Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words - 3

Leadership - Essay Example ert Dudley, the Managing Director of BP PLC, in regaining the confidence of the major stakeholders of his company after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill incident. This essay also argues the necessity for leaders to assess their own meaning of crisis leadership and their appropriate role in mitigating or solving crisis situations. Human-made catastrophes severely challenge leadership capacity. On April 20, 2010, one of the worst human-made disasters was recorded in history, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. A massive oil slick spreading at the previous rig spot was observed in April 22. The oil slick may turn out to be the nation’s most disastrous environmental catastrophe in decades. The discharge from the ocean floor was discovered to be remarkably larger than originally reported, adding to the rising belief among numerous Louisianans that the government was once again unsuccessful, just like its failure during Hurricane Katrina. The rapidly spreading oil slick is threatening the rich flora and fauna along the Gulf Coast. A vast number of species of birds, fish, and other marine life are in danger of extinction. Because of this unprecedented environmental disaster BP Plc Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward is greatly criticised. The cleanup mission was then assigned to Robert Dudley as the Managing Director of BP PLC. However, Dudley is not only confronting the tremendous difficulty of cleaning up the oil slick but also the challenge of regaining the trust and confidence of major stakeholders in the United States. This tragic incident diverted worldwide interest to the leadership challenges confronted by the people involved in the massive oil spill. This recent threat has generated a need for leaders, such as Robert Dudley, to broaden their understanding and knowledge, and cultivate new abilities. Dudley would certainly discover that the conventional diploma and certificate trainings usually do not respond to these complex leadership challenges. The news media

Racism in America Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Racism in America - Research Paper Example The history of racism faced by the African American population in America is interconnected with colonization of Africa by different European nations and slave trade from the African mainland to the different parts of America. In the initial stages, the African Americans served the European settlers in America as ‘sharecroppers’. Later, some of them were allowed to own property. Besides, most of the African Americans served in vast agricultural lands in America. So, the low social status of the African Americans in the earlier days limited them from entering the public domain of the American society. Later, the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 helped the African Americans to gain political rights in the American society. Till 1865, slavery prevailed in America. For instance, the 13th Amendment, which was against slavery in America, helped the African Americans to extend their struggle for equality in the mainstream society. The Emancipation Proclamation helped the African American slaves to be free but it did not help them to gain equal status in the society. Martin (2009), makes clear that â€Å"During the early 1950s, the movement –at first led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People- forced an end to segregation on trains and interstate buses by successfully appealing several federal lawsuits to the U.S. Supreme Court† (419). The Civil Right Movement was another innovative step taken by the African Americans to gain equality in the mainstream society. ... Martin (2009), makes clear that â€Å"During the early 1950s, the movement –at first led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People- forced an end to segregation on trains and interstate buses by successfully appealing several federal lawsuits to the U.S. Supreme Court† (419). The Civil Right Movement was another innovative step taken by the African Americans to gain equality in the mainstream society. Nenty (2008), states that â€Å"The Civil Right Act of 1964 achieved a substantial number of rights for African Americans since the 19th century’s Reconstruction† (68). One can see that racism and discrimination based on skin color still prevail in the American society. This eventually drags the African American community to educational disparities and criminal acts. For instance, the origin and growth of groups like Ku Klux Klan put forth racial supremacy and eventually led to large scale violence against the members of African Americ an community. So, the African American population was forced to face racial riots, discrimination and segregation. This hindered the economic development of the African American population in America. B. Hispanic Americans The racial problem faced by the Latin Americans (generally known as Hispanic Americans) is interconnected with the history of Mexico. To be specific, the Mexican-American War led to the annexation of some of the areas of Mexico by the American forces and this eventually led the Mexicans to face racism and discrimination. Later, the after effects of the Great Depression forced the Mexicans to return to their native place (say, Mexico). This did not solve the problem of discrimination

Inditexs Zara: An Analysis

