Zara Case Analysis

We were able to witness the presence of cognitive dissonance in the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), when students were placed in different roles from their own. For example, all the participants had their own beliefs and both guards and prisoners were placed in apposition of control over others or being submissive to others. The guards justified their abuse towards the prisoners as part of their role and as following protocol to reduce their cognitive dissonance (Zimbardo, 2008). Aronson (2007) would argue that the guards experienced cognitive dissonance when they behaved abusive towards others and had to ignore any uncomfortable feelings that arise due to their identity. Guards were able to reduce the dissonance by dehumanizing the prisoners

Following is an analysis of Zara 's current expansion strategy into the US retail market and recommendations on future tactics to ensure a successful expansion. Zara 's expansion strategy thus far has been quite successful; however, with every new store opened, its ability to maintain an efficient centralized production system and a strong, unique culture will be diminished.

Zara is a retailing chain of Inditexthat specializes in high-fashion at reasonable prices. In the last 12 months, Inditex’s stock price has increased by 50% despite bearish market conditions. The 50% increase is due to the investor expectations of Inditex’s growth. Inditex’s growth can be contributed to the decisions it has made in creating a vertically integrated centralized process. The centralization of its vertically integrated operations in Europe provided it with its competitive advantage; however, I believe it will also make it fail if it decides to grow substantially into other markets. Financial Analysis compare to competitors In comparing Inditex financial performance against its competitors, it is apparent that Inditex is

Zara, one of the world’s largest apparel retailers, was founded in 1975 in La Coruna， Spain. With its successful rollout in the Spanish market, it began to expand its stores around the world, and became one of the most profitable brands in the appalling market. Zara was famous for its ability to quickly respond to the market demands, which provides a useful lesson in terms of competitive advantage with its competitors. But confronting to the fast-paced and constantly changing market, if a company wants to consistently increase market share in order to survive in the competitive market, it is irrefutable that it needs to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, since the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage can be expected to lead to higher performance.

Inditex’s efficiency is the result of a more profitable investment strategy. By owning all the stores and manufacturing sites it is able to achieve control over all production processes and costs. The high number of stores may be also traced back to the increasing value of the property because Zara only buys stores in strategic areas (shopping malls, shopping arcades, pedestrian districts etc.) where competition boosts rents. Therefore total assets of Zara increase as well.

No business in this type of industry has total control over the market price and there are no barriers to entry and exit. Because of its monopolistically competitive playing grounds, Zara’s conduct is to increase its market power by producing demand for its heterogeneous products. Through differentiation and cost leadership, Zara attempts to increase market demand by offering new items weekly while keeping a low inventory, thus making its products unique and attractive to consumers. Because of its backward vertical integration model, Zara creates a strong synergy throughout its production process. Zara has sustained a competitive advantage globally by expanding into new markets and becoming more efficient. In a monopolistically competitive industry, Zara is expected to make profits in the short run but will break even in the long run because demand will decrease as average total costs increase. This means in the long run, a monopolistically competitive firm, such as Zara, will make zero economic profit (AmosWEB, 2001).

In comparison to competitors, Zara’s business strategy, in regards to strategic partnerships and cost of production, provide for a strategic competitive advantage. Zara, unlike its competitors such as Gap, Benetton, and H&M, does not use Asian outsourcing. Eighty percent of Zara’s materials are manufactured in Europe, with 50% made in Zara controlled facilities in the Galicia region of Spain near headquarters. Most of Zara’s competitors have 100% outsourcing to cheap Asian countries. Though the cost of production in Spain is 17-20% more expensive than Asia, Zara does have a competitive advantage over its competitors in regards to operations. The local strategic partnerships that Zara maintains with manufacturers in Europe allow for a product throughput time of 3-4 weeks from conception to distribution. To make this happen, the company designs and cuts its fabric in-house and it acquires fabrics in only four colours to keep costs low. The proximity of these suppliers gives Zara great flexibility in adapting their product lines based on up to date market trends and consumer behaviour. It also decreases costs of holding inventory. Zara’s competitors, through outsourcing to Asian countries such as China, sacrifice the benefits of proximity for low labour and production costs.

