Zara: It for Changing Trends

The Harvard Business School case of one of the largest retails and clothe lines in the world, analyses and elaborates on how this Coruna based giant developed into what it is nowadays, and explains in detail how different parts of the organization work vertically to form the well established business they are. The case starts off with a brief discussion that Inditex Chief of Information Technology, Xan Salgado, and his long time friend and professional subordinate in the IT department, Bruno Sanchez, are having regarding the POS system, and if they should update it or leave it as it is. Salgado argues that they ought to implement a newer system, considering that the one they currently have is antiquated and may fail in the future, also acknowledging the fact that their supplier no longer supports that DOS system. Sanchez, on the other hand, explains that the system they currently use is 99% fail proof, and that there is no reason whatsoever to invest and develop something that may hurt the so perfectly working system used at the moment.

The case later moves on to explain how Zara came to be what it is, and how they carried out their business model from its beginnings. The company Zara was founded in 1975 by its current major stockholder, Armancio Ortega, and was aimed at women, men, and children. It is affiliated to other clothing brands including Massimo Dutti, Pull and Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius, and Oysho, all part of the Infitex corporation. From its starting roots, Zara has managed to set themselves apart from their competition, by believing strongly in their employees, and having a strong, decentralized hierarchy of power. Store managers have a lot more influence compared to their competitor’s counterparts, in the sense that they control more the way their store works and what type of merchandise they wish to exhibit. Zara focuses more on the layout and location of their stores, instead of other important factors such as marketing and publicity where it