Inditexs Zara: An Analysis The overall focus of this dissertation will be the Spanish organization Inditex, in particular its clothing brand Zara. More specifically it will concentrate on Inditexs past and current performance and its unique business model. In order to effectively write this dissertation it will be split into five sections. In the second section a brief overview of the company, operational and financial performance will be described as it is vital to establish an understanding of Inditexs background before commencing on further analysis. The third section will provide an industry analysis in relation the organisations business environment which will include a PEST analysis and Porters Five Forces model analysis. This will allows for an understanding of Inditexs external business environment which can then be used to analyze the marketing strategy (PEST) and an understanding of the industry in which Inditex is located (Porter). The next section involves an evalutation of Inditexs business strate gy through all stages of business process; design, manufacturing, distribution and marketing stages. The fifth section consists of the business model analysis and a SWOT analysis of Inditex. The business analysis explains why Inditex use a vertical integration model and the SWOT analysis allows for clear evaluation of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the organization. The final section offers a series of recommendations that I will put forward based on my research and analysis carried out in the preceding sections. The company overview 2.1 The company profile Inditex ( Industria de Diseno Textil) is a global fashion retailer and has expanded rapidly to become one of the largest fashion retailers in the whole world. The company designed, manufactured and retail apparel, footwear and accessories for women, men and children through its seven apparel retail chains: Zara, Bershka, Stradivarius, Massimo Dutti, Oysho, Pull and Bear, Skhuaban. Each of these brands targets varied market segments in terms of age and disposable income. The group owns more than a hundred companies involved in different textile, manufacturer, infrastructure and distribution businesses. At the end of the 2009, the group operated 4607 stores around the world. At the beginning, Inditexs operations were mainly focused on its domestic market in Spain with the first Zara shop was opened in 1975. Following on the company has expanded internationally quite quickly within clothing sector. History of Inditex In 1963, Amancio Ortega Gaona, Inditexs founder, founded confecciones Goa to manufacture products such as housecoats. As the demand increased, the company integrated forward into retailing, then the first Zara store was opened in 1975. Zara stores expanded quickly within Spain market. In 1985, Inditex was founded as the holding company of the group of businesses operating at the time. In 1988, Zara opened its first store outside of Spain and began to expand internationally. In 1991 , Pull Bear was founded, and Inditex bought 65% of the Massimo Dutti Group in 1991. Shortly afterwards, Inditex acquired 100% of Massimo Dutti Group and launched its first shop in 1995. Inditex launched the Bershka chain and then acquired Stradivarius respectively in 1998 and 1999. Soon after, the group launched Oysho chain in 2001 and Zara home in 2003. Zara home was introduced as Inditexs first online store in 2007. Exhibit 1 Timeline of Inditex Picture 1.png 2.3 Products Mix Over past few decades, Inditex has built its own multi-brand portfolio, which has allowed Inditex to target various market segments more effectively. The group uses a multi-brand name strategy to diversify their seven endorsed brands and one extended brand. Zara is the flagship brand of Inditex . Although Pull and Bear and Massimo Dutti are both fashion brands for women and men, their target market is different. The former brand targets a younger group with more leisure and sports based design, while the latter one targets men and women from 24 to 45 providing a higher quality. Bersha and Stradivarius provide elegant and latest fashion for only young woman. Exhibit 2 Inditexs brand portfolio 2.4 Financial Performance and comparison Exhibit 4 Total revenue Exhibit 5 Net profit margin Operating profit margin and return on capital employed  ¼Ã‹â€ ROCE ¼Ã¢â‚¬ ° are two indicators used to evaluate profitability of the firm. The comparison of net profit margins between Inditex and its main competitors over the same period is another indicator to show how effective a company is at cost control and profitability. Net profit margins are calculated from the Net profit divided by net revenues. The net profit margin is a good measure to compare companies in the same industry due to similar business environment all companies confronted. The higher the net profit margin is, the more profitable the company is. To put it in another way, the more effective the company is at converting sales into profit . According to exhibit 4, we can see that HM have strong capacity to consistently convert around 22% of its total revenue into profit; Inditexs net profit margin is similar. However, when compared with Inditex and HM, GAP has lowest net profit margin. Exhibit 6 Return on capital employed Exhibit 6, above, demonstrates return on capital employed (ROCE) demonstrating how much profit a company can earn from the investments of its shareholders have made in their company. It basically is used to show how much a company is gaining from its capital. In figure 6, GAP underperforms in this measure, not just due to low profit levels, but also because of huge amount of capital in order to generate profit. However, GAPs return on capital employed ratio is increasing gradually. On the other hand, Inditex requires higher capital per unit of profit than HM. there has been a decline in its ROCE ratio since 2007. HM vastly outperforms all other firms. Inditex invests more than HM in fixed assets dues to its vertical integration. Inditex has 5371 million euro in assets, plants and equipment ¼Ã‹â€ Inditex Annual Report, 2009 ¼Ã¢â‚¬ °, while HM only has 661 million euro. This is the main reason that HM has much more higher ROCE ratio than Inditex. Inditexs business model focuses mai nly on vertical integration and in-house production. While at the same time outsourcing is becoming a popular trend in clothing industry. Inditexs closest comparable competitors had narrower vertical scope than Inditex but outsourced all productions. In todays competitive business environment, more and more companies choose to send out non-core operations or their manufacturing sections to a supplier in order to reduce the cost by specializing and making the firm focus purely on its core operation. This is due to the low labor cost in some developing countries such as China and Vietnam. On the other hand, there are some companies that constantly try to gain control over as many sections as possible within entire value chain, usually by in-house production. 