In your opinion, what are the most important aspects of Zara’s approach to information technology?
Zara’s approach to IT has been closely aligned with its business model and the associated need to quickly develop, manufacture, and distribute products as well as its preference for decentralized decision making. The approach is also very informal, as evidenced by the fact that there is not a traditional personnel structure or hierarchy (i.e., no chief information officer), there is no formal process for IT planning, nor is an IT budget prepared annually. The approach also involves ‘home-grown’ products and centralized data management. Additionally, the approach appears to be more reactionary than progressive, given that they are still using a system that is no longer supported and are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach rather than being proactive with regard to information technology advances. The system is devoid of integration ad interconnectivity – both in-store and organization-wide. While Zara’s approach to information technology has served them well historically, they run the risk of failure from becoming stagnant, inflexible and unchanging.

Are these approaches applicable and appropriate everywhere? If not, where would they NOT work well?
The informal approach may have been appropriate when the company was first established, but it is not appropriate as the company grows and expands. It is important to have a formal process for strategic planning, including IT strategy, as well as strong financial processes related to budgeting and evaluation of new initiatives. As stated previously, the approach regarding inventory management is very limiting and inflexible. Local market conditions are not considered since all decisions are made at the corporate level regarding pricing, sales, inventory levels, etc. The use of a “theoretical inventory” has