The fashion company of Zara is young and ambitious. They have an incredibly efficient supply chain management team which spews out fashion designs every two weeks, which includes everything from production quotes to estimates of fabric needed, from the overall cost of material to marketing, and in two weeks, this is a very impressive amount of time. Many companies have issues with broken communication between the marketing team and the supply chain management team simply because they have two very different goals in mind: marketing to look for the trends in the fashion world and the supply chain management team to actually produce these products. Every time a marketer changes their mind on a product, the supply chain management team must adjust accordingly and it is very hard to make the two see completely eye to eye, which is precisely why it takes on average 6 months for a product to, from becoming an idea, to the finished product.
Zara is a refreshing new company with a surprisingly efficient supply chain. How did Zara manage to keep their inter-function conflict to a minimum? And why is it so hard for other companies to follow? I think that Zara has an incredibly well-oiled machine where quantity is slightly valued over quality. They produce in mass production, but they do not dwell on any idea for too long and too heavily so as to not lose any profit. I think that Zara was bold enough to keep shooting out designs without really thinking about it too much. This risk was a bold one, but one that seems to work for Zara. Can other companies learn from this?
(Source: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2003/05/30/business/30ZARA.583.jpg)