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Zara Swot

In: Business and Management

Submitted By houstontx
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Marketing Channel
A marketing channel is defined as an organizednetwork of participants and companies that work together and perform activities that will enable the smooth flow of a product or service from the producers to the consumers (Bennet, 1988). Marketing channel is related to logistics management or thelogistical arrangements for delivering value to the customer. More specifically,marketing channels deal with the issue of the arrangements the organization makes to physically deliver its products to the customer. A channel is a set ofintermediary companies, people or agents who manage the movement of products and services from the manufacturer to the final user. All firms which take title to the product, or assist in transferring title as it moves from manufacturer toconsumer form part of thedistribution channel. A marketing channel aims to provide acompetitive advantage to the organization. It is related to supply chain management as both are involved in supplying a service or a product to the end users. Both are involved inpartnerships that are developed between organizations performing adjacent, linear steps in the chain. The supply chain or the marketing channel is viewed as a whole rather than a set of fragmented parts in order that activities, the basic units of competitive advantage, can be configured, confined and performed in different ways torival chains (Bradley, 2003).
This paper will discuss the logistics, marketing channel and supply chain of an International clothing company – Zara. The company was chosen because of its unique and innovative distribution channel andsupply chain management.

Company Background
In 1963, Amancio Ortega started a small company in Spain that manufactured women’s pajamas and lingerie products for garment wholesalers. In 1975, after aGerman customer cancelled a sizable order, the firm opened its forts Zara

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