Instructions Research Paper: Part II In Unit II, you began working on your research paper that will be due in Unit VII of this course. In this unit, you will continue researching the company that you

Zara

Name

Zara

Zara is a Spanish shop that sells clothing as well as accessories. Its headquarters may be found in Arteixo, Galicia. In 1974, Amancio Ortega and Rosala Mera established the corporation that bears their names. It is the flagship location of the Inditex group, the largest clothing, and accessories retailer in the world. Additionally, the fashion firm owns the brands Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Stradivarius, Oysho, Bershka, and Uterqüe, amongst others.

As of the end of 2017, Zara had 2,200 stores in operation across 96 countries. In 1975, Amancio Ortega built the first Zara store in La Corua, which is located in the province of Galicia in Spain. Ortega originally named the business Zorba after the film Zorba the Greek, which was released in 1964. However, when they discovered a pub in the area with the same name, they decided to change the name to Zara, a common Basque child's name. The first shop sold knockoffs of well-known, more expensive clothing brands at significantly lower prices than the originals. Ortega expanded his business by opening new outlets all around Spain (Rivero-Quesada & Suárez-Ortega, 2017). In the 1980s, Ortega made modifications to the design, industrial, and supply processes to cut down on lead times and respond more quickly to emerging fashion trends. He referred to these innovations as "instant styles." The utilization of information technology and the recruitment of design teams rather than individual designers were both incorporated into the upgrades.

Inditex, the firm that owns Zara, is a publicly-traded company. The company's shares are listed on the Bolsa de Madrid stock exchange. As of 2020, the firm had a market capitalization of approximately €103 billion. The company's largest shareholder is Amancio Ortega, who owns a 61% stake in the firm. Other major shareholders include the Spanish bank Banco Santander (5%), BlackRock (4%), and Vanguard Group (3%).

Inditex has a long-term relationship with a number of banks, including BBVA, CaixaBank, HSBC, and Santander. These banks provide a variety of services to the company, including financing, treasury management, and foreign exchange. Inditex has also been active in the debt markets, issuing a number of bonds over the years. In 2019, the company issued €1.25 billion of bonds with maturities of 3, 5, 7, and 10 years. The proceeds from these bond issuances were used for general corporate purposes.

The year 1988 marked the beginning of the company's international expansion, which began in Porto, Portugal. It first became available in the United States in 1989, followed by France in 1990. Zara established a presence in Mexico, Greece, Belgium, and Sweden during the decade of the 1990s. The online iteration of Zara's retail space went live in September 2010.

About 1,500 factories in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Bangladesh, Turkey, India, and China supply the goods that Zara sells. China is Zara's largest supplier. The company's supply chain is vertically integrated, which enables it to control all parts of the product, beginning with the product's design and continuing with its manufacturing and distribution (Singh, 2020). It has been determined that Zara is the most valuable brand in the world. According to BusinessWeek's rankings from that year, Zara was the 29th most valuable brand in the entire globe. Forbes Magazine placed Zara in the sixteenth spot on its list of the most valuable brands in the world in 2015.

References

Rivero-Quesada, N., & Suárez-Ortega, S. (2017). Factores estratégicos e intangibles en el éxito de la multinacional Zara-Inditex / Strategic and intangible factors in the success of the multinational enterprise Zara-Inditex. Revista Emprendimiento Y Negocios Internacionales. https://doi.org/10.20420/eni.2017.169

Singh, S. (2020). A STUDY ON SUPPLY CHAIN AND SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE CLOTHING BRAND ZARA. Towards Excellence, 226-249. https://doi.org/10.37867/te120522