3. Industry Analysis The culture of fashion has been changed from haute couture and ready-to-wear to fast fashion. Generally, fast fashion retailers do not heavily invest in the creation of fashion trend and designs, but instead are inspired by the most attractive and promising trends spotted at fashion shows and by cues taken from mainstream consumers (Agins, 1999; Reinach,2005). They are able to keep up with these new fashion trends and add them into their products that can be provided on the market almost immediately with relatively lower price. Fast fashion is dominating the industry on the premise of several conditions. Firstly, short lead times and life cycles are two of key precondition of fast fashion. Secondly, considerable number of retail stores can reach potential customers. In addition, a very fast supply chain is required to connect customers demand with upstream operations from design, manufacture to distribution. Nowadays, more and more fashion retailers across the world engaged in this kind of fast fashion race. They make every effort to minimize the time in which they respond to fashion trends and the speed of their supply chains. For examples, Spanish Inditex (Zara), US GAP, Swedish company Hennes Mauritz (HM). British Topshop and Next, all focus on a fast fashion model. This fast fashion retail can be divided into two categories: some with factories to produce its products represented by Zara (Inditex); some without manufacturing competencies of their own such as HM and Gap, which therefore means they outsource production to labor intensive countries. 3.1 PESTEL Analysis Political factors Since 2005 the global system of quota has phased out, textile and apparel industry entered the global free market. In the meanwhile, the textiles and apparel market has become more competitive than before and has also become more intense for the small and marginal players due to such intense competition. It seems that large fashion companies such as Inditex, HM, can dominate the fashion industries due to economy of scale, which gives big companies lower cost per unit resulting from increased production. Also, the remove of all import quotas in clothing industry gives Indiex access to a larger market to operate with greater geographical reach and then generates more sales. Economic factors The world is facing global economic recession. Consequently, the business environment is difficult to operate within, which in turn has a huge influence on textile industry and fashion industry. This due to rising unemployment, the so-called credit crunch and reduced disposable income forcing changes in consumers spending habits. Many consumers have become more price-sensitive and cautious. Consumers are more likely to cut budgets on apparel and fashion accessories. Such a change allows Inditex to attract more consumers shopping at its chain stores. Social factors Strong brands play a significant role in sales, because consumers prefer branded products as oppose to generic products. Most consumers value highly good branded products or services. Even though many companies went to bankruptcy in economic recession, most Brand fashion retail still managed to remain profitable. In the international fashion retail market, strong brand identity is very important. This is not only a precondition to attract customers, but also is a foundation of global expansion. Inditex not only provides fast fashion with relative lower price, but focus on brands building as well. Technological factors Technology is not only limited to companies within the software and computer industry such as Microsoft and Intel. Currently, technology plays a very important role on the fashion industry. With the increased competition, companies are taking advantage of IT to improve its Supply Chain Management (SCM) and using it to ensure a competitive advantage is gained. Many fashion companies are relying on the technological capabilities to add value to their products. More and more companies have adopted an online shopping platform to enhance their service and increase sales. Legal factors The fashion industry has been calling for stronger worldwide copyright protection and intellectual property protection for fashion designs because they fear major losses to their competitors. Fridolin Fischer pointed out that a dynamic interaction between innovation and imitation can be seen as a competition. Indeed, new innovation creates superior products; imitation makes these products more available to a greater number of consumers. Therefore, a lively imitation process is crucial for dynamic competition. It is true in reality, but it is not fair to the designer. At present, more developed countries expand their copyright Law to include fashion designs, fashion design owners would be granted the exclusive right to place their design on the marketplace. These copyright Act will limit the development of some fast fashion retailer, such as Zara. Environmental factors The environmental impact of the textile and apparel industry stems from its consumption of energy and toxic chemicals. The apparel industry contributes to climate change indirectly through the burning of fossil fuels to create electricity which is used to produce chemical materials which are then used as raw material to take place of cotton. Other major energy consumed involves using fuel for agricultural machinery and for distribution. Toxic chemicals are used widely in cotton planting and in many manufacturing stages such as pre-treatment, dyeing and printing. The volume waste from the fashion industry has become higher because of the advent of fast fashion. It is undeniable as regard to the current situation that the Fast fashion is causing a pollution issue due to shorted clothing life cycle, which has more negative impacts on environment. 