Vertical Intergration Zara free essay sample

How is Zara organized with respect to its vertical integration and outsourcing decisions? What governance structure does it appear to follow? Support your conclusions with reference to details of the Zara and the Ferdows reading. Zara manufactures and distributes its products in small batches. Zara is vertically integrated as the company manages all design, warehousing, distribution and logistic functions. Zara outsources sewing of garments to an outside supplier. Zara controls the product it creates from inception to when it is sold to the final customer. Amancio Ortega, Zara’s founder is a strong believer that in order to be successful in the apparel industry retailing and manufacturing must be closely linked as consumer demand is difficult to forecast. Both Ortega and Castellano (Intidex CEO) both believe that Zara needs to be able to respond very quickly to the demands of target customers as their taste in clothes is hard to predict, difficult to influence and changes very rapidly. We will write a custom essay sample on Vertical Intergration Zara or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Zara’s vertical integration allows the company to constantly introduce new items into the marketplace with very short lead times. The company can design, produce and deliver a new garment and put it on display in its stores with a 15 day turnaround. No other competitor has this capability. While Zara introduces over 11,000 new items in a given year its competitors introduce a mere 2,000 to 4,000. Vertical integration allows Zara the leverage to be super responsive to the eclectic tastes of its customers. Zara does an outstanding job of matching demand to supply. Its sells only 15-20% of its clothes during clearance sales at an average discount of 15% compared to the industry average of 30-40% at a discount of 30%. Zara produces complicated products in house and outsources the simple ones. Men’s dress shirts for instance are outsourced because of the stable demand in these products. The dress shirts are outsourced to China with a four month lead time and to Turkey with a two month lead time. Zara purchases most of its undyed fabrics on the external market, although it owns a few textile fabrication facilities. It also outsources the sewing of the fabrics into garments to a network of small local workshops in Galicia and northern Portugal that guarantee quick turnaround times. Governance Structure: Ortega and Castellano both wanted to take advantage of the intelligence and trust the judgment of employees throughout the company rather than relying on a small set of decision makers. The company thus has a decentralized structure. Store managers are able to pick and choose what products will be sold at their stores. Products are designed and created by a team of â€Å"commercials† rather than a small elite team as many competitors have. These in turn are influenced by store product managers, who are the main interface between stores and the head office in La Coruna. They determine what kind of clothes sell well, what the trends are, and what would most likely sell. There are other â€Å"commercials† who decide what assortment of clothes to offer each store. Decisions are not reviewed by any higher level managers and there is a culture of autonomy. Zara believes that second guessing would make the company less responsive and would compromise its emphasis on decentralized decision making. How does Zara’s situation support, or not support, its supply chain strategy? Refer to specific details of Zara’s operations and concepts developed in Hayes et al (see session notes for a summary of Hayes). Zara’s supply chain strategy is to control the entire supply chain from product creation to selling the product to the final customer at the retail stores. Amancio Ortega believes that in order to be successful in this industry you need to have five fingers touching the factory and five fingers touching the customer. He knows that retailing and manufacturing have to be closely linked in the apparel industry due to the difficulties of trying to predict consumer demand. Zara is chic fashion meant to be worn ten times. Zara’s target customers are young, fashion conscious city dwellers, and their tastes in clothing change rapidly and are difficult to predict and extremely hard to influence. Other companies have tried pushing their products and setting trends through advertising, but this often resulted in â€Å"fashion misses†, while Zara, through its responsive supply chain strategy, is able to produce and deliver styles that capitalize on what the customers are looking for. Thus, Zara is able to accurately match supply to demand. Zara’s situation supports its supply chain strategy due to the nature of the apparel industry. Products in this industry tend to have very short life cycles and fashion trends are constantly changing. The nature of the industry demands a very responsive supply chain. To prove this point, we can see that in general, after a product is pushed by most retailers during a season, they need to hold clearance sales at the end of the season to sell through any remaining inventory that wasn’t purchased in order to make room for new products for the next season. Retailers typically sell 30-40% of their products during these sales at a discounted rate of 30%; Zara on the other hand only sells 15-20% of their products at a 15% discount. Also, because Zara is so immediate to matching demand to supply, it’s able to collect 85% of the full ticket price on its retail clothing, while the industry average is 60-70% According to Hayes et al, a key decision for a firm is which activities should be conducted in house and what should be outsourced to an outside supplier. Zara conducts key activities in house, such as designing products and selling them at the retail stores. However, it does do some outsourcing, but only when the situation calls for it. Zara is able to outsource production of certain items that have very stable demand and it is also able to outsource sewing activities to small local workshops that have a very quick turnaround. These decisions do not jeopardize Zara’s responsiveness. Is Zara organized properly with respect to vertical integration or outsourcing? What changes, if any would you recommend? State the reason for your recommendations. Zara is organized properly with respect to vertical integration and outsourcing. Vertical integration gives Zara the leverage against its competitors. Zara is able to create products on the fly, modify and change production midstream. Zara’s operations are organized in a way that capitalizes on having a responsive supply chain system in an industry that demands one. It understands that in the apparel industry you need to be as proactive as possible and very responsive to consumer demand because people’s tastes are constantly changing and it is difficult to predict what will sell. Zara’s retail concept depends on the regular creation and rapid replenishment of small batches of new goods. Through its responsive supply chain and quick communication, it is able to constantly offer new and changing assortments to customers and thus customize their assortments to capitalize on the current fashion trends. Its organization allows it to reap higher margins through better sales because Zara is better able to match supply to customer demand. We believe that Zara should not change its structure. It is organized exactly how it should be. It has a proven success rate. The only changes that should be considered are with regards to technology. A company of Zara’s caliber needs to more forward and take advantage of new IT capabilities available that would be in line with its overall strategy. By upgrading and standardizing its IT infrastructure Zara’s supply chain could potentially increase speed and decision making without compromising stability. Upgrading IT could facilitate returns, eliminated the need to carry floppy disks around to tally up sales from individual POS terminals, make it easier to do store transfers and submit inventory replenishment orders. Real time information would be available and inventory checks could be done through the system as apposed to having a store clerk do an inventory check by calling the other store. An internal intranet site would offer real time communication and feedback from its store managers to La Coruna and throughout the whole supply chain. An option for Zara could be to outsource their IT as Zara’s core competencies are not in IT. However, long term strategic agreements would have to be put in place between the parties. An updated IT infrastructure would add functionality and and would make Zara even more efficient and responsive. As a company that is growing and expanding its presence all over the world, Zara needs to ensure that its IT infrastructure is able to grow with it.

