On March 28, 2017, Mr. Yago Vera Cuartero, Greater China President of Inditex, walked into the classroom of Tsinghua–INSEAD Executive MBA (TIEMBA) at Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management (Tsinghua SEM), to discuss the business module and operations of Zara in China.

Mr. Yago Vera Cuartero, Greater China President of Inditex

Mr. Cuartero was invited to discuss the case of “ZARA: The world-famous retailer” with 48 TIEMBA participants from 17 countries. This is part of Operations Management class given by Professor David Robb, who is the visiting professor and research fellow at Tsinghua SEM.

Firstly, one of the participants shared how she loves ZARA and her enjoyable experience of shopping in ZARA, not only in Beijing but also all over the world. Then Professor Robb discussed about ZARA’s high brand value and Zara’s operations system. After that, Mr. Cuartero gave the class an insight introduction on Zara’s history, strategy and operations. As a worldwide brand, Zara is highly focused on its customers’ demands and adapts quickly to meet these needs. They manage every store as an individual company and deliver new models twice per week to all their stores around the world.

During the class, the participants had an active and in-depth discussion and interaction with Professor Robb and Mr. Cuartero, focusing on some key questions, such as What are the “distinguishing” features of Zara’s design and order administration, production, and distribution systems? What are the fundamental operating principles that tie the above elements together? What are the key challenges of being a global retailer, and how does Zara cope with them? Where are the competitive threats likely to come from? Should Zara open a major warehouse outside of Spain? Professor Robb and Mr. Cuartero explained those questions patiently.

Group photo

Inditex is one of the largest fashion retail groups in the world with eight brands such as Zara, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Pull&Bear, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home and Uterqüe. Inditex currently has more than 7,292 stores in 93 markets globally.

TIEMBA is a unique and modular dual-degree programme that offers our participants the best of both institutions: one of China's most elite universities and one of the world's top international business schools. It is always an important part of the programme to combine theory together with practice, which leads the program to invite global executive leaders walking into the class. (source: EMBA Programs)