Zara Supply Chain

Would Zara’s model work for other retailers? Why or why not? Zara has overturned the tables of supply change management by following the three principles – closing the communication loop, sticking to the rhythm across the entire chain and leveraging their capital assets to increase supply chain flexibility (Ferdows, Lewis & Machuca, 2004). These three principles work wonders at their individual levels. They do so by making the data transfer easy and transparent from shoppers to designers and production staff thus continually evolving their designs and keeping with the latest trends. Their production efficiency is next to none as they are able to bring the product to market shelf in 15 days which other retailers cannot match. They have also been able to control production and distribution facilities which results in high efficiency in the supply chain responsiveness thus able to deliver new products at very fast rates and hence taking caring of the ever changing market around the world. This is something which is very difficult for other retailers to emulate and hence Zara’s model will be difficult to implement at these retailers. Even by applying and controlling one principle of Zara’s supply chain is difficult for the current retailers to employ.
How is Zara going to expand successfully all over the world with the same level of speed and instant fashion? Zara will be very successful to expand globally. The reason is hidden in their principles which is to control almost all the possible links in their supply chain. Zara’s owner or founder Mr. Ortega tries to live with the simple principle which is to control “end to end” of the supply chain (Ferdows et. al., 2004) thus reaping enormous profits and making their product available within days. Also their control over the distribution network and responsiveness to the ever changing trends helps them to achieve the level of speed which can cater to the consumers globally and thus helping Zara to expand

References: Ferdows K., Lewis M., Machuca J. (2004). Rapid Fire Fulfillment. Harvard Business Review, 1-6 Kotler P., Keller K. (2012). Marketing management 14th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.