Singapore Road Traffic Control essays

Singapore Road Traffic Control essays SINGAPORES ROAD TRAFFIC CONTROL As vehicle numbers grow, cities around the world face serious road traffic congestion problems. On some major roads can be so bad that speeds are 10 km/h or lower, slower than a bicycle. The costs include lost work and leisure time, increased fuel consumption, air pollution, health problems, stress, and discomfort. Furthermore, congestion slows the movement of goods and services, adding to the price of products and reducing the competitiveness of business. This essay will examine three of the policies implemented by the government to control road traffic in Singapore. One obvious way to discourage private car usage in Singapore is to provide an efficient and convenient public transport system. Singapore invested, in the past decade, S$ 7.5 billion in its transportation sector, of which S$ 5.2 billion was on the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), rail and public transport, and S$ 2.3 billion was on roads. The extensive MRT network encourages commuters to utilize the rail rather than private cars. The network is spread across the island covering key constituencies and areas of interest. The current construction of North-East MRT Line will link the World Trade Centre with the new housing estates of Sengkang and Punggol. In addition, Singapore aims to have 75 per cent of all trips made by public transport (50 per cent now). For this reason, bus fares have been kept reasonable. The extensive setting up of feeder services assists the public in taking them from an MRT station to their destination. One can now travel not only cheaply but in comfort too. Another one of the policies that helps the government in controlling road traffic in Singapore, is the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP). Under this system, when a vehicle approaches ERP gantries, charges are deducted automatically from stored-value cards that are slotted into an in-vehicle unit. Being intelligent and more use-friendly, the ERP syste...

