zara it case study

How Zara’s strategy made her the queen of fast fashion

Table of contents, here’s what you’ll learn from zara's strategy study:.

• How to come up with disruptive ideas for your industry.
• How finding the right people is more important than developing the best strategy.
• How best to address the sustainability question.

Zara is a privately held multinational clothing retail chain with a focus on fast fashion. It was founded by Amancio Ortega in 1975 and it’s the largest company of the Inditex group.

Amancio Ortega was Inditex’s Chairman until 2011 and Zara’s CEO until 2005. The current CEO of Zara is Óscar García Maceiras and Marta Ortega Pérez, daughter of the founder, is the current Chairwoman of Inditex.

Zara's market share and key statistics:

• Brand value of $25,4 billion in 2022
• Net sales of $19,6 billion in 2021
• 1,939 stores worldwide in 2021
• Over 4 billion annual visits to its website
• Inditex employee count of 165,042 in 2021

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Humble beginnings: How did Zara start?

Most people date Zara’s birth to 1975, when Amancio Ortega and Rosalia Mera, his then-wife, opened the first shop. But, it’s impossible to study the company’s first steps, its initial competitive advantage, and strategic approach by starting at that point in time.

When the first Zara shop opened, Amancio Ortega already had 22 years of industry experience, ten years as a clever and hard-working employee, and 12 years as a business owner. Rosalia Mera also had 20 years of industry experience.

As an employee , Ortega worked in the clothing industry, first as a gofer and then as a delivery boy. He quickly demonstrated great talent for recognizing fabrics, understanding and serving customers, and making sound business suggestions. Soon, he decided to use his insights to develop his own business instead of his boss’s.

As a business owner , he started  GOA Confecciones  in 1963, along with his siblings, his wife, and a close friend. They started with a humble workshop making women’s quilted dressing gowns, following a trend at the time Amancio had noticed. Within ten years, that workshop had grown to support a workforce of 500 people.

And then, the couple opened the first Zara shop.

Zara’s competitive positioning strategy in its first year

The opening of the first Zara shop in 1975 wasn’t just a new store to sell clothes. It was the final big move of a carefully planned vertical integration strategy.

To understand how the  strategy was formulated , we need to understand Amancio’s first steps. His first business, GOA Confecciones, was a manufacturing business. He was supplying small stores and businesses with his products, and he wasn’t in contact with the end customer.

That brought two challenges:

• A lack of insight into market trends and no direct consumer feedback about preferences.
• Very low-profit margins compared to the 70-80% profit margin of retailers.

Amancio developed several ideas to improve distribution and get a direct relationship with the final purchaser. And he was always updating his factories with the latest technological advancements to offer the highest quality of products at the lowest possible price. But he was missing one essential part to reap the benefits of his distribution practices:  a store .

So, in 1972 he opened one under the brand name  Sprint . An experiment that quickly proved unsuccessful and, seven years later, was shut down. Although it’s unknown the extent to which Amancio put his ideas to the test, Sprint was a private masterclass in the retail world that gave Amancio insights that would later turn Zara into a global success.

Despite Sprint’s failure, Amancio didn’t abandon the idea of opening his own store mainly because he believed that his advanced production model was vulnerable and the rise of a competitor who could replicate and improve his system was imminent.

Adding a store to his vertical integration strategy would have a twofold effect:

• The store would operate as a direct feedback source. The company would be able to test design ideas before going into mass production while simultaneously getting an accurate pulse of the needs, tastes, and fancies of the customers. The store would simultaneously reduce risk and increase opportunity spotting.
• The company would have reduced operating costs as a retailer. Since the group would control all aspects of the process (from manufacturing to distribution to selling), it would solve key retail challenges with stocking. The savings would then be passed on to the customer. The store would have an operational competitive advantage and become a potential cash cow for the company.

The idea was to claim his spot in prime commercial areas (a core and persistent strategic move for Zara) and target the rising middle class. The market conditions were tough, though, with many family-owned businesses losing their customer base, giant players owning a huge market share, and Benetton’s franchising shops stealing great shop locations and competent potential managers.

So the first Zara store had these defining characteristics that made it the successful final piece of Amancio’s strategy:

• It was located near the factory = delivery of products was optimized
• It was in the city’s commercial heart = more expensive, but with access to affluence
• It was located in the city where Ortegas had the most customer experience = knowing thy customer
• It was visibly attractive = expensive, but a great marketing trick

Amancio’s team lacked experience and expertise in one key factor:  display window designing . The display window was a massive differentiator and had to be bold and attractive. So, Amancio hired Jordi Bernadó, a designer with innovative ideas whose work transformed display windows and the sales process.

The Zara shop was a success, laying the foundations for the international expansion of the Inditex group.

Key Takeaway #1: Challenge your industry’s conventional wisdom to create a disruptive strategy

Disrupting an industry isn’t an easy task nor a frequent occurrence.

To do it successfully, you need to:

• Understand the prominent business mode of your industry and the forces that contributed to its development.
• Challenge the assumptions behind it and design a radically different business model.
• Develop ample space for experimentation and failures.

The odds of instantly conquering the industry might be low (otherwise, someone would have already done it), but you’ll end up with out-of-the-box ideas and a higher sensitivity to potential disruptors in your competitive arena.

Recommended reading:   How To Write A Strategic Plan + Example

How Zara’s supply chain strategy is at the core of its business strategy

According to many analysts, the Zara supply chain strategy is its most important innovative component.

Amancio Ortega and other senior members of the group disagree. Nevertheless, the Inditex  logistics strategy  is extraordinarily efficient and plays a crucial role in sustaining its competitive advantage. Most companies in the clothing retail industry take an average of 4-8 weeks between inception and putting the product on the shelf. The group achieves the same in an average of two weeks. That’s nothing short of extraordinary.

Let’s see how Zara developed its logistics and business strategy.

Innovative logistics: how Zara’s supply chain evolved

The logistics methods developed by companies are highly dependent on external factors.

Take, for example, infrastructure. In the early days of Zara, when it was expanding through Spain, the company considered using trains as a transportation system. However, the schedule couldn’t keep up with Zara’s needs, which had the goal of distributing products twice a week to its shops. So transportation by road was the only way.

However, when efficiency is a high priority, it shapes logistics processes more than anything else.

And for Zara, efficient logistics was – and still is – of the highest priority.

Initially, leadership tried outsourcing logistics, but the experiment failed and the company assigned a member of the house with a thorough knowledge of the company's operating philosophy to take charge of the project. The tactic of entrusting important big projects to employees imbued with the company’s philosophy became a defining characteristic.

So, one of Zara’s early strategic decisions was that each shop would make orders twice a week. Since the first store was opened, the company has had the shortest stock rotation times in the industry. That’s what drove the development of its logistics methods. The whole strategy behind Zara relied on quick production and distribution. And the proximity of manufacturing and distribution was essential for the model to work. So Zara had these two centers in the same place.

Even when the brand was expanding around the world, its logistics center remained in Arteixo, Spain, despite being a less-than-ideal location for international distribution. At some point, the growth of the brand, and Inditex as a whole, outpaced Arteixo’s capacity, and the decentralization question came up.

The debate was tough among leadership, but the arguments were strong. Decentralization was necessary because of:

• Safety and security.  If there was a fire or any other crippling disaster there (especially on a distribution day), then the company would face serious troubles on multiple fronts.
• Arteixo’s limitations.  The company’s center in Arteixo was reaching its capacity limits.

So the company decided to decentralize the manufacturing and distribution of its brands.

Initially, the group made the decision to place differentiated logistics centers where the management of its chain of stores was based, i.e. Bershka would have a different logistics center than Pull&Bear, although they were both part of the Inditex Group. That idea emerged after Massimo Dutti and Stradivarius became part of Inditex. Those brands already had that geographical structure, and since the group integrated them successfully into its strategy and logistics model, it made sense to follow the same pattern with its other brands.

Besides, the proximity of the distribution centers to the headquarters of each brand allowed them to consolidate them based on the growth strategy and purpose of each brand (more on this later).

But just a few years after that, the group decided to build another production center for Zara that forced specialization between the two Zara centers. The specialization was based on location, i.e. each center would manufacture products that would stock the shelves of stores in specific locations.

Zara’s  supply chain strategy  is so successful because it’s constantly evolving as the group adapts to external circumstances and its internal needs. And just like its iconic fashion, the company always stays ahead of the logistics curve.

Zara’s business strategy transcends its logistics innovations

Zara’s business strategy relies on four key pillars:

• Flexibility of supply
• Instant absorption of market demand
• Response speed
• Technological innovation

Zara is the only brand in the Inditex group that is concerned with manufacturing. It’s the first brand in the clothing sector with a complete vertical organization. And the production model requires the adoption or development of the latest technological innovations.

This requirement is counterintuitive in the clothing sector.

Most people believe that making big investments in a market as mature as clothing is a bad idea. But the Zara production model is very capital and labor intensive. The technological edge derived from that investment gave the company, in the early days, the capability to manufacture over 50% of its own products while maintaining an extremely high stock rotation frequency.

Zara might be one of the best logistics companies in the world, but that particular excellence is a supporting factor, or at least a highly contributing factor, to its successful business strategy.

Zara’s business strategy is so much more than its supply chain strategy.

The company created the “fast fashion” term and industry. When other companies were manufacturing their collections once per season, Zara was adapting its collection to suit what people asked for on a weekly basis. The idea was to offer fashionable items at a fair price and faster than everybody else.

Part of its cost-cutting strategic priority was its marketing strategy. Zara didn’t – and still doesn’t – advertise like the rest of the clothing industry. Its marketing strategy starts with choosing the location of the stores and ends with advertising that the sales period has started. In the early years of the brand’s expansion, Amancio would visit potential store locations himself and choose the site to build the Zara shop.

The price was never an issue. If the location was in a commercial center, Zara would build its store there no matter how high the cost was because the company expected to recoup it quickly with increased sales.

Zara’s marketing is its own stores.

The strategy of Zara and her Inditex sisters

Despite Zara’s success (or because of it), Amancio Ortega created – or bought – multiple other brands that he included in the Inditex group, each one with a specific purpose.

• Zara  was targeting middle-class women. ‍
• Pull&Bear  was targeting young people under twenty-five years old with casual clothing. ‍
• Bershka  was targeting rebel teens, especially girls, with hip-hop-style clothing. ‍
• Massimo Dutti  was targeting both sexes with more affluence. ‍
• Stradivarius  was competing with Bershka, giving Inditex two major brands in the teenage market. ‍
• Oysho  was concentrating on women's lingerie. ‍
• Zara Home manufactures home textiles and decor.

Pull&Bear  was initially targeting young males between the ages of 14 and 28. Later it extended to young females of the same age and focused on selling leisure and sports clothing. It has the slowest stock turnaround time in the group.

Bershka’s  target group was girls between 13 and 23 years of age with highly individualized tastes. Prices were low, but the quality average. Almost a fiasco in the beginning, it underwent a successful strategic turnaround becoming today one of the biggest growth opportunities for the group. And out of all the Inditex chains, Bershka has the most creative designs.

Massimo Dutti  was the first retail brand Amancio bought and didn’t create himself. Its strategy is very different from Zara, producing high-quality products and selling them at a high price. It’s an extension of the group’s offer to the higher end of the price spectrum in the fashion industry. It’s also the only Inditex chain brand that advertises regularly.

Stradivarius  was the second acquired brand, with the purchase being a defensive move. The chain shares the same target group with Bershka, making it, to this day, a direct competitor.

Oysho  started as an underwear and lingerie company. Its product lines evolved to include comfortable night and homewear along with swimwear and a very young children’s line. The brand’s strategy was aggressive from its conception, opening 286 stores in its first six years of existence.

Zara Home  is the youngest brand in the Group and the only one outside the clothing sector, though still in the fashion industry. It was launched with the least confidence and with immense prior research. An experiment to extend the Zara brand beyond clothing, it was based on the conservative view that Zara could extend its product categories only to textile items for the home. But it turned out that customers were more accepting of Zara Home selling a wide variety of domestic items. So the brand made a successful strategic pivot.

Key Takeaway #2: The right people are more important than the best strategy

It might not be obvious in the story, but a key reason for Zara's and Inditex’s success has been the people behind them.

For example, a vast number of people in various positions from inside the group claim that Inditex cannot be understood without Amancio Ortega. Additionally, major projects like the development of Zara’s logistics systems and the group's international expansion had such a success precisely because of the people in charge of them.

Zara’s radically different model was a breakthrough because:

• Its leadership had a clear vision and a real strategy to execute it.
• People with a deep understanding of the company’s philosophy led Its largest projects.

Sustainability: Zara’s strategy to make fast fashion sustainable

Building a sustainable business in the fast fashion industry is a tough nut to crack.

To achieve it, Inditex has made sustainability a cornerstone of its business model. Its strategy revolves around the values of  collaboration ,  transparency,  and  innovation . The group’s ambition is to make a positive impact with a vision of prosperity for the planet and its people by transforming its value chain and industry.

Inditex’s sustainability commitments and strategy to achieve them

Inditex has developed a sustainability roadmap that extends up to 2040 with ambitious goals. Specifically, it has committed to

• 100% consumption of renewable energy in all of its facilities by 2022 (report pending).
• 100% of its cotton to originate from more sustainable sources by 2023.
• 100% of its man-made cellulosic fibers to originate from more sustainable sources by 2023.
• Zero waste from its facilities by 2023.
• 100% elimination of single-use plastic for customers by 2023.
• 100% collection of packaging material for recycling or reuse by 2023.
• 100% of its polyester to originate from more sustainable sources by 2025.
• 100% of its linen to originate from sustainable sources by 2025.
• 25% reduction of water consumption in its supply chain by 2025.
• Net zero emissions by 2040.

The group’s commitments extend beyond environmental issues to how its  manufacturing and supplying partners conduct their business . To bring its strategy to fruition, it has set up a new governance and management structure.

The Board of Directors is responsible for approving Inditex’s sustainability strategy. The  Sustainability Committee  oversees and controls all the proposals around the social, environmental, health, and safety impact of the group’s products, while the  Ethics Committee  makes sure operations are compliant with the rules of conduct. There is also a  Social Advisory Board  that includes external independent experts that advises Inditex on sustainability issues.

Finally, Javier Losada, previously the group’s Chief Sustainability Officer and now promoted to Chief Operations Officer, will be leading the sustainability transformation of the group. Javier Losada first joined Inditex back in 1993 and ascended its rank to reach the C-suite.

Inditex is dedicated to its commitment to reducing its environmental impact and seems to be headed in the right direction. The only question is whether it’s fast enough.

Key Takeaway #3: Integrating sustainability with business strategy is a present-day necessity

Governments and international bodies around the world are implementing more stringent environmental regulations, forcing companies to commit to ambitious goals and developing a realistic strategy to achieve them.