3.2 Five Force Analysis Fashion apparel is a highly competitive business industry that is completely internationalized and posses no boundaries to its operations. The fashion retail industry is a large, mature and highly competitive industry. The annual growth rate of the market was about ** in the past decade. In 2009, total apparel sales were 362 billion. However, high fragmentation gives rise to intensive competition and price pressure in this market. Porters Five-Forces Model will be used to illustrate business environment of apparel industry. Threat of entry The apparel industry has very low entry barriers. Entry does not require huge amount of capital, workshops can be set up with workers with relative low skills. However, the economy of scale in production has significant impact on the entrant. It forces the entrants either to accept cost disadvantage or produce in a large scale. On the other hand brand identification and production differentiation plays the significant role, because brand identification creates a barrier to entry. Threat of substitutes The threat of substitution in this market is very high. The threat comes from other apparel retailers, designer retailers and tailor houses. On the other hand, Generic substitution is more likely to present a threat by offering products at lower prices. Power of buyers Todays buyers have more purchasing power than ever before. Customers demand high quality, a large variety and more frequent changes in the choice available to them. They want the exact garment they require when they want it and accessories in their preferred color and size in same store. This is the reason that retailers differentiate its product in order to satisfy the consumers needs. This is done by ensuring there are alternative sources of supply available for consumer and the cost of switching is almost zero. Inditex exactly meets the these customer demand by offer most fashionable clothes to cover various target markets at inexpensive price. Power of suppliers Power of suppliers in apparel market is low because most of fashion retailers outsourced the production section to developing countries, switching costs are low, buyes brands is powerful enough to get strong bargain power. There existing fashion retail brands command strong enough bargaining power to attain low costs. Therefore, the possibility of forward integration and suppliers customers are not fragmented. One the other hand, Inditex has more bargain power due to its vertical integration business model. Competitive rivalry The apparel industry, due to its low barriers of entry and declined obstacles to trade among nations, is one of the most highly competitive industries in the world. Hennues and Mauritz (HM) and Gap are Inditexs major competitors in terms of size and sales. Hennes and Mauritz ( HM) Hennes and Mauritz, was founded in Sweden in 1947, is another high performing fashion retailor. Today HM has expanded to 2000 stores acorss the world with more than 76,000 employees(HM Annual report,2009). HM offers similar product mix with Inditex in the same market, such as clothes, accessorise, nightwear and underwear to women, men and children. While HM is considered as the closest rival to Inditex, there are many key differences. First of all, HM outsourced all its production section. Moreover, HM tends to offer prodcuts at a slightly lower price than Zara by outsourcing it production. Beyond store-based retailing, HM also ventured into online shopping and Internet retailing. Inditex has been relatively slow to develop its online selling. However, HM has relied almost exclusively on only one brand. Inditex has broader brand portfolio, which is made up of eight brands in order to reduce risk and refine the companys targeting of specific consumer groups Gap The second biggest clothing retailor, Gap, is American fashion retailer founded in 1969. The company has five brands: GAP, Old Navy,Banana Republic, Piperlime and Athleta. At the beginning, Gaps merchandise consisted of other brands such as Levis and LPs. After Gap continuing to expand rapidly across the United States, Gap started to sell its private label products in its stores. Gap is a famous fashion retailer with a distinct marketing campaign consisting of mainly primetime television adverts which target the fashion conscious 15 to 35 age old women and men. The company operates over 4000 stores all over the world. Gap was well known for extensive collections of T-shirts and jeans which is simple but stylish. However, since 2001 the pace of development became slow due to lack of a clear fashion positioning and failing to meet consumers fast fashion demand. More than 90% of its products are outsourced, which has meant the supply chain is too long and they have therefore a slow resp onse to fashion. Also, Gaps core customer base has aged. Gap needs a reposition for its brand and design, but the chain has struggled to attract a younger generation to its stores. The company lacks an effective approach to deal with it. Gap is suffering from a plummet in sales and its competitors such as Zara and HM have consequently profited from Gaps downfall. In 2008, Inditexs fashion chain Zara overtook Gap to become the worlds largest clothing retailer. Inditexs Business Strategies 4.1 Design-Fashion follower, industry leader The process of Inditexs product development design programme is constantly working in order to adapt to new fashion trends . Designers and managers attend high-fashion fairs and exhibitions to obtain fashion information and