Zara: It for Fashion

Zara takes a no bells and whistle approach to the technology used outside of the manufacturing (ex. use of technology in the fabric cutting) side of their business. They have been very successful with their reactive supply chain process and do not have to rely of tends and forecasting because of their Corporate Mandate to produce low quality (10 wears) high fashion garments. I believe this is a very unique approach to business and would not be applicable or appropriate anywhere. This business practices would not function well in an environment where customers want a reliable products that last nor would it not work for companies who’s stagey to purchase large quantities

The global apparel market is a buyer-driven market. Along with the globalization and technology development, consumers are easier to access to fashion. As a result, the customers are changing and the companies are evolving to deliver customers satisfaction. Zara, the most profitable brand of Spain clothing retail group Inditex, has leveraged its unique strategy to achieve success and will be expected to maintain a sustainable growth in the fashion industry.

Zara has been expanding into new territories since its initial expansion into Portugal in the 1989. Throughout its international development, Zara has kept its central distribution center in Arteixo, Spain, where the satellite distribution centers are sourced from the centralized center in Spain. All of Zara’s products go through this distribution center, and this strategy has its costs and benefits. The distribution center in Arteixo allows Zara to manage its inventory all in one place, and “the warehouse [is] a place to move merchandise rather than to store it”. This allows Zara to be efficient and respond quickly to customer demands, given that “none [of the merchandise] ever stayed at the distribution center more than three days”. Through this warehouse, Zara has ease of access of providing for Spain and its neighboring countries; however, when

Zara broad offering meets its customer’s demands quickly. This is due to management’s almost instantaneous response to changes in customers’ needs (Ghemawat et al, 2006).

The world 's largest clothing retailer has been able to cope with the financial crisis better than most of its rivals, helped in part by the expansion of shops in fast, growing commercial centres and also by offering affordable fashion at a fraction of the cost of designer fashions. This case provides information on Zara and its major rivals in the industry to highlight the challenges and opportunities facing companies who are competing on a global basis. Zara is the biggest player in the clothing retail sector and leads the way in sales and consumer growth whilst being recognised

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.

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's short lead-time gives a higher chance for a more accurate predicting the next fashion. This makes them able to meet the customers demand and offer a higher level of fashionable clothes in their

Zara’s business model can be broken down into three basic components: concept, capabilities, and value

Zara, one of the world’s largest apparel retailers, was founded in 1975 in La Coruna， Spain. With its successful rollout in the Spanish market, it began to expand its stores around the world, and became one of the most profitable brands in the appalling market. Zara was famous for its ability to quickly respond to the market demands, which provides a useful lesson in terms of competitive advantage with its competitors. But confronting to the fast-paced and constantly changing market, if a company wants to consistently increase market share in order to survive in the competitive market, it is irrefutable that it needs to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, since the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage can be expected to lead to higher performance.

Zara, one of the world’s largest apparel retailers, was founded in 1975 in La Coruna， Spain. With its successful rollout in the Spanish market, it began to expand its stores around the world, and became one of the most profitable brands in the appalling market. Zara was famous for its ability to quickly respond to the market demands, which provided a useful lesson in terms of competitive advantage with its rivals. But confronting to the fast-paced and constantly changing market, if a company wants to consistently increase market share in order to survive in the competitive market, it is irrefutable that it needs to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, since the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage can be expected to lead to higher performance.

In my point of view, the most famous way of ZARA strategies in doing their business has a huge linkage with lean which is the fast fashion. ZARA implement just in time strategy to keep their stock low, which decreases the waste of overproducing and inventory. They will only produce the product in the small batch to see whether it going to sell well or not and if the product is well sell they will produce them again but if it not they will have low failure-cost. By resulting of having just the stock they need, ZARA can make a new product more often, and when customer come in they will see a more new fresh product which will make customer come to their store more often. Also, they need not to do discount much or have their product unsold or to be the deadstock much lead them to gain a better margin. Also with one of Zara most famous key of their business “fast fashion”, which according to what Mr. Ortega the owner of Zara said in the book “Secret of Zara”, he said that when there are a new design ZARA want them to be able to launch in just for 2 week to make that item latest fashion product in that time. So, making a small amount of product will help them to make the new design product faster. ZARA is using vertical integration by implement in-house design, production, distribution and retailing instead of being like their competitor that

Zara is a Spanish clothing brand founded in 1975 by visionary Αmancio Οrtega Gaona in Spain. Zara is one of the largest selling brands from the largest retailer of fashion "INDITEX". Zara is known chain of brands particularized into designing clothes, shoes and accessories for all genders and ages. Zara owns lots of employees (40.000) for fast clothing fabrication and shipping needs. Zara is now available in 88 countries with a total of over 2000 stores worldwide and 29 online markets (Slack, Chambers, and Johnston, 2009). Also, Zara is classified as one of the biggest and most successful companies with due to the excellent quality of products provided and the visional given attempt to compete and claim the first place on sales among other strong companies such as H&M and Gap. Of course, it cannot be neglected that Zara managed to rapidly correspond to customer's demands.

Zara, the world largest clothing retailer brand that is part of the Inditex multinational clothing company which was created by Amancio Ortega and Rosalia Mera (Inditex, brands). They are based in the northwest of Spain. Currently, Zara has a total of 2,000 stores in major cities around 88 different countries (Inditex). They are acclaimed as a fast fashion company in the industry with more than two hundred professional designers within the creative teams. Zara’s products are diversification strategy, include men’s and women’s apparels and accessories that keep up with the current fashion trend (Inditex).

Zara is a clothing and accessories retailer selling stylish apparel at affordable prices, and it is also the most profitable brand of the Spanish clothing retail group Inditex SA. Ortega planned for this new Zara outlet, located near his factory in La Coruna in northern Spain, to sell this overstock merchandise himself. Since then, Zara has expanded into 500 stores in 68 countries as of January 2007 and has become a leader in customized fashion retailing. This assignment presents core competencies to help Zara achieve competitive advantages in fashion industry. Besides, we also offer five competitive objectives about quality, speed, flexibility, dependability and cost to evaluate