Zara parent company Inditex names new chairperson and CEO

While most clothing retailers manufacture and offer to the public for sale 2,000 to 4,000 different articles of clothing, Zara’s production has been markedly higher, at over 10,000 pieces produced per year. This unique feature of the company’s strategy has allowed Zara to appeal to a broader number of customers with unique tastes. Inditex’s fast-fashion approach brought clothes from design to shop in weeks. In-house Inditex designers reproduced the most promising fashion show concepts.

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He also built an equestrian center near La Coruna, as his daughter Marta competes in show jumping, according to Bloomberg. At one point, Ortega owned the Pazo de Dodro farm and estate near La Coruna. The estate was the site of his daughter Marta’s first wedding, Spanish news site El Mundo reported. In August 2013, Ortega’s ex-wife, who had become Spain’s richest woman, died at age 69.

1. The Inditex CEO told Newsweek, “Our structure offers us a competitive advantage” (September 17, 2001).
2. The jury is still out on whether hiring designers from high-fashion will drive retail results.
3. Ortega kept jobs in Spain and showed that speed, flexibility, and low inventories could be just as important in keeping expenses down.
4. He saw his mother pleading for a credit one evening as they walked home together, but the store owner wouldn’t extend her line, so she left the store empty-handed.
5. He stepped back from company operations in 2011, but his family is still heavily involved with Inditex.
6. “I would like to thank the board, and especially Amancio Ortega, for the support and trust placed in me during all these years,” Isla said.

Amancio Ortega, the richest person in Spain and one of the richest persons in the world, is the founding chair of retail behemoth Inditex, the parent company of Zara, the largest worldwide fashion store. As one of the early and most successful forerunners of fast fashion – a retail concept centered on the quick creation and distribution of affordable versions of designs directly lifted from pop culture icons or fashion runways – Ortega developed a retail empire. Ortega was the 25th richest person in the world as of April 12, 2022, with a net worth of $46.9 billion. H&M, Zara, and Uniqlo are three international clothing retailers with over 2,000 stores each worldwide. The competitive companies target similar markets but employ different strategies in their business models to manage the distribution of product lines. Ortega owns 59% of Inditex, which is now the world’s largest clothing retailer, according to Bloomberg.

The Ortega Business Model

1. By the early 80s, Zara had expanded to several cities in Spain and in 1988, following the formation of Inditex, Ortega opened his first store in Portugal, followed swiftly by New York and Paris.
2. The turnover of products within the store is very high, with an average article of clothing remaining on the shelf for only a month.
3. Zara’s premium product line is both wider and more affordable than that of H&M, but H&M’s affordable lines are lower-priced than Zara’s.
4. After exiting his A-Cold-Wall brand last year, the Virgil Abloh protégé is the latest designer to ink a deal with the Spanish fast fashion giant, widening access to his new SR_A menswear vision.
5. The Inditex model replaced one that required complicated global networks and nine months to get garments from design to retail.

Over the next 14 years, he was promoted to assistant manager and shop manager, gaining direct experience not only in dealing with customers but also in purchasing fabrics and other supplies to manufacture apparel. The new organisational structure incorporates a management committee, made up of executives from different corporate and business areas and with a long track record in the group. Ortega Pérez has worked in different areas of the Inditex group for 15 years and is credited with leading the strengthening of Zara’s brand image and fashion proposition, an area she will continue to oversee. García Maceiras joined Inditex in March 2021 as general secretary and secretary of the board. Inditex reports third-quarter results that are expected to show steady growth at its biggest brand, which has built strong defenses against rivals at the top and bottom of the market.

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Together, they manage 21 stores, providing a premium fashion experience in the country. Globally known for affordable fashion, however in India Zara is considered a high-end brand, as it offers more expensive products compared to local brands. The adapted strategy owner of zara brand from The Gap that Uniqlo employs is to position its brand as private-label apparel; the company creates its own clothing, and Uniqlo only sells it within the confines of its brick-and-mortar stores and on its website. The designs that Uniqlo creates tend to be more simplistic and practical than those sold by Zara and H&M, and they appeal to a different audience as a result.

The group began adding to its retail portfolio with Pull & Bear in 1991 and by 2000, it was distributing more than five different clothing chains in over 30 different markets. Ortega’s commercial endeavors led to Inditex, the holding company he formed in 1985 to represent Zara and other smaller retailers. Zara and other Inditex chains have locations in Italy, the UK, the US, Latin America, Japan, and Kuwait.

Highlights included the 1999 acquisition of Stradivarius (a youth fashion chain), the 2001 launch of Oysho (lingerie), and the 2003 launch of Zara Home (home furnishings)—the company’s first business line outside of the apparel industry. Zara is an Inditex-owned retailer headquartered in Arteixo, Spain and is one of the largest international fashion companies globally. The Spanish apparel mogul pioneered the ‘fast fashion’ business model at vertically-integrated goliath Zara. Inditex pledged for all of its head offices to acquire green building certifications and for all of its stores to be more ecologically efficient, utilizing 80% renewable energy.

After that first brainstorm, Ortega never veered from the two core principles—customer preference and speed—that enabled him to build Inditex. H&M, like many commercial clothing retailers, outsources the manufacture of its designs to countries such as Cambodia and Bangladesh where labor is cheap. H&M does not directly own any factories and instead partners with over 574 suppliers worldwide, most of which are located in Europe and Asia. Within the first decade, Zara expanded to major cities in Spain, and by 1985, it began its international expansion, entering markets in Portugal, the U.S., France, Mexico, and several European countries. Today, Zara has stores in nearly every developed country, with its place as Inditex’s flagship brand and a leader in the fashion industry.

The turnover of products within the store is very high, with an average article of clothing remaining on the shelf for only a month. Uniqlo responds to changing trends in Japanese fashion and specifically caters its designs to mimic the minimalistic style that is popular in Japan. This affects the appeal that Uniqlo may have for western distribution channels, and may be the determining reason behind its low number of store locations in the U.S. Uniqlo’s distribution channels are concentrated in its country of origin; 798 Uniqlo store locations are in Japan.

As of now, 2,220 of the company’s locations can be found in 88 different nations. Using a very flexible supply chain, Zara has always been ahead of the curve in fast fashion. Our innovative business approach revolves around our customers and encompasses product development, manufacturing, distribution, and retail sales. Amancio Ortega is the founding chair of retail giant Inditex, the parent company of Zara, the largest global fashion retailer. He is the wealthiest person in Spain and among the wealthiest people in the world. Ortega built his retail empire as a pioneer of fast fashion—a retail concept based on the rapid production and distribution of inexpensive versions of designs copied from fashion runways or pop culture icons.