Index Zara

1. The Inditex group and the clothing sector

Founded 38 years ago, the Inditex group is now part of a select group of companies worldwide whose success and personality have achieved an outstanding position in the media and in scientific debate in academia[3].

When the company was launched on the stock exchange, it published a complete company information brochure[4] which defines the main activity of Inditex (the acronym for Industria de Diseño Textil, SA) and its subsidiaries as the design, manufacture, distribution and sale of clothes, footwear and accessories for men, women and children, including cosmetics and leather goods. Additionally, some of the companies in the group carry out different activities; for instance, construction activities or estate agency, as a complement to the Inditex group’s main activity. Table I shows the companies (Spanish and other) making up the Inditex group.

Inditex is an international fashion manufacture and distribution group (see Table II) with five store chains, Zara, Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka and Stradivarius. These are managed as separate strategic business units. On 31 January 2001, the Inditex group owned 1,080 stores (1,093 including joint ventures), in 33 countries. Of these 908 (84 per cent of the total number of stores) are owned by the company, and 172 (16 per cent) were franchised stores. Turnover in the year 2000 was slightly over 435,000 million pesetas. Profits were over 43,000 million pesetas. Tables II and III show information on each of the chains.

The world fashion market has changed considerably over the past few decades. Fashion products, which used to be an elite consumption product, are now a mass consumption market