Zara: Information Technology For Fast Fashion :: Problem, Solution, Case Study

Problem Statement In 2003, Zaras CIO essential decide whether to invoke the retailers IT infrastructure and capabilities. At the time of the case, the lodge relies on an out-of-date operating arrangement for its store terminals and has no regular network in place across stores. Despite these limitations, however, Zaras parent company, Inditex, has make an extraordinarily well-performing value drawstring that is by far the most antiphonary in the industry. Therefore the major problem to the company is to decide whether it has to upgrade the present system and by doing so, risking the reliability they have with the current system or to go forward with the present DOS based system which volition not be compatible for future compounds or improvements. Analysis & testimony Zaras chief(prenominal) strategy is the ability to respond very right away to the demands of target customers which called for identifying trends of the customer in advance. The company has been able to id entify the trends and go steady the demand with the help of its autonomously organized structure and its effective value chain systems. The present system followed by Zara has been very effective and very effortless to maintain, which as a result has persuaded the company to continue without any change in the present system so far. The problem that Zara faces right straight off is that the system that they use, P-O-S (Point of Sale terminals), runs on DOS which Microsoft does not support anymore and any ironware change in the POS terminal will not be compatible with the current POS software. Although the sense of urgency for the change whitethorn not be that high, investing in IT infrastructure is a must as MS Dos is an obsolete technology and there is no contract or guarantee from their POS terminal vendor that they will continue supplying the same terminal with out much changes in the hardware for any specific period of time, therefore change is unavoidable. The other main i ssue that Zara faces is that the stores dont share inventory information electronically and hence inventory management becomes highly difficult and manual. The decision make process is based on the judgment of employees throughout the company quite of relying on a small set of decision makers the majority of the decisions were do by store managers and as a result they placed orders for the items alternatively than simply accepting and displaying what headquarters decided to send them.