The Tao of Zara

The mainstream fashion and retail industry is going through tumult, except Zara. The reason for its success is simple – data

- Darren Ho

 

 

“HE WAS THERE,” SAID isabel ‘ita’ Catoira Gomez, the communications ambassador of Zara, of amancio Ortega Gaona. How did we completely miss the world’s second wealthiest man, whose net worth currently stands at over Us$75 billion? Ortega doesn’t have an office, even a desk. He sits at random on a long stretch of desks that are on every level of Zara’s headquarters, each plastered with computers and collecting massive amounts of data from every store, in every corner of the world. the people behind these desks are called ‘country managers’. Like the heart in a cardiovascular system, these guys pump data through the design departments that are essentially the brains of the company.

Data is everything to the company, according to Jesus echevarria, the chief communications officer of Zara and its holding company, inditex. it shows in the company’s performance as well. in the last quarter of 2016, inditex registered a 14 per cent rise in net profit. revenue for the year increased 12 per cent to €23.31 billion. Like for likes grew 10 per cent year-on-year. Meanwhile, its competitors are trying to keep up.

Inditex is big. there’s 3,000 working for Zara in arteixo a Coruña alone, the Galician region where Zara was founded (1974) and where the inditex group (1985) was established. Over 40 nationalities work here, in a town that is better known for a coastline facing the atlantic Ocean and the headquarters of petrochemical giant repsol.

Inditex is still expanding – workers are excavating and setting up a new building that will increase facilities by a third. Zara expects to add 1,000 employees to its headquarters.

IT’S ALL ABOUT EFFICIENCY