then convert the latest fashion trends of the season into their designs. Other sources of design inspiration come from TV, Internet, film content or trend spotters. product development teams focus on venues such as university campuses and clubs around the world to capture fashion trends and customer preferences. Zaras product development teams have frequent dialogue via their internal IT system. Inditex gave significant autonomy to each store manager in deciding the quantity of product needed by each store. Moreover, the store manager is able to decide which product to display in their stores and which product is to be sold at a reduced price. The managers responsibility is to make these decision based on market research and sales trends. Moreover, by employing yo ung and fashionable member of staff ensures that employees also contribute by helping to report the sales analysis, the product life cycles, and the store trends to the designers. There are specialized teams in headquarters to analyze feedbacks and information from each store, then design and produce their products. These sales analyses allow the designers to develop the right products to meet consumer Demand. Design team issues up to approximately 12,000 new design styles per year. Such a design concept obviously depends on the regular creation of new design. For example, Zaras designer team came up with approximately 40,000 new designs per year, from which only slightly more than one-quarter of them for production. Zara often follows the fashion trends of the high-fashion houses and offers similar products at much lower prices by using less expensive fabric. It also attempts to offer more colors and larger range of sizes to meet the need of consumers. After a prototype of new design was selected, a computer-aided design system is used to refine colors and textures. Limited number of new items were produced and presented in certain stores for a trial period and large volumes of the product are produced only if customers reaction is positive. As a consequence, failure rates on new products is only 1% which is less than the average rate of 10% of other fashion retailers. 4.2 Manufacture process Inditex has been able to obtain excellent financial record due to its vertical integration and fast fashion business strategies which provide Inditex with a competitive advantage over traditional fashion retailers in the industry. Generally speaking, apparel retailers always try to keep slower costs by outsourcing production to developing countries where the lowest labor could reduce its manufacture cost. On the other hand, Inditexs subsidiary retailing chain adopted a successful diverse method of doing business by working through the whole value chain. Highly capital intensity and vertical integration is a distinctive feature of Inditexs business model. From the upstream value chain, a subsidiary of Inditex company, Comdietel, funnels fabric and other input supplied by external suppliers. More than half of the fabric was undyed which provide maximum flexibility to produce in-season clothes. Comdietel is able to dye and process gray fabric into certain pattern within only one week to meet the requirement of downstream value chain. Inditex has 20 fully owned manufacture factories across the Europe. These factories use capital intensive production processes and provide cut garment and semi-manufactured products to approximately 500 in-house workshops. The relevant cutting machines and other systems produce semi-manufactured items and cut garments which will be transited directly into workshops. The progress looks rigmarole, but it is quite efficient because bar codes track the cut pieces through the every production steps. Workshops are located in labor-intensive areas across Europe such as Spain and northern Portugal. These workshops manufacture clothes in small scale to offer specialization in product type. The sewn clothes were sent back from these workshops to various product line under different brands. The center will inspect, iron and fold before sending finished garment to distribution center. The secret of Inditexs success is that vertical integration leads to short turnaround times and great flexibility. By implementing in-house production, inditex has obtained high level of variety, quantity and frequency of new styled clothes. Inditex adopts market orientation by reducing lead-times and increasing flexibility. Zara is able to upgrade products in its stores within 10 to 15 days from design to stores. Vertical integration decreased Inditexs stock to a minimum level and reduced fashion risk. In the mean time, providing small amount of products in a great variety of styles rendered Inditex shorter lead times and high level flexibility. As a consequence of offering fewer amount of product more often, Indite obtains larger percentages of the full price due to in-season sell and thus achieve higher net margins on sales. By focusing on shorter response times to fashion trends and keeping up with fashion. Inditex made efforts to make sure that its stores are able to offer latest fashion items that consumers desired at a given time. Inditex can move from coming up a design to having clothes in its stores within 2 weeks. Short lead times is Inditex one of the most important competitive advantages over its competitors. When Inditexs retail stores provide consumer with latest fashion items and gain huge amount of sales, its competitors have still struggled to catch up. In comparison, HMs lead time is more than 20 days. Traditional retailers use 4-6 months . 