The companies that are impacted the least are those that always had sustainability as a  high priority .

From the companies that require significant changes in their operations to comply with the new regulations, only those who  integrate  sustainability into their business strategy and model will succeed.

Why is Zara so successful?

Zara is the biggest Spanish clothing retailer in the world based on sales value. Its success is due to its fast fashion strategy that is based on a strong supply chain and quick market feedback loops.

Zara's customer-centric approach places a strong emphasis on understanding and responding to customer needs and preferences. This is reflected in the company's product design, marketing, and customer service strategies.

Zara made fashionable clothes accessible to the middle class.

Zara’s vision guides its future

Zara's vision, as part of the Inditex Group, is to create a sustainable fashion industry by promoting responsible consumption and production, respecting the environment and people, and contributing to the communities in which it operates.

The company aims to offer the latest fashion trends to its customers at accessible prices while continuously innovating and improving its operations and processes.

Growth by numbers (Inditex)

How Zara became the undisputed king of fast fashion?

Zara is one of the biggest international apparel brands. Zara invites customers from around 93 markets to its organization of 2000+ stores in upscale markets on the planet’s biggest urban communities. With these stores, Zara generates 18 billion Euros annually.

The brand has been fruitful in keeping up its central goal to give quick and reasonable designs in the world of fashion. Zara’s way to deal with configuration is firmly connected to its clients. This story is about how Zara became the undisputed king of Fast fashion.

Fashion is the imitation of a given example and satisfies the demand for social adaptation. . . . The more an article becomes subject to rapid changes of fashion, the greater the demand for cheap products of its kind. — Georg Simmel, “Fashion” (1904)

History of Zara: The Long Story Cut Short

Amancio Ortega launched the first Zara store in 1975 in Central Street in downtown A Coruna, Galicia, Spain. The main Store included low-value look-a-like designs of famous and better-quality dress styles. The store ended up being a triumph and Ortega Began opening more Zara stores throughout Spain.

During the 1980s, Ortega began changing the plan, assembling and dissemination cycle to diminish lead times and respond to new patterns in a snappier manner in what they called “Moment Fashions”.

In 1980 the company started its international expansion through Porto, Portugal in the 1990s, with Mexico in 1992. Since then Ortega has continued to grow and create brands such as Pull & Bear, Bershka , and Oysho . It has acquired groups like Massimo Dutti and Stradivarius . Even though these brands have been contributors to their parent group Inditex’s success, Zara is still the principal growth driver.

Zara’s Customer-driven Value Chain

Product line-up:.

Unlike other Inditex chains, Zara has focused on manufacturing fashion-sensitive products internally. The latest designs were continuously in production as per changing customer’s preferences. Many competitors were producing just a few thousand SKUs whereas Zara was producing several hundred of thousands of SKUs in a year. These SKUs varied as per color, size, and fabric.

Zara’s designs are not dependent on design maestros. Instead, its designers carefully observe the catwalk trends and try to implement them for the mass market. The design team continuously creates variations in a particular season. Thereafter expanding on successful designs.

Fast Supply Chain:

Zara’s flexible supply chain allows it to dispatch new ranges to shops two times per week from its central distribution center that is an approximately 400,000-square-meter facility located in Arteixo, Spain. This kind of business system called vertical integration eliminated the need for local warehouses. The strategy here was to reduce the “bullwhip effect”. Let’s see what the bullwhip effect is:

The bullwhip effect is a distribution channel phenomenon in which demand forecasts yield supply chain inefficiencies. It refers to increasing swings in inventory in response to shifts in consumer demand as one moves further up the supply chain. Wikipedia

It was a matter of a few weeks and a new design was on the shelf for the customers. Isn’t cool? These designs of clothes and accessories were quickly moved to fancy stores in prime locations but at a cheap price. This strategy has attracted a lot of fashion yet money conscious customers.

We want our customers to understand that if they like something, they must buy it now because it won’t be in the shops the following week. It is all about creating a climate of scarcity and opportunity. Luis Blanc, one of the former Inditex’s international directors

Zara’s Retailing Strategy

Zara instead of focusing on improving its manufacturing efficiency focused on improving its retail strategy. This retailing strategy was about following fashion trends quickly even it means there is an unmet demand. As was previously discussed, this also helped Zara in creating a FOMO for its products. The two components of its retailing strategy were dependent on its upstream operations: Merchandizing and Stores.

Read: The Torchbearers of Sustainable Fashion

Merchandising.

Merchandising is the promotion of goods and/or services that are available for retail sale. It includes the determination of quantities, setting prices for goods and services, creating display designs, developing marketing strategies, and establishing discounts or coupons. Investopedia

• Zara placed emphasis on the freshness of its designs. It wanted to create a sense of exclusivity. It never focused on creating bulk items of one design. Zara had confidence in its fast supply chain of twice a week shipment to the store with the latest designs. Thre quarter of its merchandise gets replaced in just a month. How about that?

The success of your business is based in principle on the idea of offering the latest fashions at low prices, in turn creating a formula for cutting costs: an integrated business in which it is manufactured, distributed, and sold. Amancio Ortega

Fun Fact : An average customer visits a Zara store 17 times in a year where the number is 3-4 times for its competitors.

• Zara understood the importance of store locations very well. Zara prices are not expensive but its store location and design made its products look expensive. The brand wanted its customers to have a premium feel at a reasonable price.

We invest in prime locations. We place great care in the presentation of our storefronts. That is how we project our image. We want our clients to enter a beautiful store, where they are offered the latest fashions. Luis Blanc, one of the former Inditex’s international directors

Store Operations

Zara has stores in most upscale markets and shopping centers in the world. You name it and they have a store there. Champs Elysées in Paris, Regent Street in London, and Fifth Avenue in New York to name a few. As per its latest annual report the value of these properties is valued at almost 8 billion Euros. But the way these stores are managed is a strategy to learn for all retailers.

• We all love grand stores with a lot of variety. Zara has emphasized on creating a grand image of its stores. Imagine a big store at a posh location. How much impressed you would be. The average size of Zara stores has continuously increased over the years. In 2001 the average store size was 910 sq.m whereas in 2018 the size has more than doubled.

Zara’s average store size has increased by 50%: from 1,452m2 in 2012 to 2,184m2 in 2018. That growth has been driven by new store openings – larger flagship stores – as well as the fact that many of the new openings have entailed the absorption of one or more older, smaller units in the same catchment area. Inditex Annual Report

• Zara has tried to standardize the in-store experience with its store window displays and interior presentations. As the season progresses, Zara consistently evolves its interior themes, color schemes, and product placements. All these ideas come from the central team in Spain and regional teams implement with necessary region-based adaptations. So much so that the uniforms of the staff were selected twice in a season by a store manager from the latest collection.

Anti-Marketing Approach of Zara

Zara has able to maintain profitability ~13% whereas its major competitor like H&M is at 6% . This has been possible not only because of its efficient supply chain we discussed above but also because of its no advertising or limited advertising policy.

This is what makes Zara really one of a kind. The organization just spends about 0.3% of deals on promoting and does not have a lot of advertising to discuss. The usual trend in the industry is to spend 3.5% on advertising. Zara never shows its clothes at expensive fashion shows also. It first shows its designs at stores directly. But why does not Zara believe in advertising? There are primarily two reasons:

• First, as we discussed it saves Zara a lot of money. So much so that it has now one of the highest profitability.
• Second, it brings exclusivity and prevents overexposure of a design. Customers feel like if they purchase a shirt at Zara, five others won’t have that equivalent shirt at work or school.

Read: Viral Marketing over the Long-Haul ft. Burger King

Zara is a perfect case study to learn the perfect operations strategy, perfect marketing strategy, perfect pricing strategy, and whatnot. It’s all strategies are so perfect. It is also a perfect example to understand how a traditional brand is evolving itself with time to stay relevant.

As per its annual report , In 2018, Zara launched its global online store, marking a milestone in its commitment to having all of its brands available online worldwide by 2020. Zara continued to earn global accolades for its collections and initiatives, its integrated shopping experience, and its commitment to sustainability, with over 90 million garments put on sale under the Join Life label.

Zara is just not a brand of fast fashion. Its much more than that now. And that’s why it’s actually the true king of fast fashion.

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ZARA: Fast Fashion

By: Pankaj Ghemawat, Jose Luis Nueno Iniesta

Focuses on Inditex, an apparel retailer from Spain, which has set up an extremely quick response system for its ZARA chain. Instead of predicting months before a season starts what women will want to…

• Length: 35 page(s)
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2003
• Discipline: Strategy
• Product #: 703497-PDF-ENG

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Focuses on Inditex, an apparel retailer from Spain, which has set up an extremely quick response system for its ZARA chain. Instead of predicting months before a season starts what women will want to wear, ZARA observes what's selling and what's not and continuously adjusts what it produces and merchandises on that basis. Powered by ZARA's success, Inditex has expanded into 39 countries, making it one of the most global retailers in the world. But in 2002, it faces important questions concerning its future growth.

Apr 1, 2003 (Revised: Dec 21, 2006)

Discipline:

Harvard Business School

703497-PDF-ENG

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Zara's Secret for Fast Fashion

by Kasra Ferdows, Michael A. Lewis and Jose A.D. Machuca

Editor's note: With some 650 stores in 50 countries, Spanish clothing retailer Zara has hit on a formula for supply chain success that works by defying conventional wisdom. This excerpt from a recent Harvard Business Review profile zeros in on how Zara's supply chain communicates, allowing it to design, produce, and deliver a garment in fifteen days.

In Zara stores, customers can always find new products—but they're in limited supply. There is a sense of tantalizing exclusivity, since only a few items are on display even though stores are spacious (the average size is around 1,000 square meters). A customer thinks, "This green shirt fits me, and there is one on the rack. If I don't buy it now, I'll lose my chance."

Such a retail concept depends on the regular creation and rapid replenishment of small batches of new goods. Zara's designers create approximately 40,000 new designs annually, from which 10,000 are selected for production. Some of them resemble the latest couture creations. But Zara often beats the high-fashion houses to the market and offers almost the same products, made with less expensive fabric, at much lower prices. Since most garments come in five to six colors and five to seven sizes, Zara's system has to deal with something in the realm of 300,000 new stock-keeping units (SKUs), on average, every year.

This "fast fashion" system depends on a constant exchange of information throughout every part of Zara's supply chain—from customers to store managers, from store managers to market specialists and designers, from designers to production staff, from buyers to subcontractors, from warehouse managers to distributors, and so on. Most companies insert layers of bureaucracy that can bog down communication between departments. But Zara's organization, operational procedures, performance measures, and even its office layouts are all designed to make information transfer easy.

Zara's single, centralized design and production center is attached to Inditex (Zara's parent company) headquarters in La Coruña. It consists of three spacious halls—one for women's clothing lines, one for men's, and one for children's. Unlike most companies, which try to excise redundant labor to cut costs, Zara makes a point of running three parallel, but operationally distinct, product families. Accordingly, separate design, sales, and procurement and production-planning staffs are dedicated to each clothing line. A store may receive three different calls from La Coruña in one week from a market specialist in each channel; a factory making shirts may deal simultaneously with two Zara managers, one for men's shirts and another for children's shirts. Though it's more expensive to operate three channels, the information flow for each channel is fast, direct, and unencumbered by problems in other channels—making the overall supply chain more responsive.

In each hall, floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Spanish countryside reinforce a sense of cheery informality and openness. Unlike companies that sequester their design staffs, Zara's cadre of 200 designers sits right in the midst of the production process. Split among the three lines, these mostly twentysomething designers—hired because of their enthusiasm and talent, no prima donnas allowed—work next to the market specialists and procurement and production planners. Large circular tables play host to impromptu meetings. Racks of the latest fashion magazines and catalogs fill the walls. A small prototype shop has been set up in the corner of each hall, which encourages everyone to comment on new garments as they evolve.

The physical and organizational proximity of the three groups increases both the speed and the quality of the design process. Designers can quickly and informally check initial sketches with colleagues. Market specialists, who are in constant touch with store managers (and many of whom have been store managers themselves), provide quick feedback about the look of the new designs (style, color, fabric, and so on) and suggest possible market price points. Procurement and production planners make preliminary, but crucial, estimates of manufacturing costs and available capacity. The cross-functional teams can examine prototypes in the hall, choose a design, and commit resources for its production and introduction in a few hours, if necessary.

Zara is careful about the way it deploys the latest information technology tools to facilitate these informal exchanges. Customized handheld computers support the connection between the retail stores and La Coruña. These PDAs augment regular (often weekly) phone conversations between the store managers and the market specialists assigned to them. Through the PDAs and telephone conversations, stores transmit all kinds of information to La Coruña—such hard data as orders and sales trends and such soft data as customer reactions and the "buzz" around a new style. While any company can use PDAs to communicate, Zara's flat organization ensures that important conversations don't fall through the bureaucratic cracks.

Once the team selects a prototype for production, the designers refine colors and textures on a computer-aided design system. If the item is to be made in one of Zara's factories, they transmit the specs directly to the relevant cutting machines and other systems in that factory. Bar codes track the cut pieces as they are converted into garments through the various steps involved in production (including sewing operations usually done by subcontractors), distribution, and delivery to the stores, where the communication cycle began.

The constant flow of updated data mitigates the so-called bullwhip effect—the tendency of supply chains (and all open-loop information systems) to amplify small disturbances. A small change in retail orders, for example, can result in wide fluctuations in factory orders after it's transmitted through wholesalers and distributors. In an industry that traditionally allows retailers to change a maximum of 20 percent of their orders once the season has started, Zara lets them adjust 40 percent to 50 percent. In this way, Zara avoids costly overproduction and the subsequent sales and discounting prevalent in the industry.

Excerpted with permission from "Rapid-Fire Fulfillment," Harvard Business Review , Vol. 82, No.11, November 2004.

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Kasra Ferdows is the Heisley Family Professor of Global Manufacturing at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business in Washington DC.

Michael A. Lewis is a professor of operations and supply management at the University of Bath School of Management in the UK.

Jose A.D. Machuca is a professor of operations management at the University of Seville in Spain.

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The Secret of Zara’s Success: A Culture of Customer Co-creation

Zara is one of the world’s most successful fashion retail brands – if not the most successful one. With its dramatic introduction of the concept of “fast fashion” retail since it was founded in 1975 in Spain, Zara aspires to create responsible passion for fashion amongst a broad spectrum of consumers, spread across different cultures and age groups. There are many factors that have contributed to the success of Zara but one of its key strengths, which has played a strong role in it becoming a global fashion powerhouse as it is today, is its ability to put customers first. Zara is obsessed with its customers, and they have defined the company and the brand’s culture right from the very beginning.

The Zara brand offers men and women’s clothing, children’s clothing (Zara Kids), shoes and accessories. The sub-brand Zara TRF offers trendier and sometimes edgier items to younger women and teenagers.

