Zara 's Operation Strategy And How It Uses Technology Into Operations For Fast Communication Between Different Departments Essay

Hence, technology is bettering reliability and speed with which information is divulged (Porter, 1980). Hand-held computers or PDA’s are utilized by Zara to collect information on consumer needs between retail stores and the factory in La Coruna. This along with regular telephone conversations between store managers and marketing specialists are one of the reasons that Zara’s information network is so effective. The utilization of PDA’s can be done by any company; it is Zara’s determination not to allow important information to fall by the wayside that assists with its success. PDAs are connected to the store 's point-of-sale (POS) system, enabling managers to see how garments rank by sales. In as little as an hour, managers can send information that combine the hard data captured at the POS intermixed with acumen on what customers would like to see. All of this data allows Zara to design and produce styles and orders based on feedback rather than guesswork. Hence, Zara avoids costly overproduction and the consequent sales and mark-downs that are so widespread in the fast fashion industry (Rohwedder and Johnson, 2008).

Operations management is in regard to all operations within the organization responsible for creating goods and services that organizations pass to their customers. This function is at the heart of all organizations, giving the means of achieving their aims and reason for their existence. These activities include: managing purchases, inventory control, quality control, storage and logistics. A great deal of focus in operations is on efficiency and effectiveness of such a process.

Zara is one of the retail sale format of Inditex group and well-known an international fashion clothing brand which is very famous for its apparel and accessories. Zara is a place where we can buy all the latest fashionable clothes in the world as they launches 10,000 designs every year. Zara is one of the Spain famous fashion clothing brand which is located in 70 countries in the world. Zara company is started earlier in 1975 by Amancio Ortega, a famous business person who planned to enlarge his small factory by opening a big store. In 1988 the Zara Company started to enter in to the international market to expand their business globally. Zara opened first international store in Portugal. Portugal store got a big success and then Zara decided to open a store in USA. By the next year they opened another store in Paris. These all made a tremendous growth to Zara and it became as an iconic representation of Spanish fashion. Zara began to enlarge their business quickly in 1990s. Around the world there are 1763 stores in 2013. In this assignment we are going to discuss about Zara’s strategy structure, infrastructure and process development, work scheduling and its reward products.

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

Operations Management in an organisation is repsonsible for managing and in making decisions concerning the activities that convert inputs into outputs , that is goods and services. This covers both short term actvities as well as longer term activities to meet strategic goals. Inputs can be the raw materaials need to manufacture goods such as furniture or the computers needed to create a service like online shopping site. Operation management’s role is to make decisions to improve how operation activities function, for example, to improve the final quality of the output or to change production methods to be more efficient in terms of cost and in time.

There are several ingenious steps taken by Zara that proves both profitable and unprecedented. Zara has used technology to revolutionize their business, from buying the unprocessed cloth to determining which color die to use and what to make with that cloth. The technology process continues on the manufacturing lines and all the way to the final sale. But it does not stop there, it goes beyond the point of sale to question the reasons why a purchase was not made after a client expressed an interest in an item. The point of sale system provides real time data which is given immediate attention.

The role of operations management is the production of goods and services and to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in the operation process, that means use as little resource as needed and meet the customer requirements. Moreover, it is converts inputs (in the forms of materials, labour and energy) into outputs (in the form of goods and services) and aims to increase the content of value-added activities in any given process in an organization. (Meredith and Scott 2007)

Operations Management Process is the central arteries within the organization because it produces the planning process for goods and services, which are its reason for existent. Operations management is linked to all organizations as every organization is producing either a product or a service. However, it cannot be said to be the most important function since there are other functional areas and boundaries within an organization. In today's fast changing world, organizations have to have a tendency towards being efficient, effective and innovative to the changing environment to succeed. Operations Management has to use metrics in order for them to accomplish their task and be successful with

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

Operations management is an area of management concerned with overseeing, designing, and controlling the process of production and redesigning business operations in the production of goods or services. The main influences on operation management include;

The core concept of Zara 's business model is they sell "medium quality fashion clothing at affordable prices", and vertical integration and quick-response is key to Zara 's business model.  Through the entire process of Zara 's business system: designing, sourcing and manufacturing, distribution and retailing, they presented four fundamental success factors: short cycle time, small batches per product, extensive variety of product every season and heavy investment in information and communication technology.  These four elements are involved in every aspect of the business.

Quick response of Zara leads it to be successful in the fashion clothing industry. Zara adopts international strategy for its operation. With vertical integration, it benefits Zara in cost aspect, however, it involves some risks. Due to our anaylysis on Zara’s operations, some of the recommendations are made to facilitate its further improvements.

Operations management can also be referred as a business practice that are used to generate profit for an organization with the use of optimal resources. It includes function such as material requirement planning, managing purchases, storage, logistic and evaluation of processes. The focus is on efficiency and effectiveness while performing these functions. Thus it can be concluded that operations management involves measurement and analysis of processes.

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

Until now, every garment that is product in Zara’s factories around the world has to travel back to Spain in order to go through quality controls, and is then send to its distributors. But the continuous flows of goods from all the productions sites to Spain and from Spain to the markets of sell, as well as the relative communication flows necessary to such a business model will inevitably slow down as Zara will have to deal with a constantly growing number of customers. Thus, the highly centralized information system of Zara seems not to be easily applicable in Asia, in addition to being time and money consuming.