What Is The Core Of Zara'S Success?

According to the World Clothing, Shoes and Hats Network, Zara（ Zara ）Starting from La Coruna, Spain, 1988 The pace of international expansion began in, and in recent years, it has grown at a high speed, which not only threatens many traditional clothing brands, but also is called fast fashion Although Zara doesn't like this name, Zara The key to success is that the design speed is much faster than the traditional process, the number of styles is even more amazing, and it can be put on shelves at a higher speed to match this advantage, although it is also reported from time to time Design There is a suspicion of plagiarism. However, many Asian garment counterfeiters who still copy have never become transnational brands, Zara Obviously, it is not the "copy cat" that global anti business and conspiracy theorists disparage as, and its business model must have something special.

Among Zara's business model strategies, it is easy to see that the supply chain management mode is different. Today, most of the world's garment industries are based in Asia, including China, Vietnam, India, etc., but Zara However, its supply chain is widely distributed in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Turkey and other countries, of which the top three countries account for 60% of the production capacity, and supply to the European market nearby, allowing Zara It is better to use the fast strategy because when the products of other competitors are transported from Asia, Zara can From design to manufacture to launch within a week, and quickly respond to market changes.

Due to long distance sea transportation, other competitors adapt to the development mode of mass production and one-step delivery of the same design. Otherwise, if the market responds well, it will be too late to carry extra weight, which also creates corresponding risks. That is, if the design is not as popular as expected, it will lead to a large number of stocks and have to be discounted, Zara Due to the advantage that the production place is close to the market, it can first conduct small trial production, respond quickly and add more, and still be able to quickly get through with poor response, without having to discount heavily or flow to the smooth goods center, so as to ensure that Zara The profit also avoids the storage cost of accumulated inventory.

Due to the pressure of selling a large number of products that have been manufactured in a large number, competitor brands adapt to the business model of spending a lot of money, making a lot of exposure, overwhelming marketing advertising, and comprehensively distributing goods to channels to ensure that consumers will pay the bill, which is also classified as fast fashion H&M can't avoid the custom. About 4% of the revenue is spent on the advertising budget. Zara is able to adopt a business model that does not attach importance to advertising without clearing the pressure of manufacturing a large number of products The marketing of is mainly focused on social marketing. Save storage and marketing costs, so that Zara can maintain parity.

In this part, if other competitors are willing to make a big move in the supply chain, it can also be done, but this has to be matched with the annual launch of 1.2 It is not easy to imitate thousands of newly designed clothes with attractive design skills, Zara As a result of a large number of designs, it is inevitable that there will be a "hit" coincidence, or it is inevitable that a small number of designers under the banner will occasionally suspect that they have "too much reference", and many opponents and conspiracy theorists will attack them as plagiarism. However, countless "copycat" clothing factories in Asia that really plagiarize do not plagiarize every year 12000 designs.

Zara's amazing design productivity comes from Zara The entire organizational structure and management culture of. In the past, the mainstream management mode of enterprises was "from top to bottom", where supervisors gave orders from top to bottom. However, with the explosion of information in the digital era and the new management needs in the era of knowledge economy, the needs of management knowledge workers were different from those of labor workers. The work of knowledge workers was thinking. In the past, only supervisors gave orders with one whip, and only supervisors thought, It is a waste of human resources. Today's emerging idea is "bottom-up" to comprehensively promote the productivity of knowledge workers, Zara Is one of the best.

Unlike other competitors, Zara has no design director, 350 The design team has no obvious hierarchy. Everyone has the right to independently decide the design and marketing. Everyone can give opinions in the design process. This kind of gossip like discussion seems to be out of order, but it is a thorough use of everyone's brain in the team, making the team a "multi-core computing" method to quickly process a large amount of information Zara also collected a lot of information for the team. Zara The clothing products on the shelves will be updated every two weeks when they are shipped to the channel, together with the sales information of the online store and the customer response information, and they will be immediately fed back to the design team to understand which designs are selling well and which are unsalable, and immediately change the design of the next few batches accordingly.

Like "multi-core operation"

Pablo Isla, CEO of Zara, said that Zara， There is no magic formula or star designer in the design. It is purely a response to changes in data throughout the season. Business managers and analysts all discuss sales materials with designers at any time. The design team will create a series of products with different materials, patterns and prices based on a design that is popular, so as to expand the maximum total revenue. Finally, Zara It will provide consumers with fashionable clothes.

Since 2004, Zara's performance has grown by 240%, while H&M's has grown by 180%, but Gap's growth is almost zero, let alone American, the second bankruptcy Apparel)， In the first half of 2016, Gap's revenue declined, H&M's profit declined, and Inditex's revenue, the parent company of Zara accounting for two-thirds of its performance, grew 11%。 Many competitors want to copy Zara's success model, but they can't catch up because Zara The foundation of success lies in the management method of the design team, the way to obtain information, and the special business model formed by the combination of supply chain model and marketing model. Copying one of them has no effect.

In the era of digital economy, Zara More cautious compliance, slow down the expansion of physical stores, focus on a few flagship stores, and vigorously develop online shopping. This strategy has market analysts worried that the growth rate will slow down, but Zara Unlike many other enterprises, which are often subjected to market pressure and expand at random, their cautious compliance has enabled them to maintain steady performance when online shopping trends sweep across many channels and competitors. This is even more valuable in the era when many traditional channels are attacked and faltered by online areas.

Zara CEO believes that the most critical factor for success is not the supply chain management reported by the media. He also rejects the fast fashion title, which does not reflect Zara In the design of each dress, success does not come from a certain winning process. The most important thing is still the human factor. Design is everything. In other words, the key lies in the management of the design team.

The "bottom-up" management philosophy believes that only the front-line staff can master the most information. In the bottom-up management mode, the superior is in the role of assisting and coordinating the subordinate, which is conducive to the organization presenting the most information; In contrast, under the traditional one whip leadership, the lower level tends to hide information, "there are policies and countermeasures", because the more you let the higher level know, the more adverse it will be to yourself, so there are more levels, and the higher level is often seriously disconnected from the actual situation, and makes absurd wrong decisions. In order to avoid this situation, the higher level has to take various measures to spy, The lower level must also take countermeasures, and the energy of all people in the organization is seriously wasted on the "top and bottom", resulting in low productivity.

The "bottom-up" organization is also conducive to real-time processing of a large amount of information, such as "multi-core computing", where everyone helps to calculate a part of the data, rather than concentrating all the data on the superior to think and make decisions; In contrast, in traditional organizations, data are all concentrated at the higher level, which will cause the higher level to be overwhelmed by excessive information, leading to decision downtime. However, if the data is filtered before being reported, information distortion will occur, or the lower level can take the opportunity to "report good news but not bad news" and other concealments.

Zara's success can be said to show the productivity advantage of "bottom-up" thinking in the era of knowledge economy.

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