The Zara brand story

Zara was founded by Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera in 1975 as a family business in downtown Galicia in the northern part of Spain. Its first store featured low-priced lookalike products of popular, higher-end clothing and fashion. Amancio Ortega named Zara as such because his preferred name Zorba was already taken. In the next 8 years, Zara’s approach towards fashion and its business model gradually generated traction with the Spanish consumer. This led to the opening of 9 new stores in the biggest cities of Spain.

In 1985, Inditex was incorporated as a holding company, which laid the foundations for a distribution system capable of reacting to shifting market trends extremely quickly. Ortega created a new design, manufacturing, and distribution process that could reduce lead times and react to new trends in a quicker way, which he called “instant fashion”. This was driven by heavy investments in information technology and utilising groups instead of individual designers for the critical “design” element.

In the next decade, Zara began aggressively expanding into global markets, which included Portugal, New York (USA), Paris (France), Mexico, Greece, Belgium, Sweden, Malta, Cyprus, Norway and Israel. Today, there is hardly a developed country without a Zara store. Zara now has 2,264 stores strategically located in leading cities across 96 countries. It is no surprise that Zara, which started off as a small store in Spain, is now the world’s largest fast fashion retailer and is the flagship brand of Inditex. Its founder, Amancio Ortega, is the sixth richest man in the world according to Forbes magazine.

Today, Inditex is the world’s largest fashion group with more than 174,000 employees operating more than 7,400 stores in 202 markets worldwide including 49 online markets. The revenues of Inditex was USD 23.4 billion in 2019. The other fashion brands in the Inditex portfolio are:

Zara Home: Home goods and decoration objects founded in 2003. Operating in 183 markets, 70 of them with stores.

Pull & Bear: Casual laid-back clothing and accessories for the young founded in 1991. Operates in 185 markets, 75 of them with stores.

Massimo Dutti: High end clothing and accessories for cosmopolitan men and women acquired in 1995. Operates 186 markets, 74 of them with stores.

Bershka: Blends urban styles and modern fashion for young women and men founded in 1998. Operates in 185 markets, 74 of them with stores.

Stradivarius: Casual and feminine clothes for young women acquired in 1999. Operates 180 markets, 67 of them with stores.

Oysho: Lingerie, casual outerwear, lounge wear and original accessories founded in 2001. Operating in 176 markets, 58 of them with stores.

Uterqüe: High-quality fashion accessories at attractive prices founded in 2008. Operating in 158 markets, 17 of them with stores.

Apart from fashion brands, Amancio Ortega has also set up a global real estate investment fund, Pontegadea Inversiones, which manages corporate offices across 9 countries including United States (Seattle), Britain (London), France (Paris), Canada, Italy, South Korea. These corporate properties house large companies including Facebook, Amazon and Apple, and prestigious luxury and retail brands.

The Zara brand strategy

In 2019, Zara was ranked 29th on global brand consultancy Interbrand’s list of best global brands. Its core values are found in four simple terms: beauty, clarity, functionality and sustainability.

The secret to Zara’s success has largely being driven by its ability to keep up with rapidly changing fashion trends and showcase it in its collections with very little delay. From the very beginning, Zara found a significant gap in the market that few clothing brands had effectively addressed. This was to keep pace with latest fashion trends, but offer clothing collections that are a combination of high quality and yet, are affordable. The brand keeps a close watch on how fashion is changing and evolving every day across the world. Based on latest styles and trends, it creates new designs and puts them into stores in a week or two. In stark comparison, most other fashion brands would take close to six months to get new designs and collections into the market.

It is through this strategic ability of introducing new collections based on latest trends in a rapid manner that enabled Zara to beat other competitors. It quickly became the people’s favourite brand, especially with those who want to keep up with fashion trends. Founder Amancio Ortega is famously known for his views on clothes as a perishable commodity. According to him, people should love to use and wear clothes for a short while and then they should throw them away, just like yogurt, bread or fish, rather than store them in cupboards.

The media often quotes that the brand produces “freshly baked clothes”, which survive fashion trends for less than a month or two. Zara concentrates on three areas to effectively “bake” its fresh fashions:

Shorter lead times (and more fashionable clothes): Shorter lead times allow Zara to ensure that its stores stock clothes that customers want at that time (e.g. specific spring/ summer or autumn/ winter collections, recent trend that is catching up, sudden popularity of an item worn by a celebrity/ socialite/ actor/ actress, latest collection of a top designer etc.). While many retailers try to forecast what customers might buy months in the future, Zara moves in step with its customers and offers them what they want to buy at a given point in time.

Lower quantities (through scarce supply): By reducing the quantity manufactured for a particular style, Zara not only reduces its exposure to any single product but also creates artificial scarcity. Similar to the principle that applies to all fashion items (and more specifically luxury), the lesser the availability, the more desirable an object becomes. Another benefit of producing lower quantities is that if a style does not generate traction and suffers from poor sales, there is not a high volume to be disposed of. Zara only has two time-bound sales a year rather than constant markdowns, and it discounts a very small proportion of its products, approximately half compared to its competitors, which is a very impressive feat.

More styles: Rather than producing more quantities per style, Zara produces more styles, roughly 12,000 a year. Even if a style sells out very quickly, there are new styles waiting to take up the space. This means more choices and higher chance of getting it right with the consumer.

Zara only allows its designs to remain on the shop floor for three to four weeks. This practice pushes consumers to keep visiting the brand’s stores because if they were just a week late, all the clothes of a particular style or trend would be gone and replaced with a new trend. At the same time, this constant refreshing of the lines and styles carried by its stores also entices customers to visit its shops more frequently.

In the following sections, the key components of Zara’s winning formula in the fashion retailing industry are illustrated.

Customer co-creation: Zara’s principal designer is the customer

Zara’s unrelenting focus on the customer is at the core of the brand’s success and the heights it has achieved today. There was a fascinating story around how Zara co-creates its products leveraging its customers’ input. In 2015, a lady named Miko walked into a Zara store in Tokyo and asked the store assistant for a pink scarf, but the store did not have any pink scarves. The same happened almost simultaneously for Michelle in Toronto, Elaine in San Francisco, and Giselle in Frankfurt, who all walked into Zara stores and asked for pink scarves. They all left the stores without any scarves – an experience many other Zara fans encountered globally in different Zara stores over the next few days.

7 days later, more than 2,000 Zara stores globally started selling pink scarves. 500,000 pink scarves were dispatched – to be exact. They sold out in 3 days. How did such lightning fast stocking of pink scarves happen?

Customer insights are the holy grail of modern business, and the more companies know about their customers, the better they can innovate and compete. But it can prove challenging to have the right insights, at the right time, and have access to them consistently over time. One of the secrets to Zara’s success includes using Radio Frequency Identification Technology (RFID) in its stores. The brand uses cutting-edge systems to track the location of garments instantly and makes those most in demand rapidly available to customers. Additionally, it helps to reduce inventory costs, provides greater flexibility to launch new designs, and allows fulfillment of online orders with stock from stores nearest to the delivery location thereby reducing delivery costs.

Another secret of Zara’s success is that the brand trains and empowers its store employees and managers to be particularly sensitive to customer needs and wants, and how customers enact them on the shop floors. Zara empowers its sales associates and store managers to be at the forefront of customer research – they intently listen and note down customer comments, ideas for cuts, fabrics or a new line, and keenly observe new styles that its customers are wearing that have the potential to be converted into unique Zara styles. In comparison, traditional daily sales reports can hardly provide such a dynamic updated picture of the market. The Zara empire is built on two basic rules: “to give customers what they want”, and “get it to them faster than anyone else”.

Due to Zara’s competitive customer research capabilities, its product offerings across its stores globally reflect unique customer needs and wants in terms of physical, climate or cultural differences. It offers smaller sizes in Japan, special women’s clothes in Arab countries, and clothes of different seasonality in South America. These differences in product offerings across countries are greatly facilitated by the frequent interactions between Zara’s local store managers and its creative team.

In the fashion world, a trend starts small, but develops fast. Zara employees are trained to listen, watch and be attentive to even the smallest seismographic signals from their customers, which can be an initial sign that a new trend is taking shape. Zara knows that the quicker it can respond, the more likely it is to succeed in supplying the right fashion merchandise at the right time across its global retail chain. Zara has set up sophisticated technology driven systems, which enable information to travel quickly from the stores back to its headquarters in Arteixo in Spain, enabling decision makers to act fast and respond effectively to a developing trend. Its design teams regularly visit university campuses; nightclubs and other venues to observe what young fashion leaders are wearing. In its headquarters, the design team uses flat-screen monitors linked by webcam to offices in Shanghai, Tokyo and New York (the leading cities for fashion trends), which act as trend spotters. The ‘Trends’ team never goes to fashion shows but tracks bloggers and listens closely to the brand’s customers.

The fact that Zara’s designers and customers are inextricably linked is a crucial part of the brand strategy. Specialist teams receive constant feedback on the decisions its customers are making at every Zara store, which continuously inspires the Zara creative team.

Zara’s super-efficient supply chain

Zara’s highly responsive, vertically integrated supply chain enables the export of garments 24 hours, 365 days of the year, resulting in the shipping of new products to stores twice a week. After products are designed, they take around 10 to 15 days to reach the stores. All clothing items are processed through the distribution center in Spain, where new items are inspected, sorted, tagged, and loaded into trucks. In most cases, clothing items are delivered to stores within 48 hours. This vertical integration allows Zara to retain control over areas like dyeing and processing and have fabric-processing capacity available on-demand to provide the correct fabrics for new styles according to customer preferences. It also eliminates the need for warehouses and helps reduce the impact of demand fluctuations. Zara produces over 450 million items and launches around 12,000 new designs annually, so the efficiency of the supply chain is critical to ensure that this constant refreshment of store level collections goes off smoothly and efficiently.

Here are some of the characteristics of Zara’s supply chain that highlight the reasons behind its success:

Frequency of customer insights collection: Trend information flows daily into a database at head office, which is used by designers to create new lines and modify existing ones.

Standardization of product information: Zara warehouses have standardised product information with common definitions, allowing quick and accurate preparation of designs with clear manufacturing instructions.

Product information and inventory management: By effectively managing thousands of fabric, trim and design specifications and their physical inventory, Zara is capable of designing a garment with available stock of required raw materials.

Procurement strategy: Around two-thirds of fabrics are undyed and are purchased before designs are finalized so as to obtain savings through demand aggregation.

Manufacturing approach: Zara uses a “make and buy” approach – it produces the more fashionable and riskier items (which need testing and piloting) in Spain, and outsources production of more standard designs with more predictable demand to Morocco, Turkey and Asia to reduce production cost. The more fashionable and riskier items (which are around half of its merchandise) are manufactured at a dozen company-owned factories in Spain (Galicia), northern Portugal and Turkey. Clothes with longer shelf life (i.e. the one with more predictable demand patterns), such as basic T-shirts, are outsourced to low cost suppliers, mainly in Asia. Even when manufacturing in Europe, Zara manages to keep its costs down by outsourcing the assembly workshops and leveraging the informal economy of mothers and grandmothers.

Distribution management: Zara’s state-of-the-art distribution facility functions with minimal human intervention. Optical reading devices sort out and distribute more than 60,000 items of clothing an hour.

In addition to these supply chain efficiencies, Zara can also modify existing items in as little as two weeks. Shortening the product life cycle means greater success in meeting consumer preferences. If a design does not sell well within a week, it is withdrawn from shops, further orders are canceled and a new design is pursued. Zara closely monitors changes in customer preferences towards fashion. It has a range of basic designs that are carried over from year to year, but some in-vogue, high fashion, inspired by latest trends items can stay on the shelves for less than four weeks, which encourages Zara fans to make repeat visits. An average high-street store in Spain expects customers to visit thrice a year, but for Zara, the expectation is that customers should visit around 17 times in a year.

This expectation for such a high frequency of repeat visits is evidence of Zara’s confidence that it is keeping on top of changing consumer needs and preferences and is helping them shape their ideas, opinions and taste for fashion. In reality, Zara is also helping in giving birth to new trends through its stores or even helping in extending the longevity of some seasonal styles by offering affordable lines.

Sustainability at the core of Zara’s operations

Sustainability has been a hot topic in business for the last decade and is now quickly becoming a must-have hygiene factor for companies that want to resonate with and win the loyalty of its global customers. For Inditex, this means having a commitment to people and the environment.

Commitment to people: Inditex ensures that its employees have a shared vision of value built on sustainability through professional development, equality and diversity and volunteering. It also ensures that its suppliers have fundamental rights at work and by initiating continuous improvement programs for them. Inditex also spends over USD 50 million annually on social and community programmes and initiatives. For example, its “for&from” programme which started in 2002 has enabled the social integration of people with physical and mental disabilities, by providing over 200 stable employment opportunities across 15 stores.

Commitment to environment: Being in a business where it taps on natural resources to create its products, Inditex makes efforts to ensure that the environmental impact of its business complies with UNSDGs (United Nations Sustainable Developmental Goals). Inditex has pledged to only sell sustainable clothes by 2025 and that all cotton, linen and polyester sold will be organic, sustainable or recycled. The company also runs Join Life, a scheme which helps consumers identify clothes made with more environmentally friendly materials like organic cotton and recycled polyester.

Additionally, Inditex takes wide-ranging measures to protect biodiversity, reduce its consumption of water, energy and other resources, avoid waste, and combat climate change. For example, it has outlined a Global Water Management Strategy, specifically committing to zero discharge of hazardous chemicals. It has also been expanding its waste reduction programme through which customers can drop off their used clothing, footwear and accessories at collection points in 2,299 stores in 46 markets today.

Zara’s culture: The word “impossible” does not exist

Zara has a very entrepreneurial culture, and employs lots of young talent who quickly climb through the ranks of the company. Zara promotes approximately two-thirds of its store managers from within and generally experiences low turnover. The brand has no fear in giving responsibility to young people and the culture encourages risk-taking (as long as learning happens) and fast implementation (the mantra of fashion).

Top management gives its store managers full liberty and control over their store’s operations and performance with clearly set cost, profit and growth targets with a fixed and variable compensation scheme. The variable component amounts to up to half of the total compensation – making store level employees heavily incentive-driven.

In addition, once an employee is selected for promotion, his or her store develops a comprehensive training program for that individual with the human resources department, which is followed up by periodic supplemental training – reflecting Zara’s commitment to talent development. The organizational structure is also flat with only a few managerial layers.

Customers are the most important source of information for Zara, but like any other fashion brand, Zara also employs trend analysts, customer insights experts, and retains some of the best talents in the fashion world. The creative team of Zara comprises of over 200 professionals. They all embody and enact the corporate philosophy that the word “impossible” does not exist in Zara.

