"Since most garments come in five to six colors and five to seven sizes, Zara's system has to deal with something in the realm of 300,000 new stock-keeping units (SKUs), on average, every year. This "fast fashion" system depends on a constant exchange of information throughout every part of Zara's supply chain...."
So it seems that for the moment I am completely caught up in the topic of Zara. Even after we finished our case study, I am still researching the company and its IT system. The sheer numbers of Zara's production are astounding, as is shown in the above quote. Three hundred thousand is a ridiculous amount of new items to keep track of. So how do they do it? By walking around the stores and looking to see what they have or need. To me this still seems completely inadequate, no matter how successful they are.
When my group and I presented the Zara case, we made a very strong plea for Zara to upgrade, based mostly on the lack of communication and on Zara's so called "theoretical inventory". I want to make sure that everyone knows we did not want to change Zara's company culture. It's what has made them so successful. All we want to change is the underlying IT structure. We want stores to be able to communicate with each other about stock amounts and customer demand and anything else that might be necessary! We want to increase communication while making it easier for store managers, product managers at La Caruna, and everyone else in the supply chain to keep track of what they have, what is selling, what people want, what is left in stock, etc. Right now they can't do that and it's affecting customer service. While they are definitely not a store that relies on their customer service for their success, it's still not something to be ignored. Even if the knee-jerk reaction of consumers when asked "Can I help you with anything?" is "No, I'm just looking", it's still good to know that if you do need something, they are there to help and are actually capable of doing just that.
Basically I would like to add "lack of customer service" and "lost potential sales" to my list of reasons to upgrade IT. It is not to change the company or the culture. It is simply to make them more efficient and to recover some of the unknowable lost sales.
It seems to me like more organized is always better than less organized, and this new tech would accomplished more organized. I don't understand why being technological on the back end has to affect how customers see the company on the front end. They can keep their care-free culture in the store for those who like it that way, but they could also gain new customers (like Erika) who want and expect the employees of a business to have some information on the store in which they work
ReplyDelete