Zara's Operational Areas Report

This report details the main operational areas of Zara, a globally successful clothing retailer. It examines three key areas: design and production, emphasizing Zara's 'just-in-time' design strategy and in-house production; procurement, highlighting the company's focus on in-house manufacturing and limited outsourcing; and focused logistics and distribution, showcasing Zara's centralized system and rapid delivery network. The report concludes that Zara's success stems from its integrated and efficient operational model, allowing for quick response to market trends and consumer demands.

Main operational areas of Zara

TABLE OF CONTENT
MAIN OPERATIONAL AREAS OF ZARA..................................................................................3
Design and production-...............................................................................................................3
Procurement-...............................................................................................................................3
Focused logistics and distribution-..............................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

MAIN OPERATIONAL AREAS OF ZARA
Zara with a foundation year of around 42 years is profoundly known for its clothing
product that is being served in more than 2169 stores to serve at a global level. It is basically
operating in the retail industry of Spain and is referred to be a subsidiary enterprise of Inditex. It
represents to be the leading brand of Inditex group where it has also designated to be the world's
largest retailer of apparel (Peters, 2013). This section is to outline the operational arenas of Zara
where it is known to be a successful player in the retail sector of clothings. It is basically a
resultant approach of their strategic business format where each of its operations depicts a
planned determination to meet out the ascertained missions and vision of Zara. Their key
decisions of operation management tends to include the designing of products, sourcing and
distribution of commodities. Due to which, they are predicted to have a strong supply chain
management with below delineated areas of operations in Zara-
Design and production-
It is a foremost approach in which Zara is hereby referred to make a self configuration of their
offered products by designing it themselves. This is done by an undertaken strategy of “Just in
time” concept of designing. This is an elementary framework of Japan to acquire a concentrated
system of product with a prior evacuation of wasting the materials (Varley, 2014). Zara hereby
involves an expertise team of employees to design variable products with different nature that
together tends to correspond with the recent market trends. This also depicts a flexible generation
of ideas of the designers where they successfully meet up the latest perspective of consumers as
well.
Procurement-
It is yet another substantial area of operation in Zara where they are famously known for their in-
house system of production by which they hereby tend to manufacture almost 60% of their own
products. It is however with a less consideration of outsourcing the resources as compared to its
major contenders in the market where they only outsource for some of their labour intensive
projects like stitching (LU, 2014). However, the designs are being cut down by the workers in
their in-house production systems. This not only assist them to save the labour expenses but
together aid them to timely meet their stipulated deadlines of work. Beside this, such applied tact

also support them to purely control their designs that match with the current vogue of the
marketplace in terms of fashion.
Focused logistics and distribution-
It is mainly in context to Zara's centralized scheme of logistics with a solid network of
distribution where its fast success is fashion is referred to be its centralised system of
management. It is basically with reference to their well defined structure of work (Mora and
Volonté, 2014). It is where each of their staff members in every department that includes
designing to procurement, manufacturing, distribution and retailing functions operates with a
planned and clarified sense of objectives. Apart from which, their vast distribution networks also
represents a considerable format that enables them to make 24 hours delivery of goods and
services. It is within a stipulated time period of maximum 2 days or 40 hours to complete a
single order.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Mora, E. and Volonté, P., 2014. Local Culture and Global Market: A Conversation with
Protagonists of the Italian Fashion System. Fashion Practice, 6(2), pp.263-272.
Peters, N., 2013. Operational Exellence-Identifying qualifying and order winning factors. GRIN
Verlag.
Varley, R., 2014. Retail product management: buying and merchandising. Routledge.
Online
LU, C., 2014. Zara supply chain analysis - the secret behind Zara's retail success. [Online].
Available through: <https://www.tradegecko.com/blog/zara-supply-chain-its-secret-to-retail-
success> [Accessed on 15th December 2016].