Two words sum up Zara's competitive advantage: fast and efficient. Zara's first CEO, Jos Mar Castellano R, established a clear business idea that represents every effort made by Zara's management today: "Connecting customer demand to production and connecting production to distribution." Basically, Castellano wanted all critical elements of Zara's Supply Chain (SC) to be interconnected and share information in real time. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Decentralize decision making. Zara's management understood their market well. Their customer base was young, fashion-conscious, and their taste in clothing changed rapidly. To satisfy their market, clothing lines had to go from concept to shelf very quickly before the hype for a style faded. Average lead time was approximately three weeks with a 75% inventory change every three weeks compared to competitors' two months of design and manufacturing. This time frame allows Zara to respond to the changing and unpredictable tastes of its customers faster than anyone else. Zara has been able to achieve this cost-effective production through empowering store managers who identify the latest trends to sell in their stores rather than having a head office separate from their markets decide for them. The groups called "spots" were very cautious about what clothes they would design and produce. These “commercial” teams consisted of two designers and two product managers, who had the autonomy to purchase materials, place production orders, and set prices. In addition to the "commercial" teams, there was another group called store product managers, who worked closely with the product teams and acted as the main interface between Zara stores and Zara's head office in La Coru. This team traveled extensively and interacted with store managers and their markets to understand what type of clothes are sold and what types of clothes would be sold. Decisions made by these teams were rarely reviewed as this would compromise the company's speed and decentralized decision making. Zara Information Technology Zara IT is on par with the company strategy of speed and decentralization of decision making. Every information system (IS) across the Inditex company is unique and simple. There are four main business levels or areas within Zara: La Coru (HQ), factories, distribution centers (DC) and stores. Each of these layers has a type of internally developed application or system that supports a business process simply, conveniently and efficiently. Headquarters uses internally developed applications to support operations. La Coru's systems used critical decision attributes that can directly impact sales. The first application was the repair and distribution of the offer/request. This system receives orders from all stores in the world and distributes them via the Internet. The second application compares the aggregate order with available inventory, highlights supply and demand imbalances, and executes salespeople's decisions on how to allocate products. The latest application kept track of the "theoretical inventory". It was theoretical because the inventory would become inaccurate due to the lack of accounting procedures for theft, damage, and other losses. Inditex was not too concerned about the 100% accuracy of these systems as the resulting reward/cost ratio.