Zara - the story of the richest man in the world for two days

Zara - the story of the richest man in the world for two days

Zara is a Spanish brand for a chain of clothing stores that are neither expensive nor cheap. Its owner and founder, Amancio Ortega, imposed a complete media obsession, which he had to break only when his company was listed on the stock exchange.

The founder of the Zara chain of stores, he said, has grown to just two days in 2016, during which he became the richest man in the world, richer than Bill Gates. (This is repeated for hours in 2015). This rank made him a source of pride in Spain.

His birth came on March 28, 1936, in a poor village in northern Spain, for a father who worked in railways, a mother who had to work as a maid to feed the poor family. After getting a little schooling, Ortega began working at the age of 13 in a small shop on the corner / Front-end clothing, leaving school seats.

Because Zorba was booked, Zara's birth came

From this early start to work, and until he reached the age of 20 we do not have much information, except that in 1972 he founded a small company with a stupid name, and then opened the first shop with his relative [and then his wife] Rosalia Mira for the sale of clothing / Bath for women, as well as to sell clothes very similar to famous brands and world famous brands. The first pieces of clothing sold by Amansui were from his wife's embroidery.

When Amansiwa needed to choose the name of his opening studio and the company he founded, he chose Zorba, who was then influenced by the famous film Zorba, but when he discovered there was a wine next to him, he decided, in agreement with his wife, to change the name to Zara.

If they are not different you will not go away

The problem and dilemma facing everyone who starts his company is to bring in customers and increase sales. The goal is beautiful and noble but difficult to investigate if resorted to traditional methods to make it come true.

You will find many who passed this stage and failed to overcome it. In the case of Amansoa and solve this problem, he began his new shop tradition of fashion designs for senior fashion houses and names in this area, and was passing on the houses knock on doors and trying to sell his designs and clothes made by himself and in cooperation with his wife.

Amansia Ortega, founder of Zara stores

Instant Fashion / Fast Fashion

This one, the second step of excellence for others was to introduce new fashion designs on a regular basis. While international fashion houses have introduced new designs and forms every few months, Zara has been introducing new fashion every two weeks or less.

This principle was called Amansoa, the term "instant fashion" or "Instant Fashions".

The monastery of each shop and every branch of Zara's shops and branches is free to change the models in its place and demand the new, depending on the tastes of the customers and what they are looking for.

Each store manager meets the sales goals assigned to him / her monthly and receives commissions equal to his salary.

On average, Zara stores each year produce 12,000 new clothing models.

The third step was to make the production lines close to the outlets. Amansua designed the fashion near his stores, and he did not store large quantities, in return for making the wheel of innovation in small quantities that do not need large stores or shipping.

While the rest of the fashion houses were manufacturing their uniforms in China, Amansui made sure to make the majority of manufacturing operations in areas close to it, such as Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Turkey.

On average, half of Zara's products are manufactured worldwide in Spain.

The life cycle of the new model is three weeks, starting from placing it on paper and even displaying it in the shop window, which is less than half the period required by other models in the rest of the fashion houses, which may sometimes reach 6 months of the paper to the violin.

The result?

This method of excellence has made Zara customer (or the most exact customer / customer) constantly frequented by shops looking and longing for everything that is new at Zara.

The first benefit was to convince customers that Zara stores were different from other fashion stores.

The second was to convince customers why buy the expensive original design when you can buy something similar from Zara at a better price.

The third was why you wait until the fashion houses put up new designs and Zara stores bring new ideas every two weeks or less.

Fourth, Zara prices are appropriate and better than others, not expensive and not cheap.

Fifth, the rapid change in fashion Zara made it difficult to find who wears the same model that I bought, which means uniqueness and excellence.

All this helped Zara not allocate any budget for advertising and marketing, relying on the marketing of praise from satisfied customers (so that the Blog Shbayek wrote about its founder!).

For all these reasons, Ortega was naturally able to open more branches, maintaining his policy, and he was well-versed in selecting employees close to him, which helped him deal with the shortcomings and shortcomings he had.

Zara is out of Spain

In 1988, the Zara chain began to move out of Spain's borders to the world, opening its first branch in Porto, Portugal.

In 2010 Zara launched its first online store, and since then has been expanding and expanding its services to more countries.

Amancia then launched a new brand called Paul & Bear or Pull & Bear and then acquired Massimo Dutti, then Stradivarius and then others.

Escape from fame

Amansia is known for refusing to write his own life story, or to distinguish himself from it. He does not own his own office, nor does he have a desktop computer. He is not good at writing, and he likes to run his company on his feet in his new fashion design room. The authority of a small group of his employees, does not like the paper style in managing the affairs of his company, preferably oral communication about the scripture, a good listener for everyone who is responsible for the affairs of his company.

Even on his charity side, where he spends about 500 students, he does so on a small scale so as not to bring himself the spotlight.

This humility and distance from fame helped to create other names that run the company with him, such as Babilwa Isla President and CEO of the company after Amansio retired from the management seat in 2011, and even despite his retirement, will see him go to work every day, mixed with other employees of his company ...

In 2001, his parent company, Inditex, was converted into a public shareholding and its shares on the stock exchange for $ 2.4 billion, raising the share price more than 10 times since the IPO.

His share is estimated at about 60% or the equivalent of $ 72 billion in figures at the time of writing.

Zara in brief:

Today, Amancio's wealth is growing by $ 1 billion a year.

By 2015, Zara had more than 7,000 branches worldwide, in more than 88 countries (source: parent company).

Zara's stores and factories employ about 80,000 workers. (Source: parent company website).

The largest international market for Zara clothing is China, ahead of Spain. Zara has more than 450 shops in China only.

In Spain, on average, the customer visits the clothing shop 3 times a year. Zara visits her stores 17 times a year.

Amansui is a successful real estate investor in various countries of the world. He is known to rent his buildings to his company Zara.

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