Managing Information Technology in ZARA

Managing Information
Technology

Table of Contents
Managing Information Technology.............................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................3
Analysis of Competitive Environment.........................................................................................4
Analysis of Value Chain Activities..............................................................................................7
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................10
REFLECTION...........................................................................................................................11
REFERANCES .........................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Information technology refers to using the technology to create, store and share data in
electronic format. This have become very significant part of all business organisations and
their functions and as most of the functions are based on the information. This report includes
management of information technology in ZARA.
ZARA is a Spanish Apparel retailer. This company was founded in 1975 and is
headquartered at Arteixo, Spain. This is global company and ZARA operates around 10000
stores at various locations in the world (Aftab and et.al., 2018). This was founded by Amancio
Ortega is the most largest brand of Inditex group. ZARA is world's largest apparel retailer.
First store of ZARA was opened in 1975 by Amancio Ortega at Galicia, Spain. This brand was
initially named Zorba but later its name changed to ZARA. The first store of the ZARA
featured clothes which are low priced lookalikes of popular high end cloths. After this
additional stores were opened in Spain and later the founder changed the manufacrture
process, process of distribution and designs of the cloths to reduce the lead time and react to
new trends quickly. This improvement included use of information technology and designer of
the group instead of individuals. In 1988 the company started its international expansion. Later
in 2010 ZARA also started and launched its online boutique in Spain and later started
operating in different countries.
In relation with its manufacturing and efficiency it is considered that ZARA only need
a week to develop its new products and get it to its stores. In this ZARA launches
approximately 12000 designs each year. One specific thing about ZARA is that its policy
includes zero advertising and uses its revenue to open new stores instead. This manufacturing
efficiency of the ZARA is because of its manufacturing and operating system which is Just-In-
Time Approach. Most of the products of ZARA are manufactured at Turkey, Portugal and
Spain and Morocco. In this products which have longer shelf life are outsourced to Asia to
low-cost suppliers.
Products of ZARA are clothes of men, women and children's. Supply of products of ZARA is
based on consumer trends. The supply chain of ZARA is highly responsive and ships new
products of the company and brand twice a week. ZARA brings 20 collections of cloths each
year. Along with clothings ZARA's products also includes shoes and accessories like begs and
beauty products and perfumes.

It was introduction of ZARA in relation with this report which is concerned with managing
information technology. This report includes analysis of competitive environment of ZARA
and this includes theory of Porter's five forces (Mayrhofer and Roederer, 2016). This also
includes analysis of ZARA's value chain analysis and identification of key value adding
activities for ZARA.
Analysis of Competitive Environment
Competitive environment of the company refers to environment which includes
competitive firms of the company and how these firms affect operations and activities of the
company. Many factors affect company and among all of them competitors are most
significant factor (Lewis, 2017). Competitors of company are those other firms and companies
which are operating in the same industry and provide similar and alike products. For analysis
of competitive environment of ZARA this report includes model of Porter's Five Forces.
This is one of the widely used model and includes analysis over five forces of competitive
environment. These forces are-
Threats of New Entry-
Illustration 1: Porter's Five Forces Model.
Available Through: How to Define Strategy
Using Porter’s Five Forces, 2020.