For example, while many companies struggle with long lead times in discussions and decision making, Zara gets around this challenge by getting various business functions to sit together at the headquarters and also by encouraging a culture (through structures and processes) where people continuously talk to each other. The sales and marketing teams who receive trend feedback talk regularly with designers and merchandisers. It is important that there is constant two-way communication so that sales and marketing teams can talk about new lines to customers and designers / merchandisers have a strong visibility of customers’ needs and preferences enacted at a store level. The production scheduling is also closely coordinated so that there is no time wasted on approvals. The design team structure is very flat and focuses on careful interpretation of catwalk trends that are suitable for the mass market – the Zara customer. The design and product development teams, who are based in Spain, work closely to produce 1,000 new styles every month.

Besides being customer centric, another important reason why Zara’s employee strategy is so successful is the fact that it empowers its staff to make decisions based on data. Zara has no chief designer. All its designers are given unparalleled independence in approving products and campaigns, based on daily data feeds indicating which styles are popular.

Due to the unwavering focus on the customer, the entire business model is designed in such a way that the pattern of needs for the finished goods dictate the terms of the production process to follow, instead of having the raw materials determine the nature of the production process – something that is very rare in multinational companies of similar scale.

In sum, the entire brand culture is extremely customer-centric, which has been and continues to be a significant contributor to Zara’s success.

The Zara brand communication strategy

Zara has used almost a zero advertising and endorsement policy throughout its entire existence, preferring to invest a percentage of its revenues in opening new stores instead. It spends a meager 0.3 per cent of sales on advertising compared to an average of 3.5 per cent by competitors. The brand’s founder Amancio has never spoken to the media nor has in any way advertised Zara. This is indeed the mark of a truly successful brand where customers appreciate and desire the brand, which is over and above product level benefits but strongly driven by the brand experience.

Instead of advertising, Zara uses its store location and store displays as key elements of its marketing strategy. By choosing to be in the most prominent locations in a city, Zara ensures very high customer traffic for its stores. Its window displays, which showcase the most outstanding pieces in the collection, are also a powerful communication tool designed by a specialized team. A lot of time and effort is spent designing the window displays to be artistic and attention grabbing. According to Zara’s philosophy of fast fashion, the window displays are constantly changed. This strategy goes down to how the employees dress as well – all Zara employees are required to wear Zara clothes while working in the stores, but these “uniforms” vary across different Zara stores to reflect socio-economic differences in the regions they were located. This effectively communicates Zara’s focus on the mass market, yet another detail that reflects its close attention on the customer.

To tap into the emerging e-commerce trend, Zara launched its online boutique in September 2010. The website was initially available in Spain, the UK, Portugal, Italy, Germany and France, and was extended to Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Over the next 3 years, the online store became available in the United States, Russia, Canada, Mexico, Romania, and South Korea. In 2017, Zara’s online store launched in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and India. More recently in March 2018, the brand launched online in Australia and New Zealand. Today, its online store is available in 66 countries. As of 2019, online sales grew to constitute 14% of Zara’s total global sales.

As a fast fashion retailer, Zara is definitely aware of the power of e-commerce and has built up a successful online presence and high-quality customer experience.

Zara’s future brand and business challenges

Charting a new digital strategy in the COVID-19 crisis: With its primarily offline shopping experience, Zara has been hard hit by global store closures amid the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, with sales falling 44% year-on-year in Q1 2020 and the company reporting a net loss of USD 482 million. Inditex has announced that it will be closing between 1,000 to 1,200 stores worldwide, focusing on smaller ones in Asia and Europe. While online sales have been encouraging – Zara’s online sales for Q1 2020 grew 50% – it is not enough to mitigate the damage.

Amancio Ortega plans to spend USD 1.1 billion scaling up its digital strategy and online capabilities by 2022 and a further USD 2 billion in stores to improve integration between online and offline for faster deliveries and real-time tracking of products. Its goal is for online sales to constitute at least 25% of total sales. To achieve this goal, Zara will need to think of new ways to engage its customers digitally, not just through its online store, but through online communities and social media.

Mobile commerce: Zara woke up late to the potential of mobile commerce and needs to catch up fast with competitors. Different forms of market analysis strongly point towards a scenario wherein spends on mobile commerce will overtake desktop based ecommerce by 2021. On an average, most brands currently get about 15-20% of their website traffic via mobile devices and this is growing rapidly. With the deluge of investments planned in the mobile commerce space and Zara’s competitors already having an advantage on the mobile front, Zara needs to quickly make mobile shopping not only an effortless experience but also a delightful one.

Price is not an advantage anymore: Offering the latest fashion lines at affordable prices continues to be a strategic advantage for Zara, but cannot continue to be the only one. Across the world, and closer to home in Europe, competitors are cutting prices and refining their business models to cut the competitive advantage that Zara has. Swedish fast fashion retailer H&M, which is placed #30 just behind Zara on Interbrand’s list, launched an online store in Spain in 2014 to take own Zara in its home turf. Again in its home market, it now faces increasing competition from brands like Mango, which cut prices and started focusing on fashion segments in which Zara enjoyed popularity. In addition to H&M and Mango, other competitors like Gap and Topshop are all fighting for a share of the fast fashion retail market pie. Also with the rise of e- and m-commerce, the number of indirect competitors has mushroomed. We now have online fashion aggregators that bring in multiple brands under one single online platform and cut through borders and price segments. Some examples of such aggregators who are doing well include Lyst, Farfetch, Spring and Yoox Net-a-Porter.

For Zara to effectively compete and maintain its strategic advantage, the focus needs to shift away from price but towards quality. Even today the Zara brand enjoys high levels of appeal, which is evident by the serpentine queues outside its stores when it launches in new markets. There is a need for Zara to start investing in building a strong brand positioning and aggressively communicate it. Additionally, Zara needs to adopt, imbibe and leverage social media and digital platforms in its advertising and communication strategies deeper going forward.

Need for marketing strategy to evolve: As discussed above, Zara does not engage in advertising and instead uses its store locations as a marketing strategy. However, brand communication is crucial in attracting new customers to the brand to support its growth. Without advertisements, Zara relies heavily on word of mouth or social media. This causes the perception of potential customers towards Zara to be heavily shaped by family and friends, which may not be accurate. In addition, Zara’s social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube exists merely as a feed for updates rather than a platform that consumers can interact with. Its videos on YouTube are also seeing very low viewership in comparison with its follower count, which is not ideal as videos are a powerful medium for brands in the fashion industry. This is a gap that Zara needs to plug immediately as the reach and impact of social media marketing gets stronger. As Zara’s target customer segments start using more social and digital platforms for communication and for sharing their lives, it is important for Zara to have a strong presence on such platforms.

Family business planning and succession: With various technological and business disruptions in the past decade, leadership in the 21st century will be influenced by constant change, geopolitical volatility, and economic and political uncertainty. For Zara’s first 36 years in business, the brand has been controlled by its founder Amancio Ortega, who is currently 85 years old. In 2011, Ortega passed the chairman title on to Pablo Isla, Zara’s Deputy CEO since 2005.

Succession is currently taking place at Inditex and generational transfer will empower the next generation in one of the wealthiest business families in the world. Pablo Isla, chairman of Inditex since 2011, steps down in April 2022, and 37-year-old Marta Ortega will take over as chair in the company that her father Amancio Ortega started with his ex-wife Rosalia in 1975 in Galicia, Spain. Marta Ortega is the youngest of Amancio Ortega’s three children.

Marta Ortega will become a non-executive chair, and will head the Inditex group, the portfolio of companies including supervision of strategic operations. She has been with Inditex for over 15 years, starting out working in a Zara store at King’s Road in London, and as an assistant at the portfolio brand Bershka. In recent years, Marta Ortega has been involved in strategy, brand building and fashion proposals for the Inditex portfolio of brands.

Marta Ortega will not be involved in daily management of the financial performance to shield her and the family from too much public exposure. Amancio Ortega has always been known for appearing less in public and avoiding any media exposure. His photo did not appear in the Inditex annual report until 2000. Marta Ortega seems to be more open to media interviews and public appearance, and granted her first interview with Wall Street Journal in August 2021.

Óscar García Maceiras will be appointed CEO of Inditex in April 2022 and will run the daily business. He joined Inditex in March 2021 and is currently general secretary of Inditex and secretary of the board.

The sharing of executive powers between the chair and the CEO to enhance corporate governance has historically been less common in the corporate world in Spain but is often seen in Europe and elsewhere. Inditex will therefore return to dual leadership in April 2022 with Marta Ortega as chair and García Maceiras as CEO, the very same structure that ran for six years with Amancio Ortega as chairman and Pablo Isla as CEO until 2011.

Despite working at Inditex for over 15 years, Marta Ortega Pérez does not hold an office. Her father, Amancio Ortega, never had an office either and always preferred to work in an open space in the fashion design department to be close to teams around him.

To effectively manage the above changes, Zara’s next generation leadership needs to step up to the succession planning challenge by being resilient in staying true to the brand promise to consistently produce “freshly baked clothes” for its fashion-forward consumers, and by balancing both short-term (profitability) and long-term goals (growing the business and reaching more consumers).

More importantly, despite Zara’s global reach and consequent product standardization, it needs to constantly find new ways to serve local fashion needs and preferences of its consumers across the globe. This will be a challenge for the brand’s leadership in the next decade.

Conclusion: Take Zara’s cue and listen to your customers

The Zara brand was born with a keen eye on its customer – its ability to understand, predict and deliver on its customers’ preferences for trendy fashion at affordable prices. In addition to its effective supply chain, the brand’s ability to have its customers co-create designs is unique and provides it with a competitive advantage. Most fashion trends often start unexpectedly, originate from uncommon places and grow out of nowhere. With reference to the pink scarf trend mentioned above, it could have been that Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson had worn a pink scarf to a charity gala the evening before in Los Angeles, or golf star Michelle Wie had showcased a pink scarf at a celebrity tournament in Asia. The fact that Zara was able to quickly jump on to this trend and provide hundreds of customers with the pink scarves they desperately wanted to buy.

In a world swamped with Big Data, and yet more collected at an even more rapid pace than before, brands still need to be careful and observant. Big Data does not provide answers to all business challenges, and it may be too hyped to be considered as the Holy Grail.

One of the secrets behind Zara’s global success is the culture and the respect for the fact that no one is a better, authentic trendsetter than the customer himself or herself – and this philosophy needs to be continually reflected in all its business strategies going forward.

So, why not consult your customers for a start? Zara always does.

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Zara Case Study: How Zara Lead The Fast Fashion Market?

Supti Nandi

Updated on: April 8, 2024

You asked, and we listened! Get ready to dive into the fascinating world of Zara with our highly requested Zara Case Study. 

Recently, Zara has been trending in Instagram reels and YouTube shorts for its funky model poses. You must have seen it too! Have you wondered what made this Spanish brand so famous?

You may say that Zara works on the concept of fast fashion, which makes it win in the competitive market. 

Well, that’s true but it is not the only reason. Let’s uncover the secrets behind Zara’s success through the Zara Case Study.

Let’s begin!

(A) Zara: A Brief Overview

Zara, a notable name in the fashion industry, is a Spanish retailer known for its distinctive approach to clothing and accessories. Operating on a fast fashion model, Zara excels in swiftly adapting to evolving fashion trends, setting it apart in the market. With a vertically integrated process, the brand manages everything from design to production in-house, allowing for efficient and responsive operations.

You’ll find Zara stores globally, each offering a diverse range of trendy and affordable clothing for men, women, and children. The brand’s commitment to delivering fashion-forward pieces at accessible prices caters to a broad audience, reflecting its significance in the industry.

Do you know what is fast fashion?

Fast fashion is a business model characterized by quickly producing affordable, trendy clothing items to meet rapidly changing consumer demands.

Zara works in the same way. We will look into its details in the upcoming section. Before that, let’s go through the profile of Zara-

What makes Zara stand out is its ability to balance responsiveness in manufacturing, a well-structured supply chain, and a keen understanding of consumer preferences. This combination has established Zara as a trendsetting and influential player in the fashion landscape. Its adaptability and dedication to making fashion trends accessible have solidified Zara’s place as a recognizable and influential name in the fashion industry.

(B) Zara Case Study: History & Evolution

Zara’s journey began with a dress-making factory called Inditex, established by Ortega in 1963. Over the years, Zara expanded its presence from Spain to Portugal and eventually to other European countries, the United States, and France.

Today, Zara boasts nearly 6,500 stores across 88 countries worldwide.

Let’s dive into the history of Zara in detail-

Zara is the flagship brand of the Inditex group, which is one of the world’s largest fashion retail conglomerates.

The head office of Zara is located in Arteixo, in the province of A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. Inditex also owns other popular brands like Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Bershka, and Stradivarius.

(C) Brand Philosophy of Zara

Do you know why Zara stands out among its competitors? Due to its brand philosophy! Sara’s success hinges on several key principles-

Zara’s strategy is strikingly different from traditional fashion retailers. Reason? Fast fashion concept and in-house production of clothes! Go through the next section for detailed information.

(D) Zara Business Model: Effective Working Strategies

In this section, we will dive into the business model of Zara to determine its working strategies that played a huge role in its success-

Let’s dive into the details-

(D.1) Fast Fashion Model

Zara is known for its “ Fast Fashion ” approach. It releases new collections frequently, sometimes launching over 22 new product lines per year. This agility allows Zara to respond swiftly to changing trends and customer preferences.

• Rapid Trend Replication: Harnessing cutting-edge information technology, Zara excels at swiftly replicating prevailing fashion trends. This enables the brand to stay ahead of the curve, delivering the latest styles to customers promptly.
• Group Design Approach: Departing from the conventional individual designer model, Zara adopts a collaborative approach. Teams of designers work in synergy, fostering enhanced creativity and efficiency in product development. This collective effort ensures a diverse range of products aligned with dynamic market demands.
• Cost-Effective Materials: Zara strategically utilizes affordable materials without compromising on quality. This approach allows the brand to maintain competitive pricing while delivering products that meet or exceed industry standards. The focus on cost-effective yet quality materials contributes to Zara’s accessibility and broad customer appeal.
• Competitive Pricing: Zara optimizes its production costs by outsourcing to countries with cost-effective labor. This global approach not only supports competitive pricing but also facilitates the brand’s ability to swiftly adapt to market demands. The combination of efficient production and competitive pricing reinforces Zara’s position as a leader in the fast fashion landscape.

(D.2) Product Range

Let’s briefly look at its product range too-

• Clothing: From chic dresses and tailored suits to casual wear and activewear.
• Accessories: Including bags, shoes, belts, and jewelry.
• Beauty Products: Fragrances and cosmetics.
• Perfumes: Zara has its line of fragrances.