4.3 Distribution A more systematic approach to inventory distribution is another feature of Inditex. Each retail chain has its own centralized distribution system. Distribution center is located in Arteixo and small satellite centers across the world. In order to keep its stores refreshed with new merchandise every two weeks, the warehouses of Inditex is simply a place to transfer merchandise rather than store them. Under Indetexs distribution system, most of merchandise stayed at the distribution centers for only few hours. Products are inspected and shipped immediately in distribution center. Store managers can check lists of items available to be shipped to their stores. Based on their store inventories, they can request quantities and type of products. However, Inditexs international expansion required constant adjustment on distribution. Zara schedules the shipment by time zone to make sure distribute effectively. Inditex uses this method to gain a competitive advantage by minimizing the lead ti mes. 4.4 Marketing mix Placement Inditexs marketing strategy is very effective because its marketing policy involves zero advertising. Inditex invest in selecting locations for its subsidiary retail chains and the presentation of those stores. For example, products in Zara are relative inexpensive, but shopping in Zara shores does not feel cheap. Zara stores are centrally located with spacious and nice interior. The clothes were presented very tide and upscale. There is a big difference between Zara stores and the store of some upper scale stores. Product Inditex constantly changes its products. Therefore, customers are never sure what is going to be on Zaras shelves the following week. Zara designs apparel to meet consumer demand, attempting to pull customers in by producing small amount to create a fear that if customers do not buy immediately, the product will soon be out of stock. There is not any other company that can produce high fashion clothes faster than Zara, which positions itself as high fashion at cheap prices. Although Zara has been accused of copying the design of other upscale fashion retailers, the prime difference is the price, which allows high fashion to be affordable for average consumer. Price The pricing strategy chosen can affect revenue. The price of a product is very vital for a company to get back all its effort. The other three elements of marketing mix are costs. Thus, no matter how good the garment is. How efficient the supply chain and how creative the promotion, unless the price covers cost, the company will not make profits. Clothes might suffer from prices that are too low among competition. Pricing is very important since it often send quality cues to customers  ¼Ã‹â€ Jobber, 2007 ¼Ã¢â‚¬ °Inditex does not compete on price because they know their customers are more sensitive to fashion instead of the price. Inditexs subsidiary brands follow a market-based pricing strategy. Inditex sets price in line with its marketing strategy with reference to other marketing decisions such as position, strategic objective, promotion and value to customers. Therefore, Inditex sets price differently on different brands. Zaras prices are very reasonable. Its objective is to set price as cheap as possible to allow people to have fast fashion clothes. Inditex will adjust its price for certain product to keep low inventories if the company overestimated the demand. Promotion The fact that there is no advertising promotion strategy is another effective cost cutting approach for Inditex. Other fashion retailers spend 3.5% of their revenue on advertising, while inditex only spends 0.3% on promotion. Advertisement is carry out only at a new store opening. But that does not means Inditex make less efforts on promotion. Zara does not engage in large advertising campaigns on television and magazines. It just adopts a different approach to promote its products. It invests its money on location, Zaras stores are situated at commercial center. The company believes that their shop windows presentations are all the advertising it needs and its sores only opened in the most fashionable district. 4.5 International Expansion Inditex has become possibly the most internationalized fashion retail chain. Zara operates 2707 stores in countries outside its home market Spain. By 2010, its has 1900 stores in rest of Europe, more than 150 stores in Asia, 366 in America, 485 elsewhere in the rest of world. Inditex generates 68 percent of its total revenue from oversea markets. Zara contributes most of international sales and revenue to Inditex. Zaras international expansion started in 1988 with the opening of store in Portugal, when Inditex found that the company has dominated domestic market and abroad market was very profitable. Since then, Zara entered into one country per year until it opened stores in 7 European countries. After that, the pace of Zara expansion has speed up more rapidly. Zara has successfully entered 74 countries. On the same period, HM expanded its retail network to 36 countries, and Gap entered into 30 countries worldwide. .( Indetex Annual Report, 2009 ) SALES 2008 2009 Spain 3.730.099 3.708.967 Rest of Europe 4.809.263 5.221.491 America 1.038.065 1.096.709 Asia and rest of the world 829.333 1.056.347 Total 10.406.960 11.083.514 5. Business model Analysis This section will further analyze the reasons why Inditex, who are competing in the same business field and under the same conditions as rivals such as HM, next, Gap and Mango, choose different business models. It describes exact competitive advantages that have derived from Inditexs business model and the negative sides of business models. According to Inditexs financial ratios and business models, we can conclude that Inditexs higher income result from its business model of vertical integration which keeps costs and operating expenses much lower than Gap and HM. In-house production allows Inditex have little transaction costs. In light of the transaction cost theory, Madhok said that manage business activities inside the company is direct way to diminish the transaction costs. The costs of managing upstream or downstream of business activities within an institution will be much lower than through the market. Meanwhile, vertical integration gives a firm more control and flexibilities to operate