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The business of fast fashion
The business of fast fashion
Global supply chain management zara eassy
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The Fast Fashion Business Model 1. What are the key characteristics associated with the fashion markets that support this model? The fashion industry is synonymous with rapid changes and for a company to have success in the fashion industry the organization needs to be fast and flexible. The nature of the industry is discussed in terms of its volatility, complexity and dynamism. Companies like Zara, the retailer H&M and GAP have to keep up with the every changing trends in the fashion industry. One day skinny jeans will be all the rage and the next day they will be out of style. The fashion industry changes with the popular styles of its day, and it changes day by day, month by month. The Fashion industry manufactures cloths that have …show more content…
When a customer purchases an item the data is directly imputed into the company’s mainframe and schedules each of the stores replenishment cycles depending on demand. This keeps the supply chain lean, and nothing moves unless it has to. This is all made possible with an effective IT department utilizing the latest methods to keep Zara and H&M the leading fashion outlets in the world. 4. What are the integration requirements between partners in this strategy? An early and constant communication between customer and supplier can ensure a better management of the supply chain, and a more agile supply chain. Another rule is if a customer treats his suppliers well, inform them, being involved with their process is likely that less issues raise and usually is a guarantee for a longtime partnership. These facts are well known by Zara and used in its daily operations. Zara’s designers gather data on sales and inventory from each of its stores on a daily basis and use this to inform their view of the situation. This in turn brings great flexibility to Zara and H&M, allowing them to cope with the sudden changes in customer demand. Zara, in comparison to its larger competitors like Old Navy, only has 20 strong supplier partnerships compared to Zara’s much larger competitor with 65 suppliers
Berry, Hannah. “The Fashion Industry: Free to Be an Individual.” The Norton Field Guide to
Analysis & Recommendation: Zara’s main strategy is the ability to respond very quickly to the demands of target customers which called for identifying trends of the customer in advance. The company has been able to identify the trends and meet the demand with the help of its autonomously organized structure and its effective value chain systems. The present system followed by Zara has been very effective and very easy to maintain, which as a result has persuaded the company to continue without any change in the present system so far. The problem that Zara faces right now is that the system that they use, P-O-S (Point of Sale terminals), runs on DOS which Microsoft does not support anymore and any hardware change in the POS terminal will not be compatible with the current POS software. Although the sense of urgency for the change may not be that high, investing in IT infrastructure is a must as MS Dos is an obsolete technology and there is no contract or guarantee from their POS terminal vendor that they will continue supplying the same terminal with out much changes in the hardware for any specific period of time, therefore change is unavoidable. The other main issue that Zara faces is that the stores don’t share inventory information electronically and hence inventory management becomes highly difficult and manual. The decision making process is based on the judgment of employees throughout the company instead of relying on a small set of decision makers; the majority of the decisions were made by store managers and as a result they placed orders for the items rather than simply accepting and displaying what headquarters decided to send them.
This essay will discuss Fast Fashion and the Impact of Technology. I will focus on the different levels of the market, the effect of fast fashion on fashion design, how copying effects high end designer brands and the impact of technology on the fashion industry.
Based on the business strategy and tactics, Zara has been trying to optimize its business operation largely in three cyclical processes ordering, fulfillment, and design and manufacturing. Much of the process are standardized and simplified under the excellent control and employee's intuitive decision making latitude. In short, the principle of Zara's business operation is optimization of all business process and get rids of all redundancies and unnecessary things. More extended or peripherals of the principles can be summarized as follow;
Thesis: With the unregulated practices that goes on in the Fashion Industry, change is one notion that this abusive yet glamorous business have yet to see.
For the past several decades, globalization has been a hot topic and it also anticipates every aspect of the world to connect each other. Likewise, globalization also allows consumers to have more access to catch up with updated fashion. The advantages of globalization bring a new philosophy called fast fashion, which holds quick response time and enhanced design in fashion apparel industry. In this paper, I will deliver By exploring all the aspects of each system, I will conclude the reason why fast fashion becomes the mainstream of the fashion apparel industry, and use one particular brand, Zara, as an example to discover the impact on consumer behavior in detail. Finally I will make some comments on the future of fast fashion and what luxury brands will react to this circumstance……..
The fashion industry provides both creative and business-oriented positions, making the fashion world interesting. Fashion moves in cycles, and many, especially those who work within the industry, describe fashion as very fickle. When it comes to people one might work within the industry, fashion attracts eccentric, creative people who are often very difficult to work for and with, and those within the fashion world can be very brutal and backstabbing. Starting salaries can be very low, workspaces can be crowded and noisy, and schedules can be unpredictable and hours are often long and labor-intensive. Though, there is potential for large salaries, travel, and fun, there is can also be quiet, solitude, and security, largely depending on where one works in the field. If one works in the fashion ind...
The business model that sets Zara apart from other clothing retailers is how rapidly the company changes stocks and releases new product lineups. The company averages 12-16 collections annually which equates to more than one lineup a month. Due to stock being limited and the rapid production Zara brings forth, their items are viewed as exclusive promoting further business. Their customers are happy knowing that their specific article of clothing is more “rare” due to only having an average of a two-week window to purchase the clothing. The company specifically targets current trends and has them in the store within 30 days. This maintains the brand’s uniqueness and relativity in fashion.
