In order to decide whether Zara should shift its IT from DOS to an OS which is supported by Microsoft
the new IS must meet the company’s core value and competencies, only in that way, information could
generate growth. The pros and cos of DOS over new OS are discussed as below:
ADVANTAGES: User friendly-The DOS based POS are developed in-house, easy to install, operate,
sustain and customize.
Meets company’s Requirement-Serves the need of IT requirement for Zara, since it outsources
all other operations like sewing and hence DC required simple IT software’s to run the shipments.
Cost Effective-Not having a separate department for IT saved a lot in terms of human resource
and infrastructure. Zara spends only 0.5% of revenue on IT.
Reliability-DOS based OS has proved to be very stable, effective and easy to maintain.
PDA’s were upgraded and not DOS- Since Zara did not do fashion forecast and relied on the
commercial groups to do the designing it didn’t need customer’s feedback data hence there was
no need to change the existing OS.
DISADVANTAGES: Obsolete– DOS might had been a great OS but now it’s outdated/unsupported.
Incompatibility– The outdated DOS based OS wouldn’t be compatible with either the hardware
or software available in the current business market.
Couldn’t sustain Growth-Now that Zara is expanding it needs an OS that is supported globally.
Security– Since DOS is outdated, it probably won’t be receiving any support from the hardware
vendor of POS either since there is no written commitment and this puts the sales, designs and
other sensitive data at risk.
Unproductive flow of information- There is no real time information sharing between the head
office and stores of sku’s, and sales at the store, theoretical inventory is done and an error of 5%
is allowed but when this 5% error gets deducted from the total sale it will have a huge impact, the
value of which would be more than the budget of marketing and IT put together.
Redundancy- In absence of a standardized process orders get replicated since several IS are
used.
time integrated value chain system.