Zara is the flagship brand for Europe’s fastest growing apparel retailer and has about 1500 stores in major cities around the globe.
For this assessment, consider that you work as a manager in Zara’s corporate organization. Zara’s leadership team is considering changes in their supply chain management practices, and your manager asked you to prepare a report that analyzes their current practices as input to their decision-making process. Your report will be reviewed by the overall leadership team. After conducting some research on the topic, you identified a highly useful resource, which is a summary of Zara’s supply chain management practices provided in the Harvard Business Review article, “Rapid Fire Fulfillment,” (linked in the Resources under the Required Resources heading). Your manager agreed with you about that resource being highly useful, and the two of you further agreed that your report should address the following key questions as items Zara’s leadership team will be interested in:
* Analyze and explain why the company’s supply chain strategy is successful. As part of that, examine the effect of the selection and management of suppliers and determination of information needs and systems.
* Analyze the importance of the company’s fast response and information infrastructure as related to the company’s supply chain strategy. For example, what advantage does Zara gain against the competition by having a very responsive supply chain? What information infrastructure does Zara need in order to operate its production, distribution, and fast fashion retail network effectively?
* Analyze how the company’s unique replenishment strategy satisfies customers. For example, what advantage does the company gain from replenishing its stores multiple times a week compared to a less frequent schedule? How does the frequency of replenishment affect the improved customer satisfaction?
* What information infrastructure does Zara need in order to operate its production, distribution, and fast fashion retail network effectively?