(D.3) Vertical Integration: In-House Operations & Logistics

Zara’s way of doing business centers on something called vertical integration. Here is how it works-

• Design: Zara takes charge of creating its designs, meaning it controls how its clothes look and stay on-trend. This ensures that what you find in Zara stores reflects the latest fashion trends.
• Manufacturing: Zara doesn’t just design; it also makes its clothes in-house. This is a big deal because it lets Zara make changes to its products fast. If there’s a new trend or customer feedback, Zara can respond quickly, which is pretty cool.
• Shipping and Distribution: Zara doesn’t stop at making the clothes; it handles everything from getting them to the store to making sure they’re sent to the right places. This full control of the supply chain ensures that the clothes you see in Zara are not only stylish but also reach the stores efficiently.

In short, the fast fashion concept, vertical integration, and supply chain efficiency helped Zara to achieve impressive milestones.

(E) Revenue Model of Zara: How does Zara make money?

Do you know Zara earned Rs.2,562.50 crore in India? That’s not all. It earned over 23 billion euros from its stores worldwide.

That’s quite amazing! Isn’t it?

But how does Zara earn such a whopping amount of money? Due to its impressive revenue model.

Let’s go through them one by one-

Let’s briefly dive into Zara’s finances for the years 2022 & 2021-

That’s how Zara is going through its purple patch in terms of revenues!

(F) Zara Marketing Strategies

Zara, the renowned Spanish fashion retailer, has crafted a distinctive marketing strategy that contributes to its global success. In this section, we will delve into the key elements of Zara’s marketing approach-

(F.1) Fast Fashion Strategy

The fast fashion model functions as a highly effective marketing strategy for Zara in several ways. First and foremost, the rapid turnover of collections, with over twenty product lines per year, creates a sense of urgency and novelty for customers. This continual introduction of fresh styles not only keeps Zara top-of-mind but also fosters a dynamic shopping experience, encouraging frequent visits to discover the latest trends.

Moreover, the quick response to changing trends and customer preferences positions Zara as a trendsetter, appealing to fashion-conscious consumers. The ability to swiftly translate runway trends into accessible and affordable pieces reinforces Zara’s image as a go-to destination for staying in vogue.

Additionally, the limited production batches contribute to an atmosphere of exclusivity, prompting customers to make timely purchases to secure unique and in-demand items. This scarcity-driven approach enhances the perceived value of Zara’s offerings.

In essence, the fast fashion model serves as a powerful marketing tool for Zara by creating a sense of immediacy, exclusivity, and trend relevance, fostering customer loyalty and consistently attracting a diverse audience seeking the latest in fashion.

(F.2) In-Store Experience

Zara places a strong emphasis on crafting an exceptional in-store experience, carefully curating showrooms to exude an atmosphere that is both exclusive and professional. The meticulous design choices contribute to an ambiance that goes beyond a mere shopping space, creating an environment where customers feel engaged and inspired. 

The meticulous attention to detail is aimed at ensuring that every aspect of the in-store setting is carefully considered, from layout to lighting.

This focus on the in-store ambiance goes beyond aesthetics—it becomes a vital part of Zara’s marketing strategy. The thoughtfully designed physical stores act as powerful marketing tools in themselves, drawing in customers by providing a memorable and immersive shopping environment. 

By enticing shoppers to explore the latest trends in this carefully curated setting, Zara not only enhances the overall customer experience but also reinforces its brand image as a trendsetting and sophisticated fashion destination!

(F.3) Affordability & Differentiation

Zara strategically positions itself by prioritizing affordable pricing while maintaining a commitment to quality. This dual emphasis allows the brand to resonate with a wide range of customers. By providing stylish clothing at reasonable prices, Zara ensures accessibility, making fashion-forward designs attainable for a diverse audience.

The effectiveness of this marketing strategy lies in Zara’s ability to differentiate itself in the market. The brand stands out not only for its trendsetting designs but also for its adept balance of fashion-forward aesthetics and accessible costs. 

This unique blend positions Zara as a go-to destination for those seeking both style and value, enhancing the brand’s appeal and solidifying its market presence. The affordability and differentiation strategy contribute to Zara’s ability to capture a broad customer base and maintain its status as a leading player in the competitive fashion landscape.

(F.4) Word of Mouth and Limited Advertising

Zara strategically leverages the power of word of mouth and customer recommendations as primary drivers of its marketing efforts. In a departure from traditional advertising-heavy approaches, Zara relies on the subtlety of customer satisfaction and positive experiences to promote its brand.

This unique strategy involves cultivating a strong and positive buzz around Zara’s collections, encouraging customers to share their experiences and recommendations. The reliance on word of mouth creates an authentic and organic promotion of the brand, fostering a sense of trust and credibility among potential customers.

The limited advertising approach doesn’t diminish Zara’s impact; rather, it aligns with the brand’s commitment to providing an outstanding in-store experience and quality products. The positive buzz generated by satisfied customers becomes a powerful force, driving foot traffic to Zara’s stores and contributing to the brand’s sustained success in the competitive fashion market.

(F.5) Social Media Marketing

Zara actively embraces social media platforms as a crucial component of its marketing strategy. The brand leverages platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to engage directly with its audience, creating a dynamic online presence.

The strategy involves regular updates across these platforms, keeping followers informed about the latest arrivals, ongoing trends, and behind-the-scenes glimpses into Zara’s fashion world. By maintaining an active and visually appealing presence, Zara not only stays connected with its audience but also cultivates a sense of anticipation and excitement around its offerings.

In addition to direct engagement, Zara strategically collaborates with influencers. These collaborations amplify Zara’s reach, tapping into the influencers’ follower base and creating a ripple effect of brand awareness. 

Through this multi-faceted approach, Zara effectively utilizes social media not just as a promotional tool but as a means to foster a dynamic and interactive relationship with its audience, contributing to the brand’s overall success in the digital landscape.

(F.6) Personalization & Community Engagement

Zara adopts a customer-centric strategy by customizing its offerings to cater to local tastes and preferences. This personalization ensures that Zara’s collections resonate with diverse communities, creating a more inclusive and relatable shopping experience.

Community engagement takes center stage in Zara’s approach. Events like fashion shows or store openings play a pivotal role in fostering a sense of belonging among customers. By actively involving the community in these events, Zara goes beyond being a retailer and becomes an integral part of the local fabric.

Crucially, Zara prioritizes customer feedback. Actively listening to what customers have to say, the brand adapts and evolves its offerings based on this valuable input. This responsiveness not only enhances the overall customer experience but also reinforces a sense of collaboration between Zara and its community. 

In essence, Zara’s commitment to personalization and community engagement contributes to a brand image rooted in customer satisfaction and a genuine connection with the diverse communities it serves.

(G) Sustainability Efforts: Crucial Part of Zara Case Study

Do you know what Zara is famous for apart from fashion? Its sustainability efforts to preserve mother nature! Let’s look at the sustainability efforts of Zara-

Thus, Zara is increasingly conscious of sustainability. The brand aims to reduce its environmental impact by using eco-friendly materials and promoting recycling. Such initiatives resonate with socially aware consumers.

(H) Challenges Faced by Zara

The journey of Zara was not free of challenges. Let’s look at some of the major challenges of Zara- 

Zara brilliantly addressed those challenges to produce effective results that ultimately helped them grow their business.

(I) Summing Up: Zara Case Study

Zara’s remarkable success in leading the fashion market can be attributed to its unique blend of rapid fashion cycles, vertical integration, and a customer-centric approach. By staying ahead of trends with its fast fashion model, ensuring control over the entire production process, and tailoring offerings to local tastes, Zara captures a diverse and loyal customer base. 

The brand’s commitment to affordability, engaging in-store experiences, and strategic use of social media further solidify its market leadership. Zara’s story showcases the power of adaptability, responsiveness, and a strong connection with customers in navigating the dynamic landscape of the fashion industry!

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Home » Management Case Studies » Case Study of Zara: A Better Fashion Business Model

Case Study of Zara: A Better Fashion Business Model

Zara is one of the most well known brands in the world and is also one of the largest international fashion companies. They are the third largest brand in the garment industry and are a unit of Inditex . It their flagship range of chain stores and are headquartered in Spain. Zara opened its first outlet in Spain in 1975. The headquarters of the company is based in Galicia. There are more than 2600 stores across 73 countries in the world. The Zara clothing line accounts for a huge bulk of its parent group’s revenues. There are other clothing brands owned by Inditex such as Kiddy ´s Class (children’s fashion), Pull and Bear (youth casual clothes), Massimo Dutti (quality and conventional fashion), Bershka (avant-garde clothing), Stradivarius (trendy garments for young woman), Oysho (undergarment chain) and Zara Home (household textiles). Inditex owns all Zara outlets except for places where they are not allowed ownership of stores (that’s where Franchises step in).

Zara is renowned for coming up with products on a short timescale instead of taking forever. They are known for taking around 2 weeks to develop products and have been known to come up with around 10,000 new designs every year (which is an industry record). They have bucked the trend by making productions in Europe instead of shifting their entire production to Third World or Developing countries. However some of their clothes are manufactured in parts of Asia due to the fact that they have a longer shelf life. They make most of their own products inside Spain or other European Countries as they own a large number of factories in both Spain and Portugal. They also don’t have to depend on anyone else as they can get everything done by themselves.

Zara is unique in the way that it does not spend money on marketing and instead concentrates on opening new stores instead. Their brave experiments have led them to be labeled as one of the most innovative retailers in the world.

Zara started out with low priced products which were pale imitations of high end fashion products. This move led to Zara being a smashing success and allowed them to expand by opening more stores in Spain. The company management also managed to reduce the time it took to create new designs and came up with the term “instant fashions” which allowed them to capitalize on new trends really fast. Zara is known to use teams of designers instead of individuals.

Zara has to face a lot of competition from H&M, Gap and Benetton internationally. Fortunately Zara is considered to be more fashionable than the rest of the brands despite the fact that its price is less than Benetton and Gap. H&M is still cheaper than Zara but is equally fashionable as Zara. Gap and Benetton are less fashionable and more pricy.

Zara’s ‘Fast Fashion’ Business Model

Zara’s business model is basically based on the principle that it can sell “medium quality fashion clothing at affordable prices”. Basically vertical integration and the ability to come up with a quick-response is a key factor to Zara’s successful business model otherwise they would be no where without it. The process for Zara has been designed in such a way that it has the various functions within the business system such as designing, sourcing and manufacturing, distribution and retailing. They do all of these themselves and that is one reason why their growth is at a good rate. However what goes up must come down and Zara is not immune to the problems in the world. The way they operate can also prove to be their undoing due to the model they are currently utilizing. The fact that they have their own distribution center and manufacturing unit is a very weak point. This can be discussed further in this document.

The management at Zara have come up four fundamental success factors: short cycle time for creation of product, small quantity per product (and not too much of the same stock), extensive variety of product every season (so that users can choose easily) as well as a huge investment in information and communication technology to allow them to stay on track .

Zara knows what its customers want by tracking their preferences on a year round basis. They have their own team of designers who have been recruited fresh out of fashion school. It is not a tough job to tell them what they want based on the input they receive. They make around a limited quantity of clothes based on the 11000 various items designed by its in-house staff. Zara does not make any losses as they only order a limited quantity of each item which they believe is stylish and will be more restricted season wise. For example if they have miniskirts in design they will only be available for a short time due to the short summer period in Europe. Other clothes which can work the year around and for which the trend does not change are outsourced to Asia as the cost won’t be so high. The outsourcing operation is very handy mainly because these clothes have a longer shelf life. It does not take a long time for the clothes to be prepared as it merely takes around 4 weeks total for the whole process: from design to the finished product in the stores.

The fact that Zara knows what sort of trends are there in the market and are quick enough to change their strategy to match the trends in the fashion industry gives them a huge advantage. They are able to modify their timetable easily to adjust for a change in the trends in the market. Normally it takes around 8 to 12 months for any normal retailer to forecast trends and come up with a style and send it for production. They are unable to match what Zara does and they end up losing big time. Even if a style fails to sell much, Zara can easily sell the clothes on a discount. The fact that they quantity of clothes manufactured was so low that they lose much. Their low volume strategy has helped them have a very low number of discount sales every year as compared to a high rate for the rest of the industry.

However this leads to higher costs which is a disadvantage but then they don’t have to worry about having higher inventories. This method allows for a low inventory and high profit margins. They don’t save any money here with costs but then they get the maximum out of their clothing line. A problem they face is the fact that since Zara controls everything it is not easy for them to expand or relocate as they have to stay put in one place or the whole operation will suffer and the goods will cost more to distribute.

Zara’s business model is wonderful in the sense that it has a very fashion forward line as they know which trends to cash in on. They seem to have the midas touch of turning everything into gold. Their policy is to have a mostly young and fashion conscious staff so that they will also be able to double as trend setters. If for instance a certain item in a store sells well then the management decides to sell the same item in other locations as well. The key is that most of the items are in short supply and people presume that there is a shortage of items which ends up making consumers want to buy more.

A key factor in Zara’s success is the fact that it has sourced its products from the right places. They have based their procurement offices in a couple of fashionable cities in the world. This allows them to witness the trends first hand and then to quickly come up with a solution of their own. They don’t buy all the raw products on their own as they use one of their parent group’s procurement units to do all it’s purchasing. One clever move on their part is that they buy most of their fabric in grey so that there is greater flexibility. It doesn’t take long for the fabric to be prepared.

The main distribution artery is in Spain where they have their biggest distribution center. They also have some smaller distribution centers in countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. The problem with the distribution center is that it is purely based in Spain and does not have the capacity for a heavy load. It is a huge distribution center and occupies around 500,000 square feet in total. They only have the capability of processing around 60,000 folded garments in an hour. They need to find a new distribution center or increase their operations so that they can save more time. However the biggest advantage for them is the fact that they have vertical integration which allows them to manufacture and distribute their own stuff without having to be at the mercy of any supplier. It is not tough to move any of their products as they have their own railway network which allows them to move goods easily to its distribution center. Once the goods are ready they are shipped out immediately though the shipping schedule is only twice a week. European stores get their goods early (around 24-36 hours) while other destinations get them within 2 days. This system has allowed them to achieve a very high level of accuracy in its shipments. The other good thing is that the outlets don’t take long to display the new outfits once they reach their destination and this allows them to show new stock to their customers. The clothes are also coded according to their color so that the staff knows where to place them. This makes it easier for the customers to go around color matching the items they want to buy.

Problems with Zara’s Business Model

Zara is facing a large number of issues which can cause them a number of problems in the future. Despite the fact that Zara has a consistent business system which gives them a competitive advantage it is always in the danger of tanking badly. Zara’s biggest advantage is the fact that its economies of scale are really good and that they have been able to ramp up their distribution system. The continued growth is good for them in every way. They have been helped a lot by their expansion in the international market . However their growth in the international market will be curtailed due to the reason that Zara has a very centralized logistics model. It is understandable that Zara has to expand its distribution centers and to increase its capacity. Zara has its main distribution center in Spain and it won’t be easy going trying to expand when their base is only in Spain.

