Zara brand Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Zara brand - Assignment Example Zara is praised widely as the leader in clothing industry. Inditex group-Zara is the most successful clothing company the profits of which rose substantially. In its Inditex’s all subsidiaries, Zara is the key contributor and the backbone of Inditex strength in profitability.The major motivation to the Zara for going global was Cost Reduction. The diminishing transportation costs and low tariffs and duties in many countries facilitated the firms to geographically disperse their operations and take the advantage of inexpensive labor providing countries. Another reason for this internationalized model wasthat it was becoming more difficult for Zara to curb the costs in Europe because most of the firms were labor intensive and labor cost was very high in Europe then. Although these facilitations were also exploited by its competitors, Zara outperformed all. Its distinctive operating strategies regarding Logistics and Value Chain brought impressive results compared to its competit ors.Zara’s Value Chain Strategies to cope with global market:Zara spends substantially on Research and Development which results in the latest fashion items. Special focus on Research and Development is Zara’s most important value creating activity. Zara has a team of more than 500 fashion designers, who visit the world and sense the new trends going on. These designers are provided with handheld computers for reporting and being in touch with the Management. On the other hand, the competitors reduce.... In September 2010, Zara reported $835 million profit- a 68% substantial increase in first half’s net profits- that pushed the aggressive growth rate. The firm considered this success as the outcome of satisfactory customer reception in Asian markets (BBC 2010). Logistic and Value-Chain Analysis: A firm involves in many activities from getting raw material from the suppliers to distributing the final goods to consumers. Logistics is actually a careful organization of these activities which leads them to success and efficiency. If performed efficiently, these activities develop competitive advantage of the firm in terms of cost reduction and/or differentiation and create value for its shareholders. The sequence of all these value-creating activities, which aim at earning a firm an edge in the market, is called Value-Chain. The value-Chain provides competitive advantage to a firm by either reducing the firm’s cost of production, or creating differentiation for its products . The basic value generating activities are almost similar to a wide range of firms. Porter identified few basic value activities referred as Porter’s Value-Chain model. Porter’s value chain is depicted below in the model. Inbound Logistics activities are those which help get raw material from the suppliers and warehouse it. Operations activities transform the raw material into finished goods and services. Outbound Logistics deal with warehousing and distributing the final products. Then, Sales are generated by identifying the customer needs and providing them value by Marketing and Sales. And after-sale Services are provided to customers to engage them in future business

Social media and elections Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4250 words

Social media and elections - Term Paper Example In 1865 with express messages growing between businesses, financial and legal offices, and banks of major cities, it became necessary for faster methods to communicate by telegram and letter. The pneumatic post came about to help with the shortcomings of the telegraphic network in Paris. Small metal cartridges carried telegrams and letters by pneumatic pressure. Information could be transferred both faster and independently without outside interference (Adams, 2011). The telephone has been the single most influential form of social media to come about before the 20th century. There has been a continual debate over who actually invented the telephone, among those are Charles Bourseul, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray, and the debate goes on. In 1890 Bell and Edison were accredited to making it a commercial device. In 1891 Nikola Tesla developed the radio and obtained a US patent for the invention. This was another form of social media produced with radio frequencies. Email was introduced in 1966. The first email was actually sent in 1971 between two computers that were sitting side by side. The early systems of email required that each recipient be online at the same time in order to send and receive messages. What we have today is much more advanced in that it accepts, stores, forwards and delivers without having to be online at the same time (Adams, 2011). â€Å"Social media is the use of digital (and often mobile) technologies and Internet-based applications for exchanging or creating conversation.† (Adams, 2011). This has become the modern day definition of social media. However, history shows that social media can be include other forms of communication. Social interaction has become totally necessary in today’s culture and trade. The world has become a place where relationships are fragile and dealings can be difficult.