Business Communication Analysis: Zara's Strategies & Improvement

This report examines Zara's business communication strategies, including horizontal and pyramid models, and the various methods used to reach customers such as online platforms, social media, email marketing, and traditional advertising. It identifies challenges Zara faces, such as communicating effectively across global markets and attracting middle-class customers in developing countries. The report recommends solutions like using intranet software for internal communication, leveraging social media analytics for customer insights, and adopting a co-creation approach to engage customers in developing countries. The analysis highlights the importance of adapting communication strategies to overcome challenges and improve customer engagement for sustained growth. Desklib provides a platform for students to access similar solved assignments and study resources.

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Executive Summary
This report sheds light on the business communication of Zara, high street fashion retail chain in
Spain; however, it is serving in 88 markets all over the world. Zara has 26 online markets across
the globe and it mainly targets the young customers. Zara uses two communication models,
Horizontal and Pyramid in order to communicate with employees and stakeholders of the
organisation. In communicating with the customers, Zara uses online media rather than
traditional print and television media of communication. In this report, all the communication
media have been described of Zara as e-mail marketing, social media platforms, online
platforms, sponsorships and traditional media. Zara has been facing the challenges from making
the communication with employees worldwide and it targets the niche customers, however, in
developing countries, it fails to communicate with middle-class young generation as their
contents do not attract them. In mitigating the challenges, Zara needs to use social media
analytics as these can help to understand the customers’ insights. Intranet software can also help
in establishing the communication between headquarter and employees. Lastly, Zara can follow
co-creation of values with the customers in developing countries to communicate effectively.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
1. Communication models of Zara..................................................................................................3
2. Business communication took by Zara to reach customers.........................................................4
3. Challenges faced in business communication.............................................................................7
4. Recommendations for improvement of business communication...............................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference List................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Business Communication can be defined as information sharing between the organisation
and the people outside and within that need to be performed for the commercial benefit of the
organisation (Turker and Altuntas 2014). Business communication can encompass brand
management, marketing, customer behaviour, public relation, advertising and reputation.
Effective business communication can be performed through using of face-to-face
communication, e-mail, telephonic, social media and online. However, it is very important for an
organisation to choose the effective communication media so that they can use these to reach the
desired customers. In writing the communication for the proposed audiences, it deals with
planning, drafting and revising the content. In order to conduct the study, Zara, fashion
organisation has been chosen. The aim of the report is to identify the challenges in business
communication used by Zara and proposing solutions to Zara’s management.
1. Communication models of Zara
Zara is a clothing accessories retailer and it was founded in the year 1974. Headquarter of
the organisation is at Galicia in Spain and it is world’s largest apparel retailer. It serves
worldwide and it has its stores in more than 2170 locations. The revenue of the organisation was
US$16 billion in 2016 and parent organisation of Zara s Inditex (Zara.com 2017). Zara is
immensely popular among the young generation; however, they do not display their logo or
brand name much. Zara uses unique marketing tools or models that are a Horizontal model and
Pyramid model.
Horizontal Model

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The horizontal model starts the communication from the executive level and the Board of
Directors of Zara is mainly responsible for the communication message that reaches all levels.
Zara takes the stakeholders' approach to spreading the communication to clients, suppliers, mass
media, distributors, communities, customers, employees, public administration and wholesalers
(Zara.com 2017). The horizontal approach provides the knowledge inside the firm to spread the
valuable information to stakeholders.
Figure 1: Stakeholders in horizontal Model of communication
(Source: Kuriyan et al. 2008)
Pyramid Model
Pyramid model gives a one-way flow of idea and communication as communication
cannot be presented at managerial level in the same way that is presented in director's message
(Viterbi and Omura 2013). In Zara, the managerial team provides the objectives of
communication and each leader of various departments have to listen to the communication. The

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opinion of subordinates is not taken into consideration as an internal process of Zara is not
strong.
Figure 2: Pyramid Model of communication
(Source: Kuriyan et al. 2008)
2. Business communication took by Zara to reach customers
Zara spreads a common concept of fast fashion and Zara is going parallel to follow the
market trends. Zara mainly uses the continuous and efficient communication systems that have
changed the street of marketing. Zara mainly targets the young customers who buy the fashion
clothing and Zara provides the fashion trend in the edge that provides them with competitive
advantage. Zara mainly uses the strategy of short-term needs of the customers and communicate
to the customers through various communication media (Kim et al. 2014). Zara uses the business
process and information in market analysis rather than concentrate on the marketing types.
Traditional communication
Young generation large use the digital platform and Zara can easily target the young
generation through using the digital platform (Xu et al. 2014). Zara has been using traditional

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media as well in reaching the customers effectively. Zara uses Television advertising and it helps
the brand to reach large audiences, however, television advertising is costly. Young customers do
not like to watch television now and they prefer online medium, however, through television
advertising, the brand can communicate a greater number of customers irrespective all ages. In
addition, print media are helpful for the brand as the fashion clothing advertisement can be
published with colour in fashion magazines, newspapers and leaflet. Additional charges of the
print media have to incur by the management and digital media is helpful for the brand (Kaul
2014). Zara uses out-of-home advertisement as the medium of communication; however, it is
costly to provide the advertisements in billboards and on hoardings on the roadside.
Online communication
Zara has made an online platform to sell their products in various global parts and online
platform gives the organisation a boost to gain the popularity. Zara uses the website in order to
sell their fashion garments and they generally do the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
technique and it increases the online traffic of the organisation. Once the customers search the
products of Zara using their internet and the same products will automatically come over and
over gain on their internet pages, this technique increases the brand image of the organisation
(Moshiri and Cardon 2014). The main marketing function of Zara is selecting the location of the
business and it operates more than 92% of the stores by themselves rather than other retail that
provides better control on the operation. Management of Zara also uses Pay-Per-Click
advertising in an online platform to direct traffic to website and advertiser has to pay the
publisher when a user clicks on the advertisement. Zara's target is the youth generation and they
are fond of the online platform and today Zara has 26 online markets in different parts of the
world (Mai and Hoffmann 2014).

