Case Study (Question 3):

Zara International: Fashion at the Speed of Light.

The challenges face by Zara is becomes greater when they keep increasing the number of their stores across the globe as stated by a professor at London Business Scholl, Nirmalya Kumar, The efficiency of the supply chain is coming under more pressure the farther abroad they go. Therefore, steps to be taken by Zara to gain immediate improvements should be to improve the weaknesses of their current condition, as well as maintaining the success of their current competitive advantages. Thus, as a management consulting firm, we would like to hand over this problem to be measured by one of the consultant, Frederick Taylor.

Zara rapid expansion may bring undue pressure to its business. The rising number of their overseas store would indirectly adds cost and complexity that will straining its operations. In terms of the cost, it may be handled according to Zara parent company, Inditex, but the current logistics system could only handle its growth until 2012. Means that, they are no longer able to support their operational distribution channel later on. In that case, the expansion of their stores over the worldwide should be reduced and slowed down. Till now, what Zara need to do basically to manage their current internal production and operation management system. Referring to Taylors system of task management, Zara could maintain the current workforce and eliminate those who are unnecessarily needed to reduce the dependency towards the frustration products in the market. Taylors made a distinction between what he termed the first-class worker and the average worker. In his view, first class workers were highly motivated and pushed forward with their work rather than wasting time restricting output. Ideally, such workers should be selected for the appropriate task and encouraged by management of Zara through the use of financial incentives for their commitment to the job itself.

The complexity of Zara International as the company trying to expand too quickly is getting further, has forced workers to produce their production at their very best which led to the reduction of the output itself. As described by Taylor, with the deliberate object of keeping their employers ignorant of how fast work can be done , Taylor depicted such activity as pathetic in that it blunted the competitive edge of an enterprise and was also generally demoralizing, leading workers to restrict their output even when they could produce more without extra effort. Scientific management of Taylors thinking underlying four principles to be implemented by Zara corporation, which are:

1. Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the task. 2. Scientifically select, train, and develop each employee rather than passively leaving them to train themselves. 3. Corporate with the workers to ensure that the scientifically developed methods are being followed. 4. Divide work nearly equally between managers and workers, so that the managers apply scientific management principles to planning the work and the workers actually perform the task.

These four principles has been proven since the very beginning of management theories took place as it were successfully implemented in many factories, and resulted in often increased productivity by a factor of three or more. By these execution of management system, Zara should capable to make immediate internal improvements that will continuously strengthen the written strategies of the organization to stay ahead of the game.