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Zara: It for Fashion

In: Business and Management

Submitted By billyling93
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Cyn Y. Ling
Zara: IT for Fast Fashion 1. Being the head of IT for Inditex, a company formed as a parent company to Zara’s, Salgado plays a key role in deciding whether to upgrade Zara’s Point-of-Sale (POS) systems. a. As of the beginning of 2003, Zara has nearly 550 stores worldwide and therefore, shows just how important technologies should be integrated into its core business operations. Yes, the company should upgrade the POS terminals to a modern operating system to keep up with market demand to remain competitive with other major clothing retailers. Although the current POS terminals are stable, the operating system (DOS) running at the heart of the POS systems is outdated and no longer supported by Microsoft anymore. Upgrading the POS terminals to a modern operating system ensures Zara’s IT department in line with the current technology. b. The in-store networks enable the POS systems to be connected to the internet in real time to leverage the new shared inventory tracking capability. Therefore, the inventory control processes could be integrated with the Distribution Centers (DC) and thus, allowing Zara to exploit their expertise in supply chain management. c. The pros of employees having the ability to look up inventory balances in their own stores could reduce the potential of miscalculations of physical count of inventory. However, employees’ sales motivation might be affected variably depending on the inventory balances. It is more important for employees to try their best zeroing out the inventory regardless of its balances than focusing on selling items with higher count of inventory and neglecting the ones with low count of inventory. d. No, because this might promote unhealthy competition between the stores. Zara has excellent supply chain management in which deliveries are made in one or two days after orders are

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