directly. Forward integration can provide product differentiation advantages that are difficult to imitate as well as superior design intelligence. Potential advantage from integration is the degree of value added at the throughout all stages of the business. The group has authority to operate directly through designing, manufacturing and distribution. Due to vertical integration, the group gains a better po sition in the purchasing of raw materials, controlling the manufacturing process and obtaining better lead time to market. Decreased Cost does not only derive from lower transaction cost but also comes from waste reducing. This happens by designing and cutting its fabric in-house and it acquires fabrics in grey to keep costs low. Zara dyeing and printing fabric until close to manufacture to acquire more flexibilities in order to meet various design requirements, thereby minimize raw material waste and rendered Zara great flexibilit

Oh, For the Love of Thought :: Philosophy Plato The Allegory of the Cave Essays

Oh, For the Love of Thought Many thinkers have existed throughout history. These thinkers were called philosophers because they literally loved knowledge. In fact, the root phil means love, and the root soph means knowledge. These lovers of knowledge have always looked for ways to spread both their knowledge and their way of constantly thinking to other people. One of these attempts was Plato's The Allegory of the Cave. Plato's The Allegory of the Cave describes, through a conversation between Socrates and his student Glaucon, cave dwellers who see only shadows of puppets on a wall. Socrates emphasizes to Glaucon: To them, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images. Socrates continues his supposition by rhetorically asking: What will follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error?. It turns out, says Socrates, that the experience will be painful at first. Once a liberated cave dweller leaves the cave and goes to see the sun, he will see a greater truth than those in the cave. Socrates and Glaucon continue to discuss the cave and determine a set of possibilities: The cave dweller who does not leave the cave will be ignorant; he will not know nor want to know the truth. The cave dweller who leaves the cave and returns will be considered heretical; while he knows a greater truth, he must suffer for it. The cave dweller who leaves the cave and does not return w ill be cause for the cave dwellers to consider the sun, enlightenment, or the ultimate truth to be dangerous; it will be reason for the cave dweller not to leave the cave. The allegory, continued in a reader's mind to a deeper level at which visible reality is an unraveling ball of infinite size with ultimate truth at its core and layers of illusion surrounding it, shows that there will always be a deeper truth. No one person can be fully enlightened and see ultimate truth just as no one person can see the whole of a sphere. It takes the perspectives of all to even begin to see the ultimate truth. Plato begs man in general not to consider the ideas of other men to be heretical because the ideas force people out of their comfort zone and do not make immediate sense to them. People must be continually open-minded. Man may find a new insight into something shedding a layer from the aforementioned ball of reality, but that just means that there are infinitely more insights to gain before the layers of illusion are shed.

Easyinternetcafe Cafe Essay

This case report addresses the challenges to implement a new logistic system that if well implemented it can improve operations and can convert easyinternetcafe into a profitable company. EasyInternetCafe (eIC)is a chain of Internet cafes with stores in the UK, the USA, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. eIC is part of the Easy Group, headed by the Greek entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou. The original business model is to build and operate on the principle of ‘economics of scale’ or Yield Management: most stores would be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and each has an average of 350 PC’s. In 2003, with losses continuing to mount, eIc management has decided to radically revamp their operations. In order to eliminate the need for future investments in new stores, the strategy was changed. It has been decided to appoint franchisees for the new stores and also, if possible, for the existing legacy stores. According to the new strategy, the franchisee would be required to bear the costs of the property and the hardware. It was also decided to move from large stores to smaller stores with 20 to 30 PCs. The current logistic situation represents a bottleneck and it is one of the major causes for the ongoing losses at easyinternetcafe. After reviewing different logistics scenarios and providers, I strongly recommend taking a closer look to support the logistic alternative that Ingram Micro is proposing. If we do that, we could benefit in the warehousing, accounting and transportation areas, through all this areas, it will help us reduce the logistics costs and labour per new store, from almost to  £2,000.00 to  £1,357.00, this and the benefits mentioned before, will help us to achieve our overall objective of being a profitable company. This; will be the strategic perspe ctive that will be demonstrated throughout the report. Issue(s) Identification: 1. Yield Management does not work for every company. eIC’s first store opened in June 1999 opposite in London. Soon afterwards, it was quickly recognized that eIC’s yield management had certain characteristics that later affected the business model: elC was offering a highly perishable product: 1 hour of Internet access time, cannot be put in inventory, once that hour is gone, there is no way of reselling that hour of internet access time. Although stores are large, capacity is limited; Internet access demand varies, not only by time of day, day of week, but also across other time and seasonal horizons. Incremental costs are next to nothing: it doesn’t matter whether there is one person or 500 in a store, the bandwidth is already there. By the time the second and third stores were opened, eIC had built yield management into its store management system. 