Internalisation of Spanish Fashion Brand Zara

Today the globalized fashion industry is characterized by wide spread supply chains where the design of a product can be made in one country, manufactured in another and then sold in a third. Fast fashion is a concept used by some of the companies operating in this industry, Benetton and Zara are two of the biggest players utilizing the strategy, although in various ways.

2. Richard M. Johns (2006). The Apparel Industry. 2nd ed. UK, London: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.. 1-124.

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.

Information Technology: Zara was able to balance convergence and divergence within the company that provided a great platform for its expansion into other countries. They followed standard procedures in selecting the market that closely resembled the Spanish market, had a minimum level of economic development and relatively easy to enter. The decision of an “oil-stain” approach in entering made it easier to scale operations by opening up a flag-ship store to fully understand the local environment and culture, then after additional stores would be added. This is similar to the approach Amazon.com is taking in expanding its operations abroad by targeting easy to enter countries and limiting the amount of categories before expanding. In addition because many of the markets they entered were similar to Spain they were able to use basic/standard designs to make up 85%-90% of the product mix. Zara’s expansion procedures also left room for customization for each market and store that wasrequired for different cultures and countries. Some of the areas that had to be tailored between countries were the type entry mode (franchised, owned, joint), product mix and offerings that fit their market (decided by the store owners), pricing (some countries are more price sensitive like Germany; however, France was more fashion sensitive) and brand positioning (based on purchasing power and taste). Zara’s open culture amongst headquarters and the

Over the years, what we know as the retail industry has changed. With fast access to information and increasing demand from customers, the retail industry have been fighting to overcome challenges to keep up with the changing times. Zara, a flagship brand under the Inditex Company (Industrias de Deseno Texti S.A) founded in 1975, achieving huge success within the retail industry in most focuses of operation.

The threats are from the competitors like Zara, H&M and French Collection. Like Topshop, they are all fashion clothing retailers, the competitors may have lower market shares in Britain than Topshop, but their sales are mostly from the overseas market, and their brands have been accepted by the local people. If Topshop want to expand the oversea market, it is necessary to show its unique features and improve quality and retain low price and good design, and face some limitations from government policies and to know about the cultural and demands of the local environment as soon as possible

Fast fashion is merely more than a one hit wonder. The fast fashion industry has grown and has ultimately proven itself to be profitable industry in the clothing market. The retailer most distinguished for a fast fashion approach is Zara (Hayes & Jones, 2006). Zara is a child company of the parent company Inditex. Zara stores have established the stride for merchants around the globe in creating and shipping fashionable clothing (“Case 3-4. Continued Growth for Zara and Inditex”, 2013). Their marketing approach has helped them become extremely successful in terms of providing the customer with. International marketing strategies and its efficiency assists in the expansion of Zara. Cultural understanding is virtuously

According to Fashion’s United “Facts and Figures in the UK fashion industry”1 almost 2/3 of jobs in the production of textiles, apparel, footwear and leather products were lost in the UK’s textiles manufacturing sector between 2000 and 2009. The sector that in 2000 has employed 285,000 people, in 2009 employed only 99,000. The same report states that this decrease of employment in manufacturing of textiles was strongly impacted by emerging markets like China, India and the new EU-27 member state industries like Bulgaria and Romania.

The clothing industry, as one of the most globalized industries in the world (Bonacich et al 1994), is currently undergoing a restructuring, especially the fast fashion sector. Fashion markets are synonymous with rapid changes and short product life cycles. Therefore, changes in consumer demand for newness and fashion trend force the emergence of ‘fast fashion’ strategy in retailers like Zara and H&M and shifts in the focus of competitive advantage from price towards quick response. That is to say, clothing firms, which are adopting global or offshore sourcing strategy, are not considered to have more competitive advantages as before.

Enforcement of such system “fast fashion” is too good in decreasing the time of production. This is clear in the case of Zara as recognizing the required fashion and applying or producing it in a short period of time less than two weeks. This is too good for forming rapid answer for all clients’ requirements, and so keeping clients satisfied. This system of fast fashion also helped Zara to produce more effective styles. This included the production of 11,000 items, while in case of rivals we find that Gap produced only 4,000 items, and H&M produced only 2000 items. Moreover, the adopting of such system helped the company reduce level of supply “scant quantities”, and this is too effective for satisfying clients as they wear a unique model. All those issues helped Zara to support its name in the market, and so despite of the different disadvantages, we find that Zara will

Zara is one of the Inditex’s largest international fashion brands. The company first opened in La Coruna in 1975, still lives by the simple idea of Amancio Ortega to link customer demand to manufacturing, and link manufacturing to distribution. Castellano and Ortega shared the same beliefs that quick response to customers, use of computers, and disintegrated decision-making were important to build the business. It has built distribution and information system which allows to keep latest design in stores in just one or two weeks. Its supply chain has made it so successful and popular among its customers (Zhang, 2008).

Zara brand products are part of the Inditex Group which was founded by Amancio Ortega. Zara brand products currently compete in what is called the fast fashion industry. Fast fashion is a trend in the fashion industry where companies produce and sell new clothing trends within the market as quickly and cheaply as possible (Fernando, 2015). This is made possible by new innovations within the supply chain management of these companies. Innovations are precisely the way Zara has become one of the top fast fashion businesses in the industry. By utilizing their core competencies along with efficiently managing their supply chain, Zara has developed a way to give customers what they want faster than anyone else (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2017, p. 100). Zara has done an excellent job at defining its business strategy and utilizing their core competencies to create value for their customers which is why they keep coming back. This also brings in new customers to purchase from Zara. The purpose of this paper is to examine Zara and various aspects of their business.

Zara is a Spanish clothing and accessories retailer based in Arteixo, Galicia. Founded by Amancio Ortega and Rosalia Mera in 1975, it is the main brand of the Inditex group and also the world’s largest apparel retailer (Inditex). It is one of the first store’s to showcase low-priced look alike products of high-end clothing brands. Later on, it was viewed as an ‘instant fashion’ company as it revised its logo, manufacturing, and distribution process along with improvements that included information technology and the use of designer groups instead of individuals. Beauty, clarity, functionality and sustainability; over the years it has remained loyal to its core values expressed in these 4 simple words. With its current portfolio of 2,169 stores worldwide, Zara generated revenue of about US$15.9 billion in 2016. Its target market is young, price-sensitive, and highly responsive to the latest trends (Harbott). They hold a strong competitive advantage over other retailers because they don’t define their target market on the basis of age or lifestyle segmentation, providing them a relatively broader market to target.

Abstract This chapter explores and develops fast fashion in the current retailing industry and its impacts on how the Chinese textile manufacturing industry has adjusted to remain competitive. Fast fashion evolved at the turn of the twenty-first century into a business approach characterized by fresh fashions, shorter life cycles, and faster production, placing significant pressure for rapid delivery, quality products, and low prices for each segment of the supply chain in a highly competitive environment. Manufacturers must utilize dynamic

The last decade has witnessed a significant transformation that fast fashion has become a key feature in current fashion industry. Although it was regarded as a niche concept offered by a few winners such as Zara and H&M, fast fashion has now been adopted as a key operation mode by many brands in the fashion market (Baker, 2008), using advanced and more efficient supply chains to be more responsive to changing trends towards customer demand. Hence, Fast fashion brands perform relatively better than other fashion brands in various aspects. (Mattila et al. 2002: 340 – 351)