Inditex

""Inditex has a department of 40 people—how many are there today?, I wonder—dispersed in New York nightclubs, shopping areas of Paris, trendy bars and hotspots in Spain... This trend tracking is known as market testing to target audiences". In the search for more reasons for their overwhelming success, I add one that I think is fundamental: the constant renewal of stock, which changes by 40 percent every week and every three days new batches of clothes arrive at the stores. This means that, while other firms make their collection at once for the whole season, Zara continuously modifies its products according to what people are asking for."

"Speaking of that intuition that led him to start a different way of working, I asked him how he had planned Inditex, the company that has become the most important textile group in the world. His philosophy and solid foundations appear in each of the phrases he is unfolding. He speaks unhurriedly, thinking carefully about what he is going to say. He is clear about the motives of his life. "Since I started, my focus has been a full dedication to work, along with the highest level of demand. I was never satisfied with what I did and I have always tried to instill this attitude in everyone around me. Self-complacency is the worst if you want to achieve something significant. In this company we have never been complacent, not in those years when we were taking our first steps, nor now that we have stores all over the world. Blind optimism is negative. There should always be a desire for improvement and a consistent capacity for criticism. I always thought that to succeed we had to turn the organization upside down every day. But I also tell you that this company is less complicated than it seems. It's very easy to manage.""

"It is true that from the moment he started his career as the last clerk of a shirt shop to today, at the foot of that great empire that is Inditex, he has set aside many opportunities that life offers to those who have made a fortune that is counted in billions; Amancio Ortega has preferred to dedicate himself body and soul to the business he was slowly discovering and in which he remains deeply involved. "We are all born for something," he often repeats with the absolute conviction that he has a mission to fulfill."

"an article published in El País on June 16, 2008, it was commented that "Inditex's rise has been spectacular. Just four years ago, GAP, the leading American company at that time, doubled the Spanish group's sales, which was third behind the Swedish H&M. In 2005, it acquired European dominance and in recent years it has continued to grow strongly while GAP's business stagnated."

"the world, the owner of Inditex told me that he always clearly saw that customers should never be lost sight of. He had stood out in that shirt shop for his way of attending to those who came in. That serious and hardworking boy, always ready to lend a hand to whoever needed him, is the same character who today, at seventy-two years old, knows how to pay attention to those who require his opinion to solve a problem or address an important issue in the dizzying pace of international expansion that the company is moving at."

""But Amancio, what are you doing at Inditex today instead of quietly celebrating at home?", I received the same answer I've heard on other occasions: "Why should I stop coming? Today I do what I always do: work. Only this morning I arrived a bit later. You know that my breakfast is important: first I have something at home with my family and then I go to have breakfast with my friends. I don't need much else to feel happy". "And have you asked for anything special on your day?". "I only ask God for health to keep moving forward," he reiterated to me once again convincingly."

"In 1979 Amancio Ortega gathered all his companies under the Inditex label. During the eighties, he took his stores to all regions of Spain and, before the end of the decade, he dared to compete in the fashion capital, setting up in Paris, and cross the Atlantic to open stores in New York. In the nineties, in line with the globalisation that was beginning, expansion turned into an explosion. Zara set foot in the most important European cities, the Far East, and several Latin American capitals."

"Inditex is the only company, among the big ones in the apparel sector, that is fully vertical; GAP and H&M, for example, design and sell, but do not manufacture, and Benetton designs and manufactures, but their sales outlets are franchised."