Kasra Ferdows, Jose A.D. Machuca,
and Michael Lewis
 The authors explain why Zara continues to fascinate them and what they got wrong about the company.
Winning the award
It is most gratifying is to see that others find value in what you have done. Writing a case takes considerable effort and it is wonderful when you see it is benefiting more than just a few people. It is great to know that this case, together with the previous one, has been used by more than 150 universities around the world. This is really encouraging.
Revisiting the case
Zara’s story has been and continues to be absolutely fascinating. We have been following the events in this company since our last case (published in 2003) and been delighted, and frankly a little surprised, to see that they have continued to become better year after year. We thought we should update the case, but after we went back and observed the operations and interviewed the senior managers, we decided to write almost a new case. Without their strong support we could not have written this second case. We would like to take the opportunity here to deeply thank them once again. It was a great experience.There is still a lot to learn from this company.
Art versus science
We think there is an art in every business, particularly one dealing with fashion. We thought it was important to emphasise that, while one can describe how different processes in Zara’s are organised, and in a sense standardised, there is still a lot of judgment that must be exercised by its designers, market specialists, procurement and factory managers and other employees.
Therefore, we think that, even when using more and more standardised models, there will still be room for this “business management art”, which many times differentiates the leaders from the rest. Zara is undoubtedly a great example of this.
More cases?
We have been wrong about the limits of Zara’s model. One of the questions we asked at the end of our case in 2003 was, ‘Is Zara reaching the limit of its business model?’. Time has shown that the clear answer is a resounding ‘no’. Zara is now six times bigger with four times more stores in more countries, so the model has proven to be more robust than we thought 14 years ago.
We are certainly curious to see how Zara continues to develop, and regardless of how its operating model might change, it would be interesting to report on it in yet another case.
Teaching experiences
We’d like to thank the many faculty and educators who adopted both the original case and this revised version. It would be great if we could learn about their experiences in teaching this case.
About the authors
Kasra Ferdows holds the Heisley Family Chair of Global Manufacturing at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, US.
e ferdowsk@georgetown.edu
Jose A. D. Machuca is Professor of Operations Management at Departamento de Economía Financiera y Dirección de Operaciones and member of GIDEAO Research Group, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain.
e jmachuca@us.es
Michael Lewis is Professor of Operations and Supply Management in Information, Decisions and Operations Division at University of Bath School of Management.
e m.a.lewis@bath.ac.uk
tw
@OpsProf
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Why?