Analysis and critique Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Analysis and critique - Essay Example Launching of the commercial for Ford’s the new redesigned 2013 Mustang was the first time, that Ford promoted its muscle car since it launched the Mustang V6 in the year 2010. This paper is an analysis of the 2013 Ford Mustang Commercial. The commercial was created to work in tandem with Mustang Customizer’s success, as well as the downloadable app that allows all visitors to build or customize their own Mustang. This can be done by selecting colors, decals and accessories to complement an already impressive design. Mustang car owners are a unique market with independence thus like their cars to reflect the personalities that drive them. The Customizer site pays homage to this fact about Mustang owners. The Ford Mustang 2013 commercial was mainly aimed at Mustang owners and enthusiasts. Conventional advertising normally revolves around the product not the client, thus by highlighting how one can customize their Mustang, the target was surely the Mustang enthusiasts. Com panies will seek to tout the benefits and performance of a product, seek to sell their items, and expound on how the product will make life better. Mustang owners are very passionate where their cars are concerned and, rather than just show benefits and features, the new commercial aims at attracting Mustang enthusiasts to the fact that a car is an extension of them. The commercial aims at showing all Mustang enthusiasts that they all have an inner Mustang just waiting to be released. The video commercial for the Ford Mustang was quite successful in attracting enthusiasts to its customizer site. Since the fall, the customizer site, as well as its apps, has been getting very popular, getting more than four million creations of digital Mustangs created (Karotki 1). This has been coupled to a sixty-two percent increase in the Ford Mustangs’ social network community, especially facebook. Facebook has seen a jump from one million six hundred thousand fans to two million six hundre d thousand fans. The app’s downloads have shot to over two hundred thousand, with twenty-five percent of all Mustang digital customizations occurring through a mobile application. The results are a confirmation that the potential seen by Mustang, creating a social platform allowing owners of Mustang cars to have some fun with the Mustang brand, was further enhanced by the commercial. The social platform also allows them to interact with each other and share Mustang design tips. The advertisement has succeeded in directing its customers to the Mustang site, which was what it set out to do in the first place. The commercial, especially the constantly changing designs and delightful color schemes, have allowed owners to build the Mustang V6, Boss 302 and GT by simply choosing from decals, wheels, trims, and various colors (Karotki 1). The Mustang enthusiasts have been attracted to the customizer page battle, by showing the power of interaction as the car cruises down the streets , where they can compete against each other. While conventional marketing might have dictated that Mustang utilize its revenue on promoting the Mustang’s revised design, the V8 with four hundred and twenty horse power, or the company’s history, they did not do this. Instead, the company chose this commercial to tout Mustang’s personalization aspect by constantly changi

Effects of Increased Wait-Time on the Quantity of Correct Responses Essay

Effects of Increased Wait-Time on the Quantity of Correct Responses from Elementary ELL - Essay Example There has been an increase in the number of culturally and linguistically diverse students prompting education professionals to upgrade their skills and knowledge to ensure effective teaching in ELL classrooms. This has resulted in researchers and educational scholars seeking the appropriate wait-time teachers should give to ELL students. As such, ELL students pose a challenge to teachers because of their language-learning disability.The response that an ELL student gives to a question is determined by the level of his or her understanding of concepts and subject ideas, systematic ideas reflection, critical thinking, and content comprehension. However, effective learning for ELL learners does not solely contribute to a response given by ELL students. Wait time has a substantial positive effect on the response that an ELL student gives to a classroom question. Existing research classifies silence time in a classroom into eight categories including student-pause time, within-teacher pr esentation pause time, within-student’s response pause-time, post-teacher question time, student pause-time, post-student responsive wait time, teacher pause-time, student task-completion work-time and impact pause time. Despite the detailed wait-time classification, there has been no concrete conclusion regarding the specific wait-time required for elementary ELL students to respond to questions. ... elementary ELL students include long answers responses to questions by students, improved student participation through volunteering more answers that are appropriate, increase in the analysis and synthesis of the context which results to students giving evidence-inference responses that are more speculative (Cooper & Irizarry, 2013). Increased wait-time contributes to improved students’ self-confidence in responding to questions, increased rate of student asking questions regarding clarity as well as higher students’ achievement. Simply by increasing wait time, especially to students who have to translate the question into their mother tongue and then critically evaluate the questions to give a response, teachers may influence the quantity of correct responses to questions (Cooper & Irizarry, 2013). According to Mohr and Mohr (2007), a teacher should allow sufficient wait time to support ELL students to switch from hearing in a foreign language into reasoning and think ing in their first language, and then giving the response to the question. Additionally, increased wait time has proved to enhance the cognitive techniques applied by a student to give responses (Bluck & Gilbertson, 2006). Relationship between Increased Wait-Time and Critical Thinking Several studies such as those conducted by Beyondpenguins.ehe.osu.edu (2013) and FEAweb (2003) indicate that teacher’s wait time is often associated with the thoughtfulness and comprehension of a student’s answer to classroom questions. Notably, teachers do not give sufficient time for students to internalize, think critically, and seek comprehensive knowledge to respond to classroom questions. Teachers who give elementary ELL students a few seconds to respond to classroom questions evoke student recall on a subject