This will affect their plans to go international and to target more regions. They can’t simply survive with a European presence alone. It is true that they do have a presence in other countries but then it is not as much as it should be. They have a huge presence in Spain but quite limited when it comes to other countries. They can easily target the North American region where they don’t have much of a presence compared to the huge size of the region. The problem is that there are a lot of outlets there and a lot of competition coupled with the need for plus sized clothing, high cost of operations and a very mature market. Zara needs to come up with a strategy so they can compete very aggressively over there. They can also target South America but the problem is that it is not a very stable region and any geopolitical problems can lead to profits being low. A good market would be the ever reliable Middle East where Zara already has a small presence. However with talks of revolution in the air and other geo political problems it can be a risky bet. There are a few countries in the region which will lead it to be profitable but then the market is small compared to other regions. They can easily opt for countries such as the South East Asian markets and South Asia which have a lot of potential.

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2 thoughts on “ Case Study of Zara: A Better Fashion Business Model ”

Dear Abey, Many thanks for your continuing efforts to help learners. I’ve just come across your website and really amazed at the wealth and variety of topics which are covered in your business cases. Very helpful, indeed. God bless you for all the kind things you are doing. Alex

Thank you for this valuable insight. Quite informative. Helped me a lot.

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Supply Chain Management Design & Simulation Online

Zara Clothing Company Supply Chain

January 4, 2020 By mhugos

CASE STUDY CONCEPT: The Zara supply chain drives its successful business model. Run simulations of the Zara supply chain to see how it works, and how to improve it.

Zara changes its clothing designs every two weeks on average, while competitors change their designs every two or three months. It carries about 11,000 distinct items per year in thousands of stores worldwide compared to competitors that carry 2,000 to 4,000 items per year in their stores. Zara’s highly responsive supply chain is central to its business success. The heart of the Zara supply chain is a huge, highly automated distribution center (DC) called “The Cube”. The screenshot below shows a closeup satellite view of this facility.

The company was founded in Spain in 1974 by Amancio Ortega and his wife Rosalía Mera. It is the flagship business unit of a holding company called Inditex Corporation with headquarters in Arteixo, Galicia, a city in northwestern Spain near where Mr. Ortega was born. In 2020 Zara was ranked as the 41st most valuable brand in the world by Forbes (see bibliography below).

NOTE: This is an advanced case . Work through the three challenges of the beginning case, “ Cincinnati Seasonings ” before taking on the challenges in this case.

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Company Business Model

Agents for the company are always scouting out new fashion trends at clubs and social gatherings. When they see inspiring examples they quickly send design sketches to the garment designers at the Cube. New items can be designed and out to the stores in 4 – 6 weeks, and existing items can be modified in 2 weeks.

The company’s core market is women 24 – 35 years old. They reach this market by locating their stores in town centers and places with high concentrations of women in this age range. Short production runs create scarcity of given designs and that generates a sense of urgency and reason to buy while supplies last. As a consequence, Zara does not have lots of excess inventory, nor does it need to do big mark-downs on its clothing items.

Zara has 12 inventory turns per year compared to 3 – 4 per year for competitors. Stores place orders twice a week and this drives factory scheduling. Such short term focused order cycles make forecasts very accurate, much more accurate than competitors who may order every two weeks or every month.

Clothing items are priced based on market demand, not on cost of manufacture. The short lead times for delivery of unique fashion items combined with short production runs enable Zara to offer customers more styles and choices, and yet still create a sense of urgency to buy because items often sell out quickly. And that particular item or style may not be available again after it sells out. Zara sells 85 percent of its items at full price compared to the industry average of selling only 60 percent of items at full price. Annually there is 10 percent of inventory unsold compared to industry averages of 17 – 20 percent.

In Spain customers visit Zara stores 17 times per year on average compared to 3 times per year for competitors. Because their clothing designs change often, it is harder for people to see them clearly online. So they are encouraged to come into the stores instead and try on the unique fashions that Zara offers (screenshot below shows people at a Zara store in Madrid, Spain).

Zara spends its money on opening and growing its stores instead of spending a lot on ad campaigns. Estimates vary on the number of Zara stores worldwide. An article in the New York Times Magazine (November 2012, “ How Zara Grew into the World’s Largest Fashion Retailer “), placed the store count at around 5,900. An article in Forbes simply states there are “more nearly 3,000 stores” (2020, “ The World’s Most Valuable Brands – #41 Zara “). Annual sales for 2019 were estimated by Forbes to be $21.9 billion . The holding company, Inditex SA, is a public company and Inditex provides annual statements , but it does not break out Zara sales from sales of the other brands owned by Inditex (Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home, and Uterqüe). Zara uses a flexible business model where its stores can be owned, franchised, or co-owned with partners. So it is not always possible to find exact numbers for Zara’s business operations and finances.

Manufacturing and Supply Chain Operations Make Zara Unique

Zara buys large quantities of only a few types of fabric (just four or five types, but they can change from year to year), and does the garment design and related cutting and dyeing in-house. This way fabric manufacturers can make quick deliveries of bulk quantities of fabric directly to the Zara DC – the Cube. The company purchases raw fabric from suppliers in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece. And those suppliers deliver within 5 days of orders being placed. Inbound logistics from suppliers are mostly by truck.

The Cube is 464,500 square meters (5 million square feet), and highly automated with underground monorail links to 11 Zara-owned clothing factories within a 16 km (10 mile ) radius of the Cube. All raw materials pass through the Cube on their way to the clothing factories, and all finished goods also pass through on their way out to the stores. The diagram below illustrates Zara’s supply chain model.

Zara’s factories can quickly increase and decrease production rates, so there is less inventory in the supply chain and less need to finance that inventory with working capital. They do only 50 – 60 percent of their manufacturing in advance versus the 80 – 90 percent done by competitors. Zara does not need to place big bets on yearly fashion trends. They can make many smaller bets on short term trends that are easier to call correctly.

The Zara factories are connected to the Cube by underground tunnels with high speed monorails (about 200 kilometers or 124 miles of rails) to move cut fabric to these factories for dyeing and assembly into clothing items. The monorail system then returns finished products to the Cube for shipment to stores. Here are some facts about the company’s manufacturing operations:

• Zara competes on flexibility and agility instead of low cost and cheap labor. They employ about 3,000 workers in manufacturing operations in Spain at an average cost of 11.00 euros per hour compared to average labor cost in Asia of about 0.80 euros per hour.
• Zara factories in Spain use flexible manufacturing systems for quick change over operations.
• 50% of all items are manufactured in Spain
• 26% in the rest of Europe
• 24% in Asia and Africa

The screenshot below illustrates how the Zara supply chain is organized. Manufacturing is centered in northwestern Spain where company headquarters and the Cube are located. But for their main distribution and logistics hub they chose a more centrally located facility. That facility is located in Zaragoza in a large logistics hub developed by the Spanish government. Raw material is sent by suppliers to Zara’s manufacturing center. Then finished garments leave the Cube and are transported to the Zara logistics hub in Zaragoza. And from there they are delivered to stores around the world by truck and by plane.

[ Instructors, students and professionals can request a  free SCM Globe trial demo — NOTE: This is an advanced case . Work through the three online challenges of the beginning case, “ Cincinnati Seasonings ” before working with this case. ]

Zara can deliver garments to stores worldwide in just a few days: China – 48 hrs; Europe – 24 hrs; Japan – 72 hrs; United States – 48 hrs. It uses trucks to deliver to stores in Europe and uses air freight to ship clothes to other markets. Zara can afford this increased shipping cost because it does not need to do much discounting of clothes and it also does not spend much money on advertising.

Zara’s Supply Chain is Lean and Agile

Stores take deliveries twice per week, and they can get ordered inventory often within two days after placing their orders. Items are shipped and arrive at stores already on hangers and with tags and prices on them. So items come off delivery trucks and go directly onto the sales floor. This makes it possible for store managers to order and receive the products customers want when they want them, week by week.

Zara stores respond practically in real-time as styles and customer preferences evolve. It is a great business model for success in the high-change and hard to predict fashion industry. It means about half of the clothing the company sells, which includes most of its high margin and unique fashion items (but not its lower margin basic items), is manufactured based on highly accurate, short-term (2 – 6 week) demand forecasts. Because this business model tracks so closely to real customer demand from one month to the next, it frees the company to a large degree from getting caught in cyclical market ups and downs that ensnare its competitors (those cycles are driven by boom-to-bust gyrations generated by the bullwhip effect ). Turbulence in the global economy since 2008 has hurt sales at many competing fashion retailers, but Zara has seen steady, profitable growth during this time.

[ Editor’s Note: During 2020 Inditex, owner of Zara and other fashion brands closed more than 1,000 stores worldwide in response to the Covid pandemic and increased its focus on online sales. Then in 2021 store business rebounded and surpassed pre-pandemic levels .  Can you think of some ways these changes in Zara’s business model affected Zara’s supply chain? ]

A fast-moving and finely tuned supply chain like Zara’s requires constant attention to keep it running smoothly. Supply chain planners and managers are always watching customer demand and making adjustments to manufacturing and supply chain operations. The screenshot below shows the result of one simulation using the supply chain model outlined above. Continuous adjustments need to be made to factory production rates, vehicles, delivery routes, and schedules to keep this supply chain working well.

Zara is a clothing and fashion retailer that uses its supply chain to significantly change the way it operates in a very traditional industry. No other competitor can copy its business model until it first copies its supply chain. And since supply chains are composed of people, process, and technology, even the latest and greatest technology is not a competitive advantage all by itself. People must be well trained, and processes must be put in place that enable people to apply their training and their technology to best effect.

Buying technology similar to that used by Zara is easy. But for the technology to be used effectively, competitors must learn about the mental models and the operating procedures used by Zara. Good mental models enable people to understand the potentials and see the opportunities that a real-time supply chain offers. Effective operating procedures enable people to act on what they see and capitalize on the competitive advantages their technology gives them.

Zara has spent more than 30 years building its unique real-time supply chain and training its people. So competitors have a lot of learning to do to create the mental models, and roll out the operating procedures needed to do what Zara does so well.

[ See our blog article “ Five New Supply Chain Technologies and How to Use Them ” for more about new technologies and how they can be used to improve supply chain operations and create competitive advantages for companies .]

YOUR FIRST SUPPLY CHAIN CHALLENGE  

Get this supply chain to run for 15+ days and keep inventory and operating costs as low as you can.  

Imagine you are in charge of Zara’s supply chain operations. This case study and supply chain simulation will give you an appreciation of what that job is like. In this exercise your mental model of Zara’s supply chain will expand and your understanding of how this supply chain works will deepen. You will see the continuous adjustments that need to be made to keep the supply chain working and to keep operating expenses and inventory levels under control.

Load a copy of the Zara supply chain model from the online library into your account. Then start running simulations to see how the supply chain works. Start by doing whatever seems necessary to keep the supply chain running without stock-outs or over-stocks for 15 days. When you run the first simulation you will see a problem occurs on day 5. As with all cases, there are many possible ways to respond to this problem. And depending on how you respond, other problems will appear as you work toward getting your supply chain to run for 15 days. Do whatever seems necessary to get the supply chain to run for 15 days. Then refine your solutions to get the supply chain to run at lower costs in transportation, facility operations and on-hand inventory across the supply chain.

Its agile and responsive supply chain enables Zara to work on a short sales and operations planning (S&OP) cycle. Let’s assume Zara works on a 15 day cycle where its competitors work on 30-day or even 60-day planning cycles. So you are creating a 15-day supply plan to meet the 15-day demand plan which is already entered into the model in the form of product demand at the different stores. To get this supply chain to meet demand and run for 15+ days you need to make adjustments to elements of your supply plan:

• Store delivery amounts and frequencies
• Delivery amounts and frequencies on air freight routes
• Product manufacturing rates at Zara clothing factories
• Movement of products between Zara Cube, Zara factories, and Logistics Hub in Zaragoza
• Supplier delivery amounts and frequencies for delivering bulk fabric to the Cube

The screenshot below shows a closeup of the Zara Logistics Hub in Zaragoza, Spain. Product deliveries are made to stores by airplane and truck from this facility every day.

When you have questions about how to work with this case, the answer is always to ask yourself, “What would I do if this were the real world and I was the person in charge?” Model and simulate different ideas. Make reasonable assumptions and estimates. Then add/change/delete products, facilities, vehicles and routes as called for in your supply chain model to reflect your ideas. When you run simulations you will see how well different ideas work. Go with the ideas that work best to find the solutions you need.

Look in the online guide for useful tips and techniques that will help as you work with this case. Here are some places to look:

• Analyzing Simulation Data
• Tips for Building Supply Chain Models
• Cutting Inventory and Operating Costs

ZARA SUPPLY CHAIN REPORTING TEMPLATE: Import your simulation data into this template to create 15-DAY P&L REPORTS and key performance indicators.  Zara’s agile supply chain enables it to use shorter planning cycles (15-days instead of 30-days). The reporting template is designed for use with the supply chain model in the online library titled “Zara Clothing Company Ver4”.  If you add more products, facilities, or vehicles to the model you will need to expand the spreadsheet to accommodate those additions. A sample P&L report created from simulation data is shown below: D ownload a copy of the Zara Clothing Company P&L Reporting Template here

[ If you are using SCM Globe Professional version, these reports can be generated automatically by clicking on the “ Generate P&L Report ” button on the Simulate Screen ]

CREATE AN EXECUTIVE BRIEFING — a 3 to 5 page report or a short deck of presentation slides. Use screenshots and data produced by simulations to illustrate what you learned about how the Zara supply chain operates. Explain what were the main problems you encountered in getting your simulation to run for 15+ days. Show what you did to address those problems. Present the three or four main things you learned about this supply chain. Explain why these things make this supply chain such a competitive advantage for Zara.

SAVE BACKUP COPIES  of your supply chain model from time to time as you make changes.  Click “Save” button  next to your model in  Account Management  screen. There is no “undo”, but if a change doesn’t work out, you can  restore from a saved copy . And sometimes supply chain model files (json files) become damaged and they no longer work, so you want backup copies of your supply chain to restore from when that happens.

NOTE : An earlier bug that displayed some routes times and distances as ONE-WAY has been fixed. All routes now show  ROUND-TRIP times and distances. Simulations use ROUND-TRIP times and distances.

YOUR SECOND CHALLENGE  

Expand this supply chain to support more stores, and keep inventory and operating costs under control.

