Case Study: Zara’s Disruptive Vision: Data-Driven Fast-Fas
hion
Nowadays, Zara is standing out in the apparel industry. Zara manages their
role of resources, capability, and competencies effectively and efficiently. Moreov
er, by integrating cost leadership and differentiation strategy, Zara became a succ
essful company. On the other hand, Gap, a possible competitor company for Zara,
faces some challenges in terms of their vision, mission, and speed when they try t
o recreate their resources, capability, and competencies. In this essay, the busine
ss structure of Zara will focus on the features above. In addition, this writing expl
ains the challenges in which Gap might face during their business recreation.
Zara’s role of resources, capabilities, and core competencies best explains
the company’s success. Zara’s well thought out system of manufacturing (employ
ing 20,000 people in 23 factories in La Coruña for an efficient system in product d
esign), logistics operations (orders reaching worldwide in 1-2 days), and retail sit
es (investing in prime locations) present how the company makes sure to maximi
ze their profit while ensuring the consumers that get what they desire. For capabi
lities, Zara is above others for their design (swift production of popular trends), sc
enery and scarcity (limited amounts of each product), and promotion (reliance on
the word-of mouth). In addition to Zara satisfactorily incorporating its resources i
nto its capabilities, this fashion business is successful in creating meaningful cor
e competencies. As Zara excels in speed to welcome the latest trends, it can be fl
exible to overcome its problems such as when its items do not sell as planned. In
those cases, Zara can “dye collections in new colors, and … create a new fashion
line in days.” This is hard to copy by others, thus differentiating the company from