Fast fashion allows consumers to get the latest styles presented in catwalks at a very cheap price. According to Walter Loeb, a former senior retail analyst for Morgan Stanley and a current contributor to Forbes, explains that companies like Forever 21, H&M, and Zara have made a push to get the latest styles in fashion into these stores as soon as possible, before the clothing becomes last season’s style. It is something that works perfectly for retail stores, as Loeb explains, “Many new ideas from the fashion shows that just finished in New York, Paris and Milan will soon be on Zara’s racks.” This means that stores are always in a rush to get their garments sold, before they are out of style six months later. One of the best benefits for retailers is that, because of the high demand of the latest styles, clothing sells very quickly and once it sales out instead of replenishing, they will just replace the garments with new styles coming fresh off the run floor (Stanley). This strongly encourages consumers to buy a piece of clothing that they like when they see it, otherwise there is a good chance it will not be there when they return. It is a perpetuating cycle whit no end in sight. This trend encourages shoppers to be more impulsive than they otherwise would be if he or she knew that the piece of clothing that they really liked was going to
Zara, the most profitable brand of Inditex SA, the Spanish clothing retail group, opened its first store in 1975 in La Coruña, Spain; a city which eventually became the central headquarters for Zara’s global operations. Since then they have expanded operations into 45 countries with 531 stores located in the most important shopping districts of more than 400 cities in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa. Throughout this expansion Zara has remained focused on its core fashion philosophy that creativity and quality design together with a rapid response to market demands will yield profitable results. In order to realized these results Zara developed a business model that incorporated the following three goals for operations: develop a system the requires short lead times, decrease quantities produced to decrease inventory risk, and increase the number of available styles and/or choice. These goals helped to formulate a unique value proposition: to combine moderate prices with the ability to offer new clothing styles faster than its competitors. These three goals helped to shape Zara’s current business model.
Fashion is an outlet people use to express themselves. People anxiously wait to see what the next trends are as seasons pass by. We buy anything that doesn’t break a bank, people buy a $10 shirt just because it’s cheap and they might not even wear it, but it’s all right, since it wasn’t expensive. As harmless and normal as that scenario sounds, the fashion industry has created the harmful concept that is “fast fashion”, in which stores sell an abundance of extremely cheap trendy clothing and “where deliveries are small and often, with stock delivered twice a week, for instant-access fashion.” (Cochrane)
As pointed by Parsons A.L (2002), there was increasing dependent on the relationship and customers is demanding to receive high standard of products and services for them to sustain the business in the intense manufacturing environment. Besides, Xu et al. (2008) has highlighted that supplier is developing a long-term relationship with their crucial suppliers to increase the competitiveness and to establish an effective and efficient supply chain. Trend (2005) also mentioned that work closely in partnership with suppliers is the only way to survive in today’s competitive business environment.
In the twenty-first-century fashion world, fashion no longer refers to clothing trends and accessories. It is any sort of production of goods and services that have a business or cultural value. Fashion is so important in today's time, not just socially but economically as well. In today’s time, nothing is able to exist without some sort of uniform or line of fashion. Fashion sets the tone in almost any area of activity no matter what event, place, or reason, people are always questioning what is proper to wear and if it is in. One concern or mutation in the fashion world is the speed of consumption and renewal by the logic of fashion that is being accelerated year after year, generating visible effects such as the depletion of natural resources and the alternation of the environment. Younger generations do not take interest in past events because most say that they were not born at the time when the event happened so it is not as important to them but it
Claudio, Luz. "Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry." Environmental Health Perspectives 115.9 (2007): A453-A454. Jstor. Web. 20 Nov. 2015.
The society is the main target of the fashion industry. The need of an identity is what brings them to the fashion world. Well-known designers use their positions in the fashion industry to promote certain conceptions such as identity questions, sexuality, distribution of power, and formation of various social and cultural discourses. (Lalovic, 2013) Most people find themselves in wearing what they want to be able to express their feelings or show their personalities. The trends are getting into the way because most people choose quantity over quality. (Zegheanu, 2014) But there are designers whose goals are to design clothes for consumers to look good and make them feel distinctive. For example, in Australia they have a law called Designs act 2003 which states designs cannot be the same or substantially similar to a design that has already been produced even if the design is just a sketch. (“Designs for fashion”, 2015) The technology is another great factor in terms of helping the fashion industry. With these two combined, designers will be able to create new masterpieces that the society never imagined to happen. (“How Fashion And Technology Impact Each Other”, 2013) With fashion involved, IT companies can actually gain a lot in the long term process. One example is, for every $1 million a company invests in fashionable technologies, the CEO would typically reap around $45,000 in the next year. IT companies who engage with the fashion industry can bring short-term social approval to companies and their chief executives, which will become a long term success for them. (Wang, 2010) To end this, fashion depends greatly on society and technology, but it also leaves a great impact on these two