Johnny Lingo Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Johnny Lingo - Essay Example Same is the case with Mahana when she is living with her father where her worth is not realized. However it is seen that once a person develops self love he/she can progress and bring a change in this world. And the same happens in the case of Mahana as she is able to become a beautiful lady after she realizes her self worth. Not only this, the story also tells the viewers that every individual can create a difference in another individual’s life and this difference can bring a huge impact on his life. The story tells that Mahana is an ugly lady in her own house because she cannot develop a personality of her own as she is not able to develop self love. She has always been degraded and disgraced in her house by her father and because of this she cannot create an identity of her own. However Johnny Lingo creates this self love for Mahana as he makes her realize that her worth in this world is more than eight cows. And later on it is seen that Mahana turns out to be a lady who i s very beautiful. Thus in conclusion it can be said that the personality of an individual is developed only because he/she is able to realize his/her importance in the world as was in the case of Mahana. Self love can be described as the love for one’s own self. It can tell the individual how much he is worth in his own eyes and this usually is developed by the surroundings of an individual. Self love is a very important aspect of life as it tends to curb the personality of an individual and have great impact on him. It can make the individual respect or disgrace himself and thus can lead to either successes or failures in life. In order to create self love for an individual I personally can help him in several ways. The foremost way of growing self love in my eyes is to make the person realize his worth. I can do this by telling him that he/she is the most wonderful person I have ever met in this world. Moreover by

Reviews Related To Readmission To The Hospital Nursing Essay

Reviews Related To Readmission To The Hospital Nursing Essay This chapter deals with the related literature review which aids to generate a picture of what is known and not known about a particular situation. Geri LoBiondo-Wood et al (2011), stated that Review of literature is an organized critique of important scholarly literature which supports a study and a key step in research process. Jahn P et al (2010) conducted a cluster randomized multicenter trial among 24 patient who were diagnosed with malignancy and having pain more than 3 days in California. A trans institutional multi modular nursing intervention protocol was administered to the patients. The study result revealed that the patients who received multi modular structured intervention had less patient related barrier and a better self management for cancer pain. Bonnema (2009) conducted a cohort study to assess the impact of different adherence levels to the Enhanced Recovery after Surgery Protocol (ERAS) and the effect of various enhanced recovery after surgery elements on outcomes following major surgery in France. 953 patients with colorectal cancer were selected. It was found that following an increase in preoperative, perioperative adherence to the ERAS protocol both postoperative complication (

Affirmative Action is Reverse Discrimination Essay -- Argumentative Pe

Affirmative Action is Reverse Discrimination    When the Civil Rights Bill was being debated on the floor of the Senate, Barry Goldwater predicted that this particular bill might be abused. Herbert Humphrey, however, stated that he would eat every page of the bill if ever it were used to justify discrimination against anybody on account of race or sex. The bill eventually passed and became the Civil Rights Act. From college admissions to government contracts, the Civil Rights Act has been grossly abused by giving race and gender primary consideration in admissions and hiring, resulting in blatant reverse discrimination. Paul Craig Roberts and Larry Stratton, co-author of The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privileges Destroy Democracy, document the silent change of the 1964 Civil Rights Act from a statute forbidding preferences based on race and gender into a weapon to coerce employers to adopt and implement quotas. This change is not so silent today. Roberts and Stratton show that, "quotas are based on an intentional misreading of Title VII and are strictly illegal under the 1964 Civil Rights Act." An explicit example of this intentional misreading, or abuse, of the Civil Rights Act is when a person is fired to fulfill a quota. On August 8, the Federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. The court ruled that the Piscataway, N.J. Board of Education violated the Civil Rights Act when it fired Sharon Taxman, an "overrepresented" Jewish female school teacher, to make room for a black woman under the school system's affirmative action plan. The school district was ordered by the court to pay $144,000 in back pay. The judges' decision was based on their own investigation into the legislative history of Title VII ... ...they are black? There is no question that racism did exist in our society and still does today, but the solution is not reversing the discrimination. It is hard to imagine that segregation of our schools was still legal in California as late as 1974, it is even harder to imagine that university admissions are still based on race in 1996. The solution to preferences in hiring and college admissions should be stricter penalties to those who discriminate based on race or gender. Also, it is a little late in the game to squeeze unqualified students into graduate school. We should be working with these students in grade school. Our universities and our government will unlikely look at any logical solutions because of their reputation of putting bandaids on social problems. There is no doubt, if Herbert Humphrey were here today, he would be eating a lot of paper.