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E-mail communication
Zara also does e-mail marketing and the brand sends the customers e-mail by offering n
new products or arriving the newest collection of the brand. Sometimes, Zara’s PR team sends
the personalised discounts to customer and them also wishes the customers on their birthdays and
other special occasions. Zara opened a new store in Hawaii and it became their 7000th stores
worldwide in 2016 (Bargiela-Chiappini and Nickerson 2014). In the year 2015, the organisation
opened more than 360 stores in 55 different market and communication needed to make the
brand popular.
Social networking communication
Zara has been using the Facebook in a regular basis to post the images, discounts, links,
offers and videos, it has more than 26,000,000 likes on Facebook and more than 45,00,000
people are talking about the brand on Facebook. In 2017, third quarter shows that Facebook has
more than 2.07 billion active users; therefore, it has rich potential for Zara to reach global
customers (DiSanza and Legge 2016). On Twitter, the brand has more than 1.28M followers and
@ZARA posted 19.3k posts on Twitter. It is a proof that Zara’s PR team try to engage the
customers on social media and social media is cost-effective media to use. In addition, Zara is
using Instagram and there they have 23 million followers. Zara has posted 1680 posts and it
highlights the fashion sense of the customers of various regions. Zara gets the advantages of
social media communication as they are easy connectivity from every place on earth and the
customers can use the online platform from various gadgets and devices. Social networking
communication provides a long-term competitive advantage with cost-effective.
Sponsorship

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Finally, Zara uses sponsor activities in many events and in many of the sports events. In
addition, Zara also provides sponsorship to Television programmes and online web series. In
Royal Melbourne Hospital, Zara organises the breast cancer awareness to promote the business
of the hospital (Theguardian.com.uk 2017). This social awareness acts as Corporate Social
Responsibility and in this event, Zara provides a free check up to the women.
3. Challenges faced in business communication
Zara is a global organisation and it has been an issue for the organisation to communicate
perfectly across the globes as they have stores in more than 88 markets. Headquarter faces issue
to communicate well in other countries where they have stores and all the stakeholders may not
have the information about the changes and recent news of the organisational changes (Bovee et
al. 2016).
Technology is another issue in Zara, however, the organisation has been serving globally,
and however, the technical specification to communicate with all stakeholders is not well. The
PR team has limited technologies to communicate with the customers and emotion of the
customers’ needs to solve the PR team through e-mail, social media and voice calls. The
customers can post any grievance on social media with an image; this image can go viral in no
time. In this situation, the crisis communication is very important for the organisation before the
flame turns into a disaster. In the year 2015, Zara launched black and white striped shirts with a
yellow star on this, the social media outraged with the fashion sense as this type of dress is worn
by the Jewish prisoners in concentration camps (Theguardian.com.uk 2017). The image of the
shirt got viral and PR team tries to control the condition, however, this led to no result.

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Zara belongs to the high street fashion clothing organisation and offers the clothing that
can afford only by the rich and upper-middle class customers. The business communication of
Zara should attract middle-class customers too with the discounted prices in developing
countries. Zara is trying to expand in the market like India and other South Asian countries with
fashion clothing that can attract the customers. However, in expanding the business in this
section, they face issue from perfect competition in these markets. Zara is taking the reactive
strategy as this strategy is the preparation to proper management of any situation when an issue
arises (Chaney and Martin 2013).
4. Recommendations for improvement of business communication
Intranet software:
Zara has been facing the issue of making a communication to other offices that are
farfetched from headquarter. In this scenario, they can use intranet software to communicate with
the employees in any part of the world. This will provide extra benefit to communicate with the
stakeholders. The intranet will provide the statistics of employees' share and consumer
information. Most importantly, intranet software provides internal collaborative culture as
collaboration is the key to global business.
Social media analytics
Information Communication Technologies can be a perfect use in Zara in order to
amalgamate all the social media sources. Social media analytics help the organisation to
understand the performance of communication to the users on social media. Social media
analysis plan and collected data in social media help Zara to understand their performance and

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activities. Socialbakers, Google analytics and Zoho are some of the social media analytics that
helps to communicate with the users.
Culture of customer co-creation
In developing countries, Zara's communication does not reach to the young customers
and the brand falls under the category of the costly organisation. In these markets, Zara can take
the strategy of co-creation of value and it is an economic strategy to bring the different agents
together in order to produce mutually valued results. Zara's management needs to communicate
with the customers and ask their needs and desires in order to co-create the values.
Conclusion
It has been observed that Zara targets to the young generation and Zara’s unusual fashion
clothing attract the youngsters. In the workplace, Zara has been using the two communication
models to communicate with the employees; however, they could use intranet software to
communicate the employees globally. In communicating with the customers, Zara uses e-mail
marketing, sponsorship, social media, print marketing and online media. However, social media
analytics can be an assistive technology for Zara to communicate perfectly on time to the
customers.

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Reference List
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Cresci, E. (2017). Zara removes striped pyjamas with the yellow star following online outrage.
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