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Use the Concepts Described in the Course to Analyze What Sort of Innovation This Is and How It Compares to Competing Products or Processes

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Submitted By Ameliezhangli
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In 1975, appeal giant Inditex set up the first Zara store in La Coruna, in Northwest Spain. By 2006, Zara had owned 723 stores which hold a selling area of 821,100 square meters around the world. With sales of 3.7 billion dollars in the business year 2005, Zara had developed into Spain’s the most famous fashion brand and the leading brand of Inditex (Kumar, 2006). Zara is one of the most outstanding apparel retail businesses in the world today. Although it is not the biggest, its marginal profits and rates of growth are leading the industry. The purpose of this essay is to analyze what sort of innovation Zara used on its way to success and make comparisons of competing products or processes with its competitors. By analyzing and comparing, it is obvious that the company's success depends on conducting a series of innovations at each one of the parts in the business: fashion-forward design, unique branding strategies, in-house production processes and centralized distribution system. Basically, this essay has been divided into four parts: the first part focus on describing how Zara makes its designs more innovative compare with other appeal retailers. Then, what sort of innovation used in their branding strategies will be discussed. Next, it will consider Zara’s innovation of production process and show an apparent difference of this process among Zara, H&M and the Gap. Finally, it will look at how Zara promotes innovation on their distribution process in to become more fast. It is those innovations that set challenges for rivals since Zara’s business model is extremely difficult to imitate or equal and also it is this realization that makes Zara get reliable and sustainable competitiveness.
According to Ghemawat (2006), a particular distinction in Zara manufacture is the most fashion-forward products compared with its key competitors. When customers enter Zara

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