Do some research on store rental costs, labor rates, transportation costs and product demand in different markets, then use your research to update and expand your model of Zara’s supply chain:

• Go to websites of commercial real estate brokers in cities of interest and see what you can find out about rents (for cities in North America start with www.cityfeet.com and for cities in other parts of the world start with www.knightfrank.com ).
• Research salary levels and median incomes in different cities. New stores open in cities with median incomes high enough to be profitable markets for Zara. Store rent and operating costs will also be set by market rates in those cities.
• Go to 3PL and logistics services company websites to find out about transportation costs. Assume air freight rates from Zaragoza remain the same to any city, but truck transportation costs will be different in different cities.
• Consider subdividing the two high level product categories (Zara Basics Pack, Zara Fashion Pack) into lower level product categories to get more insight and into how this supply chain operates. What are some lower level product categories that make up the Fashion Pack, or the Basics Pack?
• Do searches to find fashion industry demand forecasts for clothing in different cities around the world. Use that research to set the product demand levels in the new stores. You can also update product demand levels at existing stores based on this research.
• You can measure the carbon footprint of different supply chain designs. There are default estimates of carbon generation already entered for facilities and vehicles, and the simulations use this to calculate the supply chain carbon footprint. You can enter your own estimates for carbon generation for the facilities and vehicles if you wish.

Do the best you can with the time available! — Do internet searches on relevant key words and phrases. See what comes up, and select sources that seem the most trustworthy and accurate (that’s what we did for this case study; our assumptions and sources are listed below). If you can’t find the exact numbers you are looking for, then estimate numbers you need based on other numbers you find in your research (please read “ All Supply Chain Models are Approximations “). Do not spend more than your allocated time doing research. As the saying goes, “Good is good enough.” Document your sources; make your best estimates; and move on.

Update and expand the Zara supply chain model using your research data.   Update product prices and demand at the existing stores based on your research. Also experiment with adding new stores in other cities in Europe, Asia, North America, South America or Africa (represent all stores in a single city with just one or two stores and keep the total number of facilities in your model to between 15 – 20).

For added realism see how stores in New York and Shanghai are located in the existing supply chain model in the SCM Globe library. Stores can be on actual Zara store locations or can be placed in the middle of a cluster of actual Zara stores. Enter the collective demand, costs and on-hand inventory for all actual stores represented by a single store in your model.

Note in the existing model how flights from the logistics hub in Spain land at nearby airports for stores in New York and Shanghai, then delivery trucks move garments from those airports to the stores as shown in the screenshot above. Use this same approach as you expand into other countries outside of Europe. Add new vehicles and create delivery routes for them to deliver products to the new stores. This adds an extra layer of realism and shows how dependent this supply chain is on tight scheduling and just-in-time (JIT) delivery of products.

Adjust your supply chain model to support these new stores and still run for 15+ days . Once you get it running for 15+ days, then make adjustments to your model to lower transportation and operating costs and on-hand inventory amounts.

CREATE A FINAL PRESENTATION showing your expanded supply chain model and describing the supply chain challenges you encountered. Explain why successful solutions to those challenges provides such a competitive advantage for Zara.

• Explain the supply chain principles and best practices you used to solve the challenges you encountered. What were your biggest challenges and how did you solve them?
• Identify places in your expanded supply chain model (facilities, vehicles and routes) where you used new technology such as that explained in the blog article “ Five New Supply Chain Technologies and How to Use Them “. How do these technologies produce the performance capabilities you show  in your simulation results?
• Show how a supply chain with these capabilities makes it possible for Zara to use its fast fashion business model. If Zara competitors were to emulate Zara’s business model, what supply chain capabilities would they need?
• What can you do to lower the carbon footprint of your supply chain?
• Use screenshots and data from your simulations to illustrate your report.

NOTE: This is an ADVANCED LEVEL case study – work through a beginning level case such as Cincinnati Seasonings before attempting to work with this case.

Working on this case will be challenging… but the skills and insights you develop here will be the same skills and insights you use to manage a real supply chain like Zara’s.

FIND USEFUL IDEAS in the Online Guide to help you expand and improve your Zara supply chain model. There is a lot going on in this case so check out these ideas:

• See techniques for expanding this supply chain model in “ Tips for Building Supply Chain Models ”
• Reduce on-hand inventory and calculate optimum delivery amounts and schedules in “ Cutting Inventory and Operating Costs “
• Make sure you are familiar with the techniques presented in “ Analyzing Simulation Data “
• Consider using the S&OP process as a framework to organize your work , S&OP is explained in a case called “ Java Furniture Company ” — scroll down to the heading “ Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) is a Best Practice “
• If you use same size shipping containers for all your products, the beta test reporting template can help identify opportunities to improve performance, see “ Supply Chain Optimizing & Reporting Template “
• Look through the Table of Contents of the Online Guide to find other useful information

ZARA SUPPLY CHAIN REPORTING TEMPLATE: Import your simulation data into this template to create 15-DAY P&L REPORTS and key performance indicators.  D ownload a copy of the Zara Clothing Company P&L Reporting Template here

To share your changes and improvements to this model (json file) with other SCM Globe users see “ Download and Share Supply Chain Models ”

Assumptions and Simplifications Used in this Model

Because Zara operations and financial reporting is combined with the other retail brands owned by Inditex, specific details of the Zara business model and supply chain can be difficult to verify. Yet the supply chain model presented here is still a useful picture of the Zara supply chain and illustrates its operations and its capabilities (see more about this in “ Supply Chain Modeling and Simulation Logic “). This case study and supply chain model is based on data from articles listed in the bibliography below. The assumptions and specifications listed here are built into the model, and you can easily change them as better data becomes available . New products, facilities, vehicles and routes can also be added to this model to further explore how Zara’s supply chain operates.

• Zara finished goods garments are combined into two categories of products, Zara Fashion Pack represents in-house manufactured high fashion items, Zara Basics Pack represents basic items contract manufactured by others
• Zara Fashion Pack = 100 garments; price of 5,000 euros; weight of 40 Kg; volume of 1 cubic meter;
• Zara Basics Pack = 200 garments; price of 3,000 euros; weight of 60 Kg; volume of 0.5 cubic meters
• The Cube employs 3,000 people at average rate of 8 euros per hour = 64 euros per day
• Automated warehouse in Zaragoza employs 800 people at avg of 64 euros per day and other facility operating costs for utilities, insurance, etc. cost additional 15,000 euros daily
• Raw fabric costs per case: Fabric 1 = 1 cubic meter; price of 1,000 euros; Fabric 2 = 0.5 cubic meter; price of 800 euros; Fabric 3 = 0.6 cubic meter, price of 1,200 euros
• Zara factories need mix of raw fabrics to create their finished goods; see the definition of these facilities to see individual requirements and production
• The Cube has 1.6 million cubic meters of product storage space
• 150 million items pass through Cube annually or 411,000 per day
• 11 actual Zara factories are represented by 5 factories in the model
• Monorail shipping containers are 50 cubic meters in volume, can carry 10,000 kilograms of weight, and travel at average speed including loading and unloading of 60 kilometers per hour
• Zara stores in a single city are represented by a single store that combines the demand of all stores in that city – not all cities are included and more cities can be added to this model
• Vehicle operating costs per km are set to be just half the normal cost for trucks and airplanes. This more accurately models the process where Zara pays for one-way shipping containers to move products from one facility to another without paying the full round-trip cost (carbon per km was also adjusted to half of normal for the same reason). This compensates for the model logic which calculates vehicle costs based on the round trip distance instead of the one-way distance.
• Full operating cost per km is used for the monorail vehicles that move products between the Cube DC and the Zara garment factories because Zara owns those vehicles and pays for full round-trip costs.
• All specifications for Products, Facilities, Vehicles and Routes in this supply chain model can be edited and changed if you have better data
• New products, facilities, vehicles and routes can be added to this model and you can simulate the results as you expand your model

Bibliography: 

A web search on “Zara supply chain” will yield many results; this case study is based on information from some of those results listed below:

The World’s Most Valuable Brands – #41 Zara   A ranking and brief profile of the 100 most valuable and recognized brand name companies – Forbes, 2020

We went inside one of the sprawling factories where Zara makes its clothes https://www.businessinsider.nl/how-zara-makes-its-clothes-2018-10?international=true&r=US – By Mary Hanbury, Business Insider, 2018

Zara Uses Supply Chain to Win Again In face of flat or declining retail industry sales, Zara stands out – By Kevin O’Marah – Forbes, 9 Mar 2016

Zara’s Fast Fashion Edge Speed and responsiveness to customer demand drives Zara’s business model – By Susan Berfield and Manuel Baigorri – Bloomberg Business, 14 Nov 2013

How Zara Grew Into the World’s Largest Fashion Retailer History and business model of Zara – By Suzy Hansen, The New York Times Magazine, 9 Nov 2012

Logistics Clustering for Competitive Advantage Zara’s global logistics hub outside Spanish city of Zaragoza  –  By Yossi Sheffi, Dir MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, CSCMPs Supply Chain Quarterly, Quarter 3 2012

Polka Dots Are In? Polka Dots It Is! How Zara gets fresh styles to stores insanely fast—within weeks. – By Seth Stevenson – Slate.com, 21 Jun 2012

We found the following slide presentations were also informative:

Register on  SCM Globe  to gain access  to this and  other supply chain simulations . Click the blue “ Register ” button on the app login page , and buy an account with a credit card (unless you have an account already). Scan the “ Getting Started ” section, and you are ready to start. Go to the SCM Globe library and click the “Import” button next to this or any other supply chain model.

Operations Transformation & Decentralization: ZARA Case Study

Introduction, identification, analysis and evaluation, recommendations, works cited.

Zara is a global retail brand that designs and sells clothes, shoes, and accessories for men, women, and children. The brand is a part of Inditex, a retail corporation that also features other clothing brands, such as Pull and Bear, Stradivarius, and Massimo Dutti. Zara was initially developed as an affordable brand with a strong focus on fashion. Most of its operations, such as production and distribution are based in Spain and the nearby European countries.

However, as the brand has developed a strong presence in the global research market, it might be beneficial to transform operations and allow for a significant degree of decentralization. The present paper will seek to provide an analysis of the case study by identifying and assessing the key issues affecting Zara, as well as providing recommendations for future development.

Zara was created in Spain, which remains the principal location of its operations. However, the company has also developed a truly global image, with thousands of stores all over the globe. The retailer operates both online and offline and has a robust supply chain with well-established suppliers. The company’s main strategy is to remain flexible in its operations, promote sustainability, and deliver excellent value to customers all over the globe. However, the implementation of this strategy is affected by several important issues.

Zara has three large distribution centers in Spain, which arrange for shipments to other locations. The production of the brand, however, is decentralized, with factories in a variety of European countries. The different levels of centralization in production and distribution are the main issue faced by the company, as they contribute to transportation costs while also contradicting the brand’s sustainability strategy.

Given that the three distribution centers in Spain serve all of Zara’s stores, including its online stores, the complex transportation chain also creates a risk of delivery delays and stock-outs, thus impacting its global sales and revenues. Another problem that was identified based on the information from the case is that Zara’s online store does not offer any significant benefits compared to other brands’ stores, thus relying on customers who are already familiar with the brand. This problem could affect the future of Zara’s online sales and thus needs to be addressed by the management.

In order to judge the brand’s financial performance, it is critical to perform a ratio analysis. Zara’s financials are included in Inditex’s consolidated financial statements; however, as the brand constitutes a vast part of the parent company’s operations, it is possible to evaluate the general financial health of Zara based on Inditex’s performance. As seen in Table 1, Inditex had a gross profit margin of 58.3% in 2014 compared to 59.3% in the previous year. Similarly, other ratios are stable and do not indicate any significant solvency, profitability, or liquidity problems. Hence, the overall financial health of Inditex is good, and there are no threats to the company’s profitability.

Table 1. Ratio Analysis of Inditex.

The financial information of Inditex also shows that the company’s capital structure relies predominantly on equity, although it also uses a significant share of current liabilities, mainly trade and other payables (Inditex 189). The share of non-current liabilities in the capital structure is low, which shows reduced reliance on financial debt and reduces the long-term financial risk for Inditex.

Based on the information in the case and the financial information available, the key strengths of Zara are its established position on the global scene and excellent supply chain management. The case shows that Zara fosters long-term relationships with most of its suppliers and has an extensive network of reliable supplies of products and raw materials. Nevertheless, stability in financial results despite opening new stores also indicates that the brand’s competitive position is not improving. Enhancing operations, promoting sustainability, and increasing the volume of online sales would help Zara to strengthen its competitive position.

There are two main recommendations that can help Zara to resolve its key problems. First of all, it would be helpful for Zara to improve distribution by opening regional distribution channels that would receive products straight from production facilities instead of the three main distribution centers in Spain. The proposed action plan here is to open regional distribution centers in North America and Asia and establish transportation of products from production facilities in Europe.

Secondly, Zara would benefit from improving its online sales by distinguishing itself from the key competitors. In order to do so, the brand should conduct market research to determine the type of unique selling point that would attract more customers to use its online stores. Examples of unique selling points in online clothing stores are next-day or same-day delivery, fitting services, and free online stylist consultations. These features would help Zara to increase the volume of online sales.

The two proposed developments would be useful for the brand in overcoming its main problems. For example, opening regional distribution centers that are directly connected to production facilities would decrease operations time, thus preventing delivery delays and stock-outs. It would also enhance the online shopping experience by allowing for faster delivery. In addition, reduced transportation would contribute to Zara’s sustainability goals.

Creating a unique selling point for Zara’s online store could help to attract more customers, thus boosting sales volume and achieving growth. Both parts of the action plan are feasible given Zara’s capital structure and will likely be accepted by the management due to their anticipated effects on the business. Based on the scale of Zara’s current operations and its experience in global distribution and sales, it is also evident that the brand has the competence to implement them and that there will be no constraints to implementation.

All in all, Zara is a profitable global brand that has a stable financial position. Nevertheless, the competitive environment of the market requires the brand to undertake new activities in order to develop further. The recommended options that should be applied by Zara are to improve distribution by opening regional distribution centers and to achieve increased online sales volume by creating a unique selling point. Using these recommendations, the brand will be able to attract more customers and increase net sales, thus enhancing its profitability.

Indetex. Annual Report 2014 . 2015. Web.

Snap, Inc. Form 10-K . 2018. Web.

The Change Foundation. Annual Report 2005/2006 . 2006. Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, October 30). Operations Transformation & Decentralization: ZARA. https://ivypanda.com/essays/zara-case-study-analysis/

"Operations Transformation & Decentralization: ZARA." IvyPanda , 30 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/zara-case-study-analysis/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Operations Transformation & Decentralization: ZARA'. 30 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Operations Transformation & Decentralization: ZARA." October 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/zara-case-study-analysis/.

1. IvyPanda . "Operations Transformation & Decentralization: ZARA." October 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/zara-case-study-analysis/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Operations Transformation & Decentralization: ZARA." October 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/zara-case-study-analysis/.

• Inditex Growth and Performance
• Inditex Analysis: Dividend Fundamentals
• New York City's Financial Plan for 2012-2016
• Inditex’s Global Strategy Analysis
• Coca-Cola's and Inditex's Sustainability Goals
• Coca-Cola's vs Inditex's Sustainability Management
• Zara SWOT Analysis
• SWOT Analysis and Intensive Strategies for Zara
• Zara Company's Business Model
• Zara and Benetton Fashion Companies Management
• Packaging Materials Development: Ecovative Design
• Illegal Disposal of Chemicals: Avco Environmental Services
• The Net Zero Facility in Casa Grande
• The Concepts of Quality in Kawai Pianos
• Fish Friendly Farming Case

Technology and Operations Management

Mba student perspectives.

