Abstract
Founded by Armancio Ortega, the first Zara shop was opened in downtown Coruna in Spain in 1975. With this brand, he wanted to create stylish clothing inspired by the great fashion houses but at affordable prices. The brand proved to very successful and led to the creation of the company Inditex to run it. The Zara subsidiary of the Inditex Group represents 66% of its activity. In 1988, Zara extended its operations aboard and opened its first non-Spanish store in Oporto, Portugal. In 1990, the brand crossed the borders into France. Today, there has over 1,450 Zara shops worldwide and the brand is present in 77 countries.
Currently, Inditex is the head of several brands (Bershka, Pull and Bear, Massimo Dutti, Stradivarius, Oysho, Utoquai) operating on the same principle: fashion for all. In 2009, the brand recorded sales worth 7,077 million euros worldwide, with France accounting for 605 million euros; this country remains the second largest market of the Spanish brand. Regarding the Inditex group, it has 4,607 stores worldwide and operates in 74 countries. It employs over 92,000 people. In 2009, its sales were estimated at 11,084 million euros, an increase of 8% from a year earlier and net income was 1,314 million euros. Last year, 68% of its sales were generated from outside Spain.
The Inditex fashion philosophy is "creativity and quality design together with a rapid response to market demands". Despite these positive results, some concerns are beginning to appear, hence the following problem: How can one resist competition in the textile sector in a context of globalization? In the first part, we will conduct the internal analysis along with the external analysis of Zara.