Next, the essay will concern about five performance objectives that help Zara achieve competitive advantage in business. About quality, beauty, affordable prices and fashion are factors leading to magic success of Zara as well as other brands of Inditex, but it is not easy to do that. Amancio Ortega is president of the corporation with 32,000 employees, but he still has habit of operating as a family company with a clever and simple style. Zara operates with closed model from research, design, production, distribution and retail. Diversity, abundance and frequent changes of clothing design have become the biggest competitive advantage of Zara. The competitors expect to have the attraction like Zara. Most customers feel loss or lack

What makes the middle aged mother to buy cloths in Zara while the daughter aged in mid 20s buys Zara clothing? Because it is fashion able and up to trend. By collecting data and focusing on shorter response times, the company ensures that its stores are able to carry clothes that the consumers want at that time. Zara can move from identifying a trend to having clothes in its stores within 30 days. That means Zara can quickly and catch a winning fashion trend, while its competitors are struggling to catch up. Catching fashion while its hot is a clear recipe for better margins with more sales happening at full prices and fewer discounts. In comparison, most retailers of comparable size

The business idea of Zara is to link customer demand to manufacturing, and to link manufacturing to distribution. And based on this general idea, Zara has several essential elements for its business model. First, speed and decision making, which means that in the external level, Zara need to respond very quickly to demands of target customers, and always keep in style. While for the inside, Zara treasure intelligence and judgment of common employees who enjoy a great deal of autonomy. Second, its marketing, merchandising and advertising strategy. Zara does not spend on virtually advertising, while it spends heavily on stores, and no selling online because of

Zara is a brand widely known across the globe for its unique fashionable cloths .It is a part of inditex which is known as one of the world’s largest distribution group in the world and the owner of the company is Spanish businessman named Amancio Ortega .This company was formed in 1963 as a fashion retailer for women clothes but the company became a success after the addition of a new brand named Zara in 1975 .Today Zara is amongst one of the largest international company producing the fashionable clothes. After the success of the inditex as a successful brand (ZARA) maker, inditex was able to expanded itself with more successful brands across the world in different countries at the end of the 1980.from 1976 to 1983 Zara turned out to be a successful retailing brand and introduced itself with nine new outlets to the biggest cities of the Spain with its first headquarter in Goa. Year 1984 turned out to be the witnesses of first logistics headquarter of Zara covering a large area of 10,000 square metres. New York

To compete and win over all the challenges mentioned above Zara adopted a wonderful strategy of internationalization. The company made a logical tradeoff between negotiable and non-negotiable decisions for the betterment of

Zara is an apparel company and the leader brand of the Spanish retail mogul, Inditex. zara was established in 1975 in Spain by Amancio Ortega who is currently the 3rd richest man in the world, the first store was opened as an outlet but by 1979 the establishment already had six stores at different locations in Spain and by 1985 the company branched out to Portugal new york city and Paris. Today Zara has over 1900 stores worldwide which are located in 22 different countries; these stores render employment to over 125,000 employees. Zara depends on information they gather from customer and organizational feedback from all their stores on a daily basis this information is then forwarded to the supply chain, which works in synergy with the stores to keep the level of storage in stores down to a minimum. Zara owns the production, supply chain and in-house production, which lead to greater speed in output (M.A.Cano)

Zara is currently operating in a single county and that’s why faced a social influence that was already coped by Azadea group for its other brands. Luckily, Zara got a country based on independent cultural roots. A long history of United Arab Emirates in arts and design has an excellent contribution in artistic and designing field. This country has a quiet social environment, pulling in visitors on huge scales, having bunches of splendid social occasions. Solid tourism exchanges allow retailers like Zara to get acquire clients and after that retaining of clients is finished by quality fulfilling clients' needs. Zara's strategy of higher turnover encourages offer of

Zara is a clothing company that was founded in 1975 and came from Spain. Its under Inditex group which owns other brands such as Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear, Oysho, Uterques and many more companies. Zara grew very fast and currently in 2012 has 1,617 stores worldwide. With a large name in the fashion industry, besides that, Zara faces tough competition internationally including H&M, Benetton, and GAP. In order to keep up with the speed chic, Zara need to keep up also with the information system to run their business.