It borrows in 1964 to buy a sewing machine

We would like to believe that there tear to the eye that day. But you know nothing. Amancio Ortega Gaona keeps his emotions. The never seen, he never gave the slightest interview. His photos are rare. The contractor's most famous and richest of Spain do not like to be; except at his home in his headquarters in a Coruña, small town lost in the damp mists of Galicia, Spanish Brittany. "The time has come, he wrote this January 10, 2011, to propose Pablo Isla, current Director-General, to the position of CEO at the next General Assembly." Its way, without embellishment, the old founder takes its reverence to seventy-four years.

The time is chosen. While his country is sinking into one of the worst crises in its history, Europe is sinking into collective gloom, its creation is at the top. The Inditex Group, famous for its brand Zara, in thirty years became the world leader in clothing with more than 5,000 stores in nearly 80 countries, it displays on the first nine months of 2010 of the sales increase of 14 and profits jump 40. All of this by pulling the bulk of its sales of this old tired Europe.

The soul of the Chief

Performance obtained by blasting all the dogmas of the end of the 20th century. The textile is affected by globalization His group displays this year profitability of over 17, better than in aeronautics or the high-tech! The future is the specialization of tasks, each trade, other design, the last production His group is just the opposite. Its giant site in La Coruna is home to a design centre, factories and a huge hangar for storage and distribution. We can no longer produce industrially clothing in Europe Almost half of its products are manufactured in Spain and the Portugal, and more if it incorporates the Morocco and the Turkey.

And then, as the Swedish Ikea, the group which is probably the closest in terms of philosophy, he completely contradicted this old idea is that the industry is the matrix of any economy and that the service, so rich in jobs, can only be a by-product. In Zara, are precisely the approximately 80,000 employees working in its stores around the world who are at the forefront of the fight.

As Ingvar Kamprad of Ikea, Amancio Ortega fell little in the cauldron of commerce, just after the second world war. Son of railroad worker, he left school at fourteen to work as handyman in a shop of clothes of the centre of a Coruña. A harsh existence to learn the rules of the trade and the sense of frugality. It borrows in 1964 to buy a sewing machine. Ten years later, the company employs 500 persons and opens its first store in the city. The company designs, manufactures, distributes and sells. He had invented a model of vertical integration at a time, turning the 1980s, where European companies started the questioning.

Absent outside, Ortega is ubiquitous on stage designs, before the machines and in stores. He discussed everything with everyone. The "short circuit" which will make his fortune begins with the physical presence of the head. But as Kamprad and all other merchants designers, it is also a formidable predator whose ambition is to deploy its stores around the world. Last year, he opened more than 400 facilities - most owned own - and account still maintain this rate of 10 of showcases new each year. China is of course the first sight. With its eight brands, it can multiply the settlements at the same location.

The client commands

Why striving on this model of integration so costly After all, its main competitor, the Swedish H & M, does not this qualms embarrassment and long entrusted all its production to Asian subcontractors. To paste fashion, said Ortega in his biography: "we can create a collection in four weeks, or in two if the market requires. And change it as quickly if it does not work. The heart of the Zara system is: it is the client that made the product. The cycle is as follows. Designers develop the classic two annual collections in drawing more or less of the fashion and trends of the season. But only small amounts are produced and quickly tested in stores. Therefore, they are business people who arrive on the scene. Some are subsidiaries stores to interview the staff on the reactions of customers, their tastes, their disappointments, their desires. Others are based at Headquarters and remain in perpetual contact with men of land. They share their desktop with stylists and pass orders: extended dresses, add shoulder straps, change the color. Designers run, followed by manufacturing. And then, two times a week, stores spend the réassorts command. They are delivered the next day, always in small quantities. This is what analysts call model "demand pull", drawn by the application. Another benefit, this system creates a form of scarcity effect that pushes to the purchase (tomorrow in there is more!) and avoids to be forced to clear unsold.

Logistics in the heart

But to achieve such flexibility, it is not enough to have factories across the street, must be mainly logistical infrastructure out of the ordinary. It has been developed on the model of Toyota. The sites of La Coruña are connected by more than 200 kilometres of underground fuelling a fully automated logistics centre. Each point of Europe is served within 24 hours. Another giant distribution centre has been implemented in 2005 in the outskirts of Madrid: 180.000 square meters, 70 loading docks!

A hypercentralisation that responds to the extreme decentralization of the decision to close the client. This imperative of flawless logistics has two constraints. It is gourmet capital (storage space, cost of transportation, including aircraft) and is less well as one moves away from the heart. Some products are manufactured in Asia, shipped in Spain, before flying to Hong Kong or Shanghai stores. It then re-invest heavily, which is ongoing, to not be behind as a H & M very offensive in Asia.

This highly sophisticated model will survive the departure of maestro Ortega What is certain is that, under the leadership of Pablo Isla, a gifted of forty-six years old President of Altadis (tobacco), the society has already changed. Especially in two areas key to today, the development in China and Latin America and the sale on the Internet. It is always a challenge, even for a laborious Galician, build in time when it produced the short-lived.

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