• Assignments
• Assignment: RC TOM Challenge 2017

The Devil Wears Zara: Threat of Climate Change from Fast Fashion is Heating Up

Inditex, the world’s largest fashion retailer, pioneered the fast-fashion business model with its streamlined, agile supply chain operations. But can it disrupt the industry to counteract the hidden costs of its impact on climate change?

Fast-Fashion, Slow Risk Mitigation

Season after season, Inditex has delighted consumers by passing on the benefits of its compressed production cycle in the form of just-in-time, hot-off-the-runway-style clothing at a fraction of runway prices. Inditex’s Zara brand offers 24 new clothing collections per year and delivers inventory to stores twice per week to cater to consumer demand [1][2].

Across the apparel industry, consumption is predicted to increase by 63% to 102 millions in 2030 with demand driven by developing markets [3]. Despite continuous improvements in its supply chain, even the largest fashion retailer still relies heavily on suppliers using low-tech production systems that have adverse effects on the environment contributing to climate change. Per a McKinsey study, “making one kilogram of fabric generates an average of 23 kilograms of greenhouse gases” [4]. Clothing production most significantly contributes to greenhouse gas (CO 2 ) emissions resulting from:

• Material processing and production that is heavily reliant on fossil fuels
• Waste disposal in landfills or incinerators [5]

Pathways to Just Digital Future

Beyond the reputational risk, Inditex faces the risk of increased material and energy costs that could directly impact its profit margins. Furthermore, potential governmental regulations on its key inputs could be detrimental to operations [5]. These risks will only be exacerbated by increased production. As a global industry leader, it is in Inditex’s best interest to mitigate these risks and adapt its model for sustained growth.

Rising to the Challenge, Ideally Faster than Sea Levels

Inditex has initiated efforts to combat its own impact on the environment, but the results these initiatives raise doubts about scalability. Pablo Isla, the company’s CEO and HBR’s Top-Performing CEO for 2017, stated the company’s public commitment to tackling environmental issues in a recent HBR interview and specifically highlighted that “all our stores will be eco-efficient, to use 40% less water consumption, 20% less energy consumption” [6]. This may feel like a drop in the bucket as the retail industry increasingly shifts from brick-and-mortar to online.

The company has laid out a Strategic Environmental Sustainability Plan 2016-2020 with elements to improve reduction of GHG emissions listed below [2].

Raw Materials

• Promote use of fibers that are more energy efficient.
• Pioneer commercialization of recycled textiles that are on par with quality of new materials.
• Collaborate with various sector organizations to share and adopt best practices in energy management.
• Contribute to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) put forth by the UN:
• “Corrective Action Plan” to advise suppliers not in compliance with its targets and allows for 6-24 months to achieve compliance [5].
• “Green to Pack” program leverages thinner packaging to allow for more packages to be loaded onto one shipment, requiring fewer shipments [2].
• “Closing the Loop” upcycling initiative with a focus on circular economy by distributing clothing collection bins in store.
• Collaborating with various research universities and business organizations to develop innovative materials and technologies that allow for recycling of textile waste.

Catwalk the Talk

Inditex is still hindered by a lack of standardized, quantifiable metrics to measure progress towards increased transparency, GHG reductions and associated costs at each step of the supply chain. It may benefit from adopting an Environmental Profit & Loss (EP&L), a tool developed by Kering to improve visibility, measurability, and comparability of its supply chain and can serve as basis for dialogue and accountability with suppliers and other stakeholders [7]. Metrics from the EP&L can also be factored into performance evaluations of senior management.

Better integration of suppliers into internal control systems supports transparency. In 2016, Inditex’s internal team made 619 on-site factory visits to offer advice to non-compliant factories, yet 1,367, or one-fifth, of its active factories were only within 51-70% compliance of its own environmental standards, consistent with the prior year [2]. This suggests that there is an opportunity for Inditex to be more stringent in its auditing and training of suppliers. To truly move the needle, Inditex must adopt a 100% renewable energy policy and may need to move to a system-wide zero tolerance policy among suppliers for less than 100% environmental compliance.

Inditex could further champion second-life retail through buy-back programs, entering the sharing economy via clothing libraries (think Rent-the-Runway type subscription wardrobe services), and offering services to extend garment life similar to Patagonia. The risk of cannibalization, decreases in purchase frequency, or further negative environmental impact from shipping should be evaluated before implementing these recommendations.

How might the other two SCM megatrends, isolationism and digitization, play a role in Inditex’s sustainability efforts? Would they help or hinder progress?

How important is it for Inditex to communicate its environmental efforts to consumers? Can Inditex shift consumer behavior and convince them to pay a premium such efforts?

Perhaps Inditex’s fashion forecast should be “green”house gas is the new black.

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[1] “Looking Good can be extremely bad for the planet .” The Economist , April 8, 2017. https://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21720200-global-clothing-production-doubled-between-2000-and-2014-looking-good-can-be , accessed November 2017.

[2] Inditex, 2016 Annual Report, https://www.inditex.com/en/investors/investor-relations/annual-reports , accessed November 2017.

[3] “Pulse of Fashion Industry 2017,” Global Fashion Agenda and The Boston Consulting Group, Inc., May 2017, https://www.copenhagenfashionsummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Pulse-of-the-Fashion-Industry_2017.pdf , accessed November 2017.

[4] Nathalie Remy,Eveline Speelman, and Steven Swartz. “Style that’s sustainable: A new fast-fashion formula,” October 2016, https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability-and-resource-productivity/our-insights/style-thats-sustainable-a-new-fast-fashion-formula , accessed November 2017.

[5] Duygu Turker and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the fast fashion industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports,” April 14, 2014, European Management Journal .

[6] McGinn, Dan, “2017’s Top-Performing CEO on Getting Product Right,” October 24, 2017, https://hbr.org/ideacast/2017/10/2017s-top-performing-ceo-on-getting-product-right , accessed November 2017.

[7] “Environmental P&L,” Kering, http://www.kering.com/en/sustainability/epl , accessed November 2017.

Student comments on The Devil Wears Zara: Threat of Climate Change from Fast Fashion is Heating Up

There are firms in almost every industry that have created environmental initiatives, but in many cases, those initiatives are poorly communicated to customers. If a firm’s customers aren’t aware of the firm’s environmental aspirations, doesn’t believe the they are sincere, or sees them as short-lived tactics to gain goodwill, the firm and the initiatives will not be successful. For this reason, marketing has emerged as one of the most influential elements in the push towards environmental sustainability. “The goal of sustainability in a marketing strategy is to attain competitive advantage through a position that is desirable, different and defensible.” With this in mind, sustainability initiatives should be formulated in such a way that profits can still be earned even after having a reduced impact on the environment and society. [1] In the case of Inditex, the ability to identify and effectively communicate meaningful long-term sustainability goals to its customers is essential in being able to have the desired impact without suffering financially. If the initiatives are in line with customer sentiment, then the firm will be able to pass some of the cost of those initiatives on to its customers without negatively impacting sales.

1. Thrust for sustainability in marketing strategy. (2014, May 27). The Financial Express Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/docview/1528424027?accountid=11311

I don’t necessarily think that a company needs to communicate its sustainability initiatives to customers, particularly if it’s a brand like Zara. I’m not sure that people think of Zara and think sustainability – there are other brands that have made that connection much stronger from the outset (LL Bean, for example). I’m also not sure if sustainability is going to influence people’s buying patterns.

Zara is a fast fashion business. They want people to purchase and change out their clothes often, but a better way to think about this would be by having people replace their clothing rather than stockpile. I’m thinking of what Madewell does by giving a discount to buyers who bring in an old pair of jeans when buying a new one. This makes people think differently about buying new clothes. You’re not adding to your closet, but rather swapping something out. It’s still fast fashion, companies get the chance to recycle fabric and use it in new products and it builds loyal customers who feel like they’re getting a deal by swapping clothes. You get to keep your fast fashion consumer while building on sustainability efforts.

You asked the question: “How important is it for Inditex to communicate its environmental efforts to consumers? Can Inditex shift consumer behavior and convince them to pay a premium such efforts?” Unfortunately I don’t think that marketing Zara’s sustainability initiatives is going to make a significant impact on consumer behavior or allow the company to charge a premium for such efforts. Zara’s customer promise lies in creating an affordable ‘fast fashion’ product. Their products come in and out of style quickly and they are priced so that a lower income consumer can constantly replenish their wardrobe without spending their entire paycheck on it. In this way I believe that Zara’s current customer promise directly competes with the environmental initiatives they hope to achieve.

The most promising part of Inditex’s Strategic Environmental Sustainability Plan is their proposal to “pioneer commercialization of recycled textiles that are on par with quality of new materials” combined with the initiative to upcycle with collection bins in-store. In this way they can focus on staying true to the customer promise by creating fast (disposable) fashion products and encourage their customers to donate it back for use in future garments. This plan has the promise of keeping customer loyalty while still reducing overall environmental impact.

Reading this essay reminded me of our discussion in the IKEA case – and the conflict between profitability through growing sales of a fashion brand and sustainability of the business. As Lauren and Christine mentioned above, I don’t think that Zara’s existing customers would care about their sustainability efforts or would be willing to pay a premium for sustainably produced products. Additionally, I don’t think it’s in Zara’s best business interest to reposition their brand and make higher quality items that last longer, like Patagonia, since this approach would increase costs and will likely dramatically decrease sales.

Since Zara’s business model and customer promise are hinged on customers regularly changing out their clothes, I see the most potential for meaningful impact in initiatives that collect older clothing items and keep them out of the landfill. This initiative could be accomplished through different approaches, such as a subscription clothing service similar to StitchFix, collecting clothing items in clothing bins placed in stores, or pre-paid shipping for customers purchasing new products online to send in any old items. I think Zara can recycle these items and / or donate products that are in good condition to people in developing markets, where, coincidentally, Zara has majority of its manufacturing capacity, thus taking advantage of established distribution chain.

Thanks for the interesting take on this aspect of the growth of fast fashion Consuelo. It does seem that the environmental impact of fast fashion is not top of mind for consumers, and I’m not convinced this will change; as Alona points out, the customer promise is cheap, trendy clothing that can be replaced often. Could Zara be chasing the goal of reducing its carbon emissions with no discernible benefit to itself? I’m curious if you see a scenario in which Zara is best served by focusing on its core business and either waiting for governments to put a price on carbon or for public pressure to mount to the point that they’re forced to buy carbon credits to offset their emissions. While it’s possible that either of those remedies would entail higher short-term costs than if they were to gradually transition to a “greener” business model, the value of delaying action could be more than worth it in terms of profits.

Please note this isn’t to detract from the moral imperative to be a good global citizen, and of course in an ideal world we’d have zero pollution and there would be no tradeoffs. But in this case I think the range of options is worth considering; for example, could Zara reallocate the money it’s spending (and profits it’s forgoing) to make itself “greener” to a different cause such as land conservation, public health, vaccinations, or any number of other initiatives that would have a greater impact on aggregate welfare than marginally reducing global greenhouse gas concentrations? I think it’s at least worth considering before firms incur great expense to reduce emissions due to regulatory or consumer pressure.

Thanks for the interesting read, Consuelo! Similar to Alona, I immediately thought about our IKEA discussion when reading this case. Not only does fast fashion inherently imply that customers are more likely to only use the clothing for a limited amount of time (and thus increase textile waste), but also that Zara aims to sell lower priced clothing at a higher volume — increasing waste through higher transportation costs and increased packaging. Can Zara’s business model of selling a high volume of cheap, fast fashion clothing possibly be reconciled with promoting sustainability? Similar to IKEA, I think Zara can do as much as it can to leave the smallest environmental footprint within the constraints of its business model.

I agree with others that Zara should not reposition its brand to be longer lasting clothing (e.g., Patagonia) as its main value proposition to customers is on-trend clothing; however, I disagree that Zara’s customers do not care about their sustainability efforts. Zara’s customer base is millennials who increasingly care about these issues and are voting on companies with their dollars. There are lot of fast fashion companies in the market and this could be part of Zara’s competitive edge. Albeit, I agree, this should not be their main focus.

Zara should not switch to a subscription clothing business as it would fundamentally change its business model, requiring a very different logistic and customer service process. In addition, the quality of the clothing would need to be significantly higher given handling by several clients and there would be as much (or more) wasted transportation costs. Finally, subscription based offerings do not aim to provide the same customer promise for on-trend clothing but rather designer items or “classics” — if they did, they would produce the same amount of waste through continual replacement of inventory.

I believe that, in the end, this is same question we have with other first class HBS and in Ikea´s Case. Is it possible to make a positive difference at the same time you are making a lot of money? I am a strong supporter that both objectives can (and must be) be pursued simultaneously. In this sense, Zara is making a lot of money and the fact that they are also looking for mechanisms to be sustanaible does not nothing ut help to the brand. As discussed in IKEA, Zara is trying to be sustainable and the fact that they earn a lot of money does not discredit their efforts with the environment. At the end of the day, people will still need to buy clothes. I prefer a company that takes care of the environment to earn a lot of money than a company that does not do it.

My biggest question after reading this interesting article is: does Zara really stand to benefit from being environmentally conscious? Although the stats you present do seem egregious, the consumers do not really think about it, and I do not see a clear argument that the costs to Zara currently from this supply chain model are greater than the costs it would take to implement sustainability initiatives. As Alona mentioned, Zara is not likely to re-brand and market their sustainability efforts to pass on these costs to their customers. Although Zara should operate ethically as a company, the financial benefits, either long or short term, are less obvious to me. My feeling is that this is a fast fashion industry problem, not a unique Zara problem – and Zara would not stand to benefit by attempting to tackle this issue alone.

As discussed during our class on IKEA, there are many contradictions between the efforts large companies make to reduce their negative environmental impact while maximizing sales and profits. Personally, I do believe that the companies are motivated mostly by the latter. But, I do believe that in order to achieve high profits in today’s environment and in order to stay relevant to their younger segment companies need to make sustainability a key part of their strategy. Therefore, I fully agree with your suggested recommendation and I actually think it’s worth taking the hit in the short term as I believe that sustainability will be a hygiene factor to gain basic customer good will in the mid-term perspective.

As to one of the other megatrends and the effects that digitization can have on sustainability I do think it’s a trend that facilities sustainability efforts. For instance, digitization of the supply chain through for instance RFID tracking increases transparency and enables retailers to monitor materials and supplies through the SC. Benefits of RFID tied to sustainability also include reduced waste by better inventory management and faster identification of defected materials.

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