2. Current Logistics System Logistics is not a core competency at elC, but it has become one of the integral activities. Logistics for elc means to supply the new stores with their initial assests, including all of the furniture and PCs. This system is a drag on scalability, efficiency and a bottleneck for growth and the main reason for spiraling high cost and ongoing losses. Environmental and Root Cause Analysis: Aggressive use of yield management is a recognized and admired business model of Stelios. EasyJet was a profitable company after just a few years of operation. However, with EasyInternetCafe profits seem a long way off, the assumption that offering very low prices would increase the demand significantly lead to losses of  £80m- £100m from 199 to 2002. Below are some root causes of the symptoms above: * The stores are too large; economies of scale don’t materialize if occupancy is half empty. * Fixed costs were too high due to the quantity of Pcs per store. * Staff overheads were excessive. Assumptions: * Are there sufficient customers who want to use an internet cafe? To-day, most of the homes have internet access, and many others have (free) access at their place of work or at colleges or university. * Are the stores located in the right place to attract customers throughout the day and the whole week? Downtown cafes might attract business people needing to keep in touch, but many city centres are quiet in the evenings and at weekends. By mid-2001, with cash running out a drastic action was necessary: a franchising plan is being developed. It is important that every cafe looked the same, with common signage, furnishings and PCs. The time to sign a contract with a franchise is one week. If the franchisee did not already have space for the cafà ©, eIc would assist in recommendations with locations within 28 days. The broadband internet connection had to be installed by the local telecoms supplier within 28 days. Also they need to Desk installed within seven days. Server delivered and installed 2 days and PCs delivered and installed 2 days. CVM delivered and installed 1 day Signage delivered and installed 1 day. Chairs delivered and installed 1 day. Testing complete system 2 days and also Open for business within one day. So, how much time should it take to open the cafe once the contract is signed? From the predecessors plan we see that average duration of time for all activity. Under bellow we discuss about time of the contract are signed.

Culture and Hipster Central Dogma Essay

Hipster is a subculture of young (15 – 25), urban middle class adults and older teenagers that appeared in the 1990s.The subculture is associated with non-mainstream lifestyle. They value independent thinking, progressive politics, creativity, intelligence and non-mainstream fashion sensibility. Most of them can be found living in the big cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Also â€Å"hipsterism† is often intertwined with distinct fashion sensibilities .Hipsters reject the culturally-ignorant attitudes of mainstream consumers, and are often be seen wearing vintage, tight jeans, old-school sneakers, and often thick rimmed glasses. Men and women hipsters have similar androgynous hair styles that include combinations of dirty shag cuts and asymmetric side-swept bangs. Such styles are the work of creative stylists at urban salons, and are usually not mainstream. Despite the misconception made ​​on the external image, hipsters tend to be well educ ated in sciences, which require certain creative analytical thinking abilities. This leads to the fact that they find themselves in creative works, such as music, art, and fashion industries. It is a myth that most hipsters are unemployed and live off of their parent’s trust funds. Hipsters shun mainstream, It is part of the hipster central dogma not to be influenced by mainstream advertising and media. This is tends to only promote ethnocentric ideals of beauty, the concepts of androgyny and feminism have influenced hipster culture, where hipster men are often as thin as the women they date. Women view the muscular, athletic and other male ideals as symbols of their oppression, sexism, and misogyny. Likewise, culturally-vapid sorority-type girls with fake blond hair, overly tanned skin, and â€Å"Britney Spears tube-tops† are not seen as attractive by cultured hipster males who instead see them as symbols of female insecurity, low self-esteem, and lack of cultural intelligence and independent thinking. Likewise, girls with fake blond hair and overly tanned skin are not seen as attractive by cultured hipster males who instead see them as symbols of female insecurity, low self-esteem, and lack of cultural intelligence and independent thinking. There are many interracial couples in hipster subculture because they are very racially open-minded. Although hipsters are conformists within their own subculture, in comparison to the much larger mainstream mass they are pioneers latest cultural trends and ideals. For example many bands have become successful and known to mainstream audiences only because hipsters first found and listened to them as early-adopters of new culture. Once certain concepts of fashion and music have reached mainstream audiences, hipsters move on to something new and improved. Once something from fashion and music have reached mainstream audiences, hipsters move on to something new. Because of the rise of various online photo-blog and social networking sites, insights into urban hipster culture is reaching sheltered suburban audiences at an exponential rate. Cultural â€Å"norms† have been deconstructed by hipster culture as a whole.