MIS Case Study Zara IT For Fast Fashion MIS Case Study Zara IT For Fast Fashion

MIS Case Study
Zara IT for fast

fashion
Ayush Bansal 21PGP051

Abhishek Kumar Pandey 21PGP012
Amruta Nema 21PGP030
Nilisha Deshbhratar 21PGP064
Abhijeet Kumar Singh 21PGP005
Anand TM 21PGP031
Akshaya A 21PGP027
Group No. 8
Your Name
1
ZARA – IT for Fast Fashion
1. How would you advise Salgado to proceed on the issue of upgrading Zara’s POS systems?
 Upgrade the POS terminals to a modern operating system:

Zara should upgrade the POS terminals to a modern operating system. Microsoft no longer
supports DOS, which means high maintenance costs in case of system problems. Although the
terminal vendor had promised not to change its machines and Zara was its only customer using
DOS, but what if the vendor changes its leader and terminates the cooperation or goes
bankrupt. Hence in order to avoid these risks, the company can upgrade to modern systems.
 Use of wireless networks
As the wireless networks are cheaper and faster than normal modems, it is a good method for
Zara. With a wireless network, it would no longer be necessary to carry disks to count the total
sales of each business day, which will save a lot of time. Also, if stores are permanently
connected to the Internet, employees can send requests online without a phone call and more
importantly open doors for further functionalities. Hence, Zara should build in-store networks.
 Provision to look up Inventory Balances
Zara should give employees the provision to look up inventory balances for items in their own
stores as well as other stores. When a customer wants an item that is not in the shelf of the
store, the employees should look up inventory balance to see if it is available. Employees also
should know what items are in the inventory balance so that they can make a reasonable sales
plan.
Zara should give employees the provision to look up inventory balances for items in other
stores. When employees find that an item is not in their own store, they could look up if it is in
another store’s inventory balances and so can request for transfer of the SKU from that store.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. What is the Zara “business model”? How is it different from the business model of other
large clothing retailers? What weaknesses, if any, do you see within this business model?
Is it scalable?

Zara Business Model:
o Zara responds very quickly to the demands of target customers, who were young,
fashion-conscious city dwellers
o The management wanted to take advantage of the intelligence and trust the judgement
of employees, instead of relying on a small set of decision-makers
o Even in decision making, the company had separate in-store employees and managers.
o On the Supply side, Zara owned key manufacturing units in order to control its supply
chain
o Zara regularly changed the look of the store by assessing new styles at a particular store.
o Zara spent little on ads, but relatively heavily on its stores
2
o Zara intended its clothes to have fairly short life spans, both within stores and in
customers’ closets so that, customers visit the store regularly.
o Zara had decided not to sell clothes over the Internet as they were not able to account
for the merchandise and had less resources for shipping.
Difference between Zara and other large clothing retailers

 Other companies in the apparel industry had shown that marketing and advertising
campaigns could be effective at convincing a customer to buy their clothes. While Zara
wanted to be able to produce and deliver new styles while they were still hot, rather
than relying on the persuasiveness of its marketing to push clothes it had made some
time ago.
 In contrast with other large clothing retailers, Zara’s collections were not
conceptualized and designed by a small, elite team. Instead, collections were created,
extended and modified over time by teams of commercials, each dedicated to a section
of the store.
 Unlike its main competitors, Zara did virtually no advertising except promote its twice-
yearly sales and announce the opening of a new store.
 Zara did not try to produce classics, it always produced new styles.
Weakness within this business model With the development of technology:

People are used to purchasing clothes online. If Zara still does not sell clothes over the Internet,
it might lose a lot of customers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. What information does Zara need to operate its business model?
 Ordering- garment availability, regional sales patterns, predictions about what would sell
well in each location
 Fulfilment- the aggregated orders from all stores, the total supply of inventory in the
Distribution Centre
 Design and manufacturing- the newest fashion trend, the preference of targeted customers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. In your opinion, what are the most important aspects of Zara’s approach to information
technology? Are these approaches applicable and appropriate anywhere? IF not, where
would they NOT work well?
The most important aspect of Zara’s approach to IT is writing the applications they needed
themselves rather than buying commercially available software. However, this approach was
3
not applicable and appropriate anywhere because it was unique for Zara’s operations. It may
not work well in IT-based companies such as Amazon, Google, etc.
5. What current or potential weaknesses (if any) do you see in Zara’s IT infrastructure and
IT strategy?

 As Zara is becoming bigger and bigger, the more and more obsolete DOS system and POS
terminal cannot fulfil its growing functional requirements, which may cause inconvenience and
inefficiency in the future.
 For example, POS terminals were not connected via any in-store network, so employees needed
to spend a lot of time copying daily sales totals from each terminal onto a floppy disk to
accomplish the transaction.
 The POS terminals and PDAs did not contain information that could be used when one store
wanted to know if a nearby one had a particular SKU in stock.
 There is also a risk as they rely on only one supplier for the POS hardware which is compatible
with DOS

MIS Case Study Zara IT For Fast Fashion MIS Case Study Zara IT For Fast Fashion

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

MIS Case Study Zara IT For Fast Fashion MIS Case Study Zara IT For Fast Fashion

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

MIS Case Study Zara IT For Fast Fashion MIS Case Study Zara IT For Fast Fashion

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

MIS Case Study

Zara IT for fast

Ayush Bansal 21PGP051

 Upgrade the POS terminals to a modern operating system:

Difference between Zara and other large clothing retailers

Weakness within this business model With the development of technology:

3. What information does Zara need to operate its business model?

You might also like