assignments

CASE DISCUSSION

WEEK 1

1. The case examined the differences between Zara and rival “The Gap”. Once you have read through the case in Chapter 1 and respond to the following questions:

Discuss how of Zara has been able to create a sustainable competitive advantage:

To create a long-term superior position over competitors requires a tougher work, first of all the seller has to Understand the market and its segments, understand what the customer wants and establish the value proposition compared to what the competition is offering (Gallaugher, 2012).

By understanding the above, Zara was called the most innovative and devastating retailer in the world; by the fashion director of LVMH.

Below are the key points that defines the sustainable competitive advantage of Zara:

· Zara’s clothes look like high fashion but are comparatively inexpensive 

· Twice a week latest clothing lines for women, men, and children are delivered to Zara location

· It takes Zara, 15 days to create and public the new style while it takes from 3 to 9 months to create and public for others brands like H&M.

· Zara never guess what the customer wants, rather they already established a system to collect information from the clients on what they want, rather than think on behalf of the customers.

· Zara leverage on technology to speed up the complex tasks and reduce the errors

· The fashion team at Zara is composed of mostly new young designers fresh from school; hence their humbleness allows the team to accept feedback from each other, hence aim to achieve higher as a team.

· Zara’s products are produced in-house, yet other brands like with an eye on leveraging technology in those areas that speed up complex tasks, lower cycle time, and reduce error. 

2. Identify and discuss the role that technology and information systems play in creating and maintaining Zara’s competitive advantage

Technology had a huge impact in creating a competitive advantage of Zara Brand:

Zara store managers have personal digital assistants (PDAs): this device help to collect information from customers, by asking feedback on what they bought or what they wish to have at the store. Hence with this information, the production will be done according to the gathered information from customers.

At Zara Also they have point-of-sale (POS) system which captures all the customers purchases, with this, managers will know the type of items most desired hence decision on what to produce is based on the data retrieved from both mentioned systems (Peskett, 2018).

3. Discuss where Zara has succeeded where others such as Gap have failed… consider what role, if any information systems paly in this success.

Zara managed to succeed in different aspects where other brands have failed namely in;

Design; other brands push new lines through catwalk fashion shows, however Zara design according to customers feedback; hence making Zara the biggest brand than Gap.

Manufacturing and Logistics; months it takes to get plans to contract manufacturers, tool up production, then ship items to warehouses and eventually to retail locations which takes between 3 to 9 months depending on brands, however on the side Zara that is where it excels, where only the process takes 15 days.

Stores: Zara stores have products depending on the local demand, which is not the case for other brands, where a new style is shared to all stores yet the locations preferences are not the same.

4. Discuss how Zara creates and maintains a relationship with their customers. Consider the role that technology plays in facilitating the relationship with the customer. Discuss how other firms in other product groups or industries might use these same techniques to develop deeper relationships with their customers.

When a customer is happy, definitely he/she will advertise for you. What Zara does is to try their best and get feedbacks from their customers about their products and know what would be their desired products (Suleman, 2019).

With the help of point-of-sale (POS) system and personal digital assistants (PDAs), store managers can easily track the customers preferences, hence fill the store accordingly. This shows also how much technology has brought close the customer to the seller; where feedback is given anyway and any time.

The use of technology has many advantages for a business; namely:

· It eases communication with the customers

· It improves efficiency in operations, conducting emails, surveillance, ease in getting reports, etc.

· Technology helps to keep data more secure that physical/ hard data

· It eases analysis and collection of data because collecting or analyzing data manually can be subject to many errors and can be cumbersome.

References:

· Professor John Gallaugher (2012). Information Systems: A Manager's Guide to Harnessing Technology. Chapter 3 “Fast Fashion from Savvy Systems”. Retrieved from: https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_information-systems-a-managers-guide-to-harnessing-technology-v2.0/s07-zara-fast-fashion-from-savvy-s.html

· Farhan Suleman (2019). 10 Reasons that Demonstrate the Importance of Technology in Business. Retrieved from https://readwrite.com/2019/08/16/10-reasons-that-demonstrate-the-importance-of-technology-in-business/

· Marc Peskett. (Nov. 2018). Smart Company. Five steps to get a sustainable competitive advantage. Retrieved from; https://www.smartcompany.com.au/business-advice/strategy/five-steps-to-get-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage/

2