Case 1: Zara, Netflix and Amazon Business Systems by Efstratiou Kostandinos
1. ZARA a. General. Zara is one of the greatest global fashion companies belonging to the Spanish retail group, Inditex SA. Its founder Amancio Ortega Gaona opened its first store in A Coruña (Spain) in 1975. During the 1980s Ortega started changing the design and distribution process to react to new trends quicker. In 1988 the company started its international expansion through Porto, Portugal. As of 2007, Zara stores provide men's / women's / children's clothing as well as shoes, cosmetics and complements. In 2010 Zara’s company opened his first online shop in several European markets and …show more content…
Zara’s design process is closely linked to the customer. Information travels from stores to design teams, conveying customers’ requests and concerns. Zara is always striving to meet the needs of its customers. (inditex.com 2014) Zara’s main competitors' Gap, H&M have completely outsourced their production to factories in low cost countries something that is not in consideration of Zara who believes in speed beats costs and drives profit. Therefore Zara is highly vertically integrated, keeping huge swaths of its production process in-house. (Gallaugher 2014) b. Information system used to make managerial decisions. Zara designs follow evidence of customer demand – market research (S&P). They attempt to interpret what the customers like, and then they design it and produce it. Zara store management and staff (agents) use PDAs and POS systems (technology) to gather customer input (activity), investigate the piles of unsold items for preferences, capture sales data. All this valuable data allows the firm to plan styles and issue rebuy orders based on feedback (S&P) rather than hunches and …show more content…
General Description. Netflix originally known as a video rental store was founded by Reed Hasting (CEO) & Marc Randolph in 1997 in Scotts Valley, California. It started building its reputation on the business model of flat-fee unlimited rentals without due dates, late fees, shipping and handling fees. In 2007 Netflix introduces streaming, and between 2008-2009 partners with consumer electronics companies to stream on the Xbox 360, Blu-ray disc players, TV set-top boxes, PS3. Since 2011 starts global expansion throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe (UK, Austria, Belgium, France Germany, Luxembourg and