Introduction
Zara, the largest retailer within the Inditex portfolio, has been able to maintain a competitive advantage over its competitors by offering up-to-the-minute fashions in its stores throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas. Zara is the result of a clothing factory integrating forward to take advantage of linkages between manufacturing and retailing. These linkages are facilitated by information technology and Zara has developed a highly automated production and distribution system to service its stores. The information systems within Zara stores are easy to use and stable, but much discussion is taking place regarding whether or not to upgrade them to take advantage of new technologies which could better support the company’s business strategy.
Strengths & Opportunities
1. Strategy: Speed & Style
Zara’s strategy is to deliver up-to-the-minute fashions to its customers who are looking for the latest trends. In order to achieve this goal, all of Zara’s operations are developed around the tenants of speed and decentralized decision-making. All of Zara’s divisions work to decrease the time it takes to bring products from the design table to the sales floor to ensure customers find what they are looking for. By delivering new styles to stores quickly Zara is able to respond rapidly to changes in clothing trends and in the market. This allows the company to spend very little on advertising and still maximize revenue by constantly introducing new styles. This rapid merchandise turnover encourages customers to visit stores frequently as they know there will be new items available and to purchase items they like immediately since they know the offerings will be different the next time they visit...
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...ot utilize the benefits of the current systems and incorporate additional features that would improve Zara’s operations.
Case Updates
Zara’s strategic and successful use of information technology in its production and distribution system was acknowledged in 2006 when the company received the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award which honors excellence and innovation in information technology. Inditex received the Enterprise Transformation Award for, “redefin[ing] the business model for the fashion industry by reducing the time taken to get merchandise from the design to in-store phase.” Zara also has expanded its range of merchandise to include house wares like bed and bath linens, tableware, rugs, and other home accessories which are available for purchase throughout Europe from its website, www.zarahome.com, and are shipped directly to customers.
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With minimal aid from interviews with managers and no exposure to the marketing entity of the company, I was able to accomplish much of my findings related to the macro environment of Kohl’s through diligent online research. One of the major changes occurring in the retail industry is online shopping. Substitutes such as Amazon, eBay, and other online retailers are replacing the technically savvy shoppers from ever having to enter a store. Kohl’s competes with these outlets by remaining on the cutting edge of integrated technology to enhance the customer experience shopping their brand. They are currently testing multi-function tablets in jewelry and beauty departments that can be used to demonstrate
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(Table I). H&M and Forever 21 have certainly nailed the price with either the quality or image but never all three. Zara has done this with ease. Each piece of merchandise is priced at a comfortable price, if not a little higher than what other industry competitors may offer. Economics of Scarcity heighten the sense of now-or-never, supplying only handfuls of dresses at a time. Zara uses a method call; ‘rapid design change’, they move around most of the garments in the store, so that the floor looks new, also the floor is never flooded with garments. Thus, Zara is self-considered a Designer boutique, but it contrasts with the prices they practice. So it can be a good point saying that Zara has the best of both, the fashion design from boutiques like Louis Vuitton and Armani with the prices of dedicated ranges like H&M. It leads to the thought of a comparative advantage. Scarcity in fashion increases desirability, which means shoppers need to buy quickly as the item may not be available next week. Lower quantities also mean there are not much to
After reading through Sustaining IT-Dependent Competitive Advantage and Custom Made Apparel and Individualized Service at Land’s End, I believe that Land’s End clothing did achieve a sustainable IT-dependent competitive advantage. Land’s End exhibited savvy business foresight and decision making skills in regards to the future of a web-based mass customization platform for consumer clothing. What helped Land’s End achieve this IT-dependent strategic initiative included high levels of IT uniqueness and implementation complexity, as well as a high degree of process change. Furthermore, Land’s End also gained competitive advantage through its use of IT resources like information repositories and relationship assets. The tactics implemented by
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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;
Zulily’s personalization and merchandising is an important strategy within the company. Zulily’s has better personalization and mobile technology offerings for merchandising than most of the other companies in consumer retail, including Amazon. Also, since Zulily’s consumers faces long shipping time their trying a new strategy, by trying to get a wide assortment of merchandise into warehouses before selling it online, this is a strategy by shorten shipping times, which will benefit the consumer shopping
This paper describes the various aspects of the Zappos case. The objective is to evaluate the depth analysis of the Zappos strategy. It enables to determine the Zappos strategy, business model & marketing strategy, and smartness of the Zappos acquisition.
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Today there are no limitations to what technology can do to change the way we do Business. From online malls like(http://www.mall.com) to sites likeE-Bay technology has changed the way we do business. What we can conceive we can achieve. What is coming up next might impact our ways of doing business but the major impact, the major changes have began and what will lead now will be enhancing those changes. We have discussed many ways that technology has impacted our businesses.
H&M is the world’s second largest retailer, only behind its main rival Zara of Inditex (Petro, 2012). The company currently has 3006 stores in 53 countries. The company does not own any factories. H&M outsources production to network of 800 independent suppliers; 75% in Asia and 25% in Europe. In order to increase the efficiency and productivity of its supply chain, the company strategically locates its network of 20 to 30 production offices close to its suppliers. According to Stockholm Newsroom, the pretax profit of the company for the month of June to August of 2013 is $907 million, which indicates an 11 rise in turnover (Pollard, 2013). The company continuous development plan facilitates its goal for both brick and mortar, and online stores expansion worldwide. The target segments for H&M, a category specialist store, are trendsetters and fashion/money conscious males and females ranging from 16 to 40 years old with income ranging $15,000 to $60,000 annually.
The Internet is currently the third most shopped channel; brands are pushed to keep up with the trend of building an online shopping option for their consumers and this is evident through the increase in retailers offering online options for their consumers (Valerio). With solely digital stores like Net-A-Porter, Amazon and eBay, competition among digital stores and physical stores are tight. Retailers are pushed to keep up with the rise of digital shopping whether they want to or not. There are several retail implications with the rise of digital shopping, retailers are turning to multi-channel retai...