy for fighting competition is to attract buyers at lower prices, more unique designs, high-quality design, efficient customer service and solid image brand. Thus bargaining power of buyer for apparel industry is high as the products falls under the basic needs in human lives. There is no much difference in terms of products offered by the apparel company, so if buyer is unhappy with the product or service they can easily switch to another brand. Thus, Zara are trying to strengthen its position in the market by using their unique strategy by giving priority to buyer to meet their special needs.
Zara is an apparel company and the leader brand of the Spanish retail mogul, Inditex. zara was established in 1975 in Spain by Amancio Ortega who is currently the 3rd richest man in the world, the first store was opened as an outlet but by 1979 the establishment already had six stores at different locations in Spain and by 1985 the company branched out to Portugal new york city and Paris. Today Zara has over 1900 stores worldwide which are located in 22 different countries; these stores render employment to over 125,000 employees. Zara depends on information they gather from customer and organizational feedback from all their stores on a daily basis this information is then forwarded to the supply chain, which works in synergy with the stores to keep the level of storage in stores down to a minimum. Zara owns the production, supply chain and in-house production, which lead to greater speed in output (M.A.Cano)
In comparison to competitors, Zara’s business strategy, in regards to strategic partnerships and cost of production, provide for a strategic competitive advantage. Zara, unlike its competitors such as Gap, Benetton, and H&M, does not use Asian outsourcing. Eighty percent of Zara’s materials are manufactured in Europe, with 50% made in Zara controlled facilities in the Galicia region of Spain near headquarters. Most of Zara’s competitors have 100% outsourcing to cheap Asian countries. Though the cost of production in Spain is 17-20% more expensive than Asia, Zara does have a competitive advantage over its competitors in regards to operations. The local strategic partnerships that Zara maintains with manufacturers in Europe allow for a product throughput time of 3-4 weeks from conception to distribution. To make this happen, the company designs and cuts its fabric in-house and it acquires fabrics in only four colours to keep costs low. The proximity of these suppliers gives Zara great flexibility in adapting their product lines based on up to date market trends and consumer behaviour. It also decreases costs of holding inventory. Zara’s competitors, through outsourcing to Asian countries such as China, sacrifice the benefits of proximity for low labour and production costs.
Zara is a brand widely known across the globe for its unique fashionable cloths .It is a part of inditex which is known as one of the world’s largest distribution group in the world and the owner of the company is Spanish businessman named Amancio Ortega .This company was formed in 1963 as a fashion retailer for women clothes but the company became a success after the addition of a new brand named Zara in 1975 .Today Zara is amongst one of the largest international company producing the fashionable clothes. After the success of the inditex as a successful brand (ZARA) maker, inditex was able to expanded itself with more successful brands across the world in different countries at the end of the 1980.from 1976 to 1983 Zara turned out to be a successful retailing brand and introduced itself with nine new outlets to the biggest cities of the Spain with its first headquarter in Goa. Year 1984 turned out to be the witnesses of first logistics headquarter of Zara covering a large area of 10,000 square metres. New York
Zara is a clothing company that was founded in 1975 and came from Spain. Its under Inditex group which owns other brands such as Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear, Oysho, Uterques and many more companies. Zara grew very fast and currently in 2012 has 1,617 stores worldwide. With a large name in the fashion industry, besides that, Zara faces tough competition internationally including H&M, Benetton, and GAP. In order to keep up with the speed chic, Zara need to keep up also with the information system to run their business.
Zara is one of the largest international fashion companies and has over 2000 stores located across 88 countries. It is part of the large distribution group Inditex, which also owns brands such as Pull & Bear, Stradivarius and Bershka.
Zara is the clothing retailer the best known as a brand of Spanish holding group Inditex (Industrias de Diseno Textil). First Zara store was opened in 1975,in Spain by Inditex father and founder Amancio Ortegas Gaona. It was first step and strong foundation to his success. Zara became most successful brand in fashion industry and it keeps growing and expanding constantly. There are 1721 Zara stores in 87 countries all over the world. All offer great catwalk fashion clothes for reasonable prices.
Vertical integration, a distinctive feature of Zara’s business model, has allowed the company to successfully develop a strong merchandising strategy. This strategy has led Zara to create a climate of scarcity and opportunity as well as a fast-fashion system. However, Zara’s strategy creates some weaknesses. Their vertical integration has more advantages than drawbacks but it is important to recognize its limitations. Vertical integration often leads to the inability to acquire economies of scale, which means Zara cannot gain the advantages of producing large quantities of goods for a discounted rate. Higher costs are then incurred for the Inditex
Inditex itself is a huge fashion retailer company which owns 8 brands namely Zara, Pull &Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home and last but not the least Uterque. Amancio Ortega is the founder of Inditex, which was established in 1963. Amancio Ortega adapted unique business model, which were innovative and flexible. This made Inditex one of the biggest retailers in the world. In 1975 Inditex established Zara’s first store in downtown A Coruna, Spain. Zara offers fashionable designs for men, women, and kids. They also sell accessories to complete their product lines.