Marta Ortega's dilemma in Zara: Being like Juan Roig or Ana Botín
La suerte está echada para Inditex. El próximo abril, Marta Ortega se convertirá en la mujer más poderosa del Ibex, por encima incluso de Ana Botín. No tendrá, por ahora, poder ejecutivo, pero será la cara más visible de la empresa más grande de España.
The great funds, the fashion gurus and financial analysts will closely follow each movement of the heiress of Amancio Ortega.2022 will occupy a capital milestone in the history of Zara.
In the hands of the new president - and of her brand new Management Committee- is the challenge of ensuring that the next chapter is, at least, as successful as the one Pablo Isla will close in April in April.They won't have it easy: these are their challenges.
First Mission: New Strategic Plan
Ortega and the new CEO, Óscar García Maceiras, will be released with almost made annual duties.In December, the 2020-2022 Strategic Plan designed by Isla will expire and, judging by the evolution of the business, Inditex will fully comply with it.The still executive president have never cowed the challenges.On the contrary, he relaunched the strategy in June 2020, in the worst of the pandemic (that month there were almost three million Spaniards in ERTE).
The plan contemplated an investment of 2.700 million, the vast majority aimed at making Inditex an increasingly physical and more online multinational.Of the total, 1.000 million are spending on promoting the sale capacity online.1.Remaining 700 million are destined to technologically improve the platform that integrates its more than 6.600 stores.
Island saw in the tragedy of the Covid an opportunity to expedite digitalization.The turn has not gone badly to Inditex, who managed to sell between January and September of this year almost the same as in the same period of 2019 (19.325 million, only 500 less).But the most significant data has to do with the Internet.Online sales grew by 28% compared to 2020 and a meteoric 124% respect for 2019.This evolution reflects that the reopening of physical stores and the recoil of the pandemic has not stopped the trend pursued by the company.Namely that Zara's clients and the rest of the teachers buy more and more through the web and app.
Marta Ortega and García Maceiras will take the helm in April with the multinational advancing at high cruise speed.Your first mission, therefore, will be to finish off the strategic plan and, above all, start assembling the following.It is a height challenge.Who has defined Inditex's strategy in the last 16 years is Pablo Isla.And the results support him as a manager of 'Champions'.His is the merit of making sales and benefits grow much faster than the workforce (176.611 employees) and the commercial network (7.469 stores).Productivity in its purest form.
Digital Horizon
The island strategic plan pursues Inditex invoice, at the end of 2022, more than 25% through the Internet.If nothing twists, the company will reach the milestone one year in advance;that is, at the end of 2021.Marta Ortega's great challenge and the new managing team will be to maintain that level and widen it over time.
In favor of Inditex he has played so far the change of consumer habits, driven by first restrictions and fear of infections later.The great unknown now is to know if consumers will bow again for face -to -face purchases or maintain their inclination for digital."The only thing that has done the current situation is to accelerate existing trends," says a KPMG report on the sector.The consultant provides an increase in online global sales from 17% to 2024, well above the next ranking channel (that of sales with discounts, which will increase by 3.4%).
The latest PWC survey about consumer habits ('Global Consumer Insights Pulse') reflected that more than 50% of consumers - both in Spain as the world - recognizes having become "more digital".Almost 40% of Spaniards claim use the mobile at least once a week to make some online purchase.Now the consultant itself recalls that "online purchases continue to grow, but the physical store recovers positions".The future is not much less written for distribution giants.
Inditex has been preparing the terrain for years, from the operational point of view and, of course, looking at new 'windows'.In 2021, the company will break the barrier of the 200 million followers on social networks (closed 2020 with 199 million and 2019 with 175 million) progression.The largest open window to online customers - actual and potential - is Zara's, which adds more than half of the global 'followers': 106 million, with Instagram and Facebook at the head (44.3 million and 27,7millions, respectively ".
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The Platform of the Future
Amancio Ortega was a pioneer when developing a logistics system that allowed distributing garments at high speed and working with little 'stock'.The main key was in the fluidity of the exchange of information, which allowed to quickly marry the demand and tastes of customers with the offer of designers.That system made the founder billonario.Now, under the mandate of Marta Ortega, the group must make the latest adjustments to another large technological platform: the Inditex Open Platform (IOP).
Like the Galician tycoon, Pablo Isla was aware that a digital future required a commitment to determined technology.Since 2012, the company had been investing an average of 1.000 million annually in digitalization of your business.In 2018, in view of the progression experienced online sales, Inditex reaffirmed its strategy by launching the IOP project.Island and its team discarded the possibility of outsourcing such a strategic service for the future.
The update of the computer systems, with the Inditex Open Platform at the head, will absorb another 2.700 million investment until 2022.It already circulate all digital operations linked to electronic commerce: from the purchase of a garment to the 'stock' consultation, through user behavior analysis, with "flexibility and scalability to guarantee excellence of service inMoments of greater traffic in sales, "they remember in the company.
The threat that comes from China
If something has shown during his long career Amancio Ortega is the ability to anticipate.The problem is that in the world there are other visionaries with sufficient ambition and talent to steal part of the cake. Si el magnate gallego tuvo que competir duro en las tiendas con rivales como H&M o Primark, Marta Ortega tendrá que lidiar ahora con los nativos digitales de la moda y la distribución.And, obviously, with the online versions of traditional competitors.
In the ranking of threats it shines with its own light Shein.With only 13 years of life -in front of Zara 46 -the Chinese company already sells in 220 countries and competes with Amazon in volume of downloads of its app.In fact, in 2020 theirs was the most installed.Shein more than Inditex on the Internet and sweeps social networks.
Saving the distances, the signature based in Guangzhou shares with Zara the fortune of having customers who are 'fans'.It does not have a few prescribers of a lot of level, but thousands and thousands of small prescribers.And that, in the world of social networks, is pure gold for a distribution company.
Shein sweeps Asia thanks, in part, to the advertising they make in Tik tok their millions of followers, hanging videos of their garments.The Chinese company does not have physical stores and operates with less 'stock' even than Inditex.Also with a tremendous capacity of rotation: in a week he is able to design and put a garment into circulation, and remove it if it is not to like his 'followers'.
The great decision: fame or anonymity
Amancio Ortega managed to maintain anonymity for 36 years.The current empire was born in 1963 as with the name of Confecciones Goa and Zara began to walk in 1975.But until September 15, 1999, only a few in Spain knew the face of the richest businessman.Ortega's first photo appeared in Inditex's annual report.From then on, the founder has been seen - and photographing - with dropper.He has never granted interviews or if he has been seen at the company's meetings, or when he was president or when he retired.
Marta Ortega now faces the situation of choosing her level of prominence and notoriety.The future president has not dodged photographers as their parent, but has not been proactive when it comes to 'alternate' with the press.He is known more for his participation in equestrian competitions and his circle of friendships with 'glamor', than for his role in family emporium.It has come out more on the 'couché' role than in the 'salmon'.
The first interview he granted was millimetrically studied.In August he allowed a journalist from The Wall Street Journal to interrogate her thoroughly and that a photographer did a session.It was his staging, a first step for his future jump to the presidency.But the growing differences between Pablo Isla and the founding family precipitated the relay.
From April, Ortega has to choose to enhance its image and link it to the Inditex values, or remain in anonymity allowing - or not - some licenses.In the world of family businesses there are examples of a thing and the opposite, and there is no confirmed formula of success.However, the most common tendency is discretion.
Marta Ortega can choose Ana Botín's 'path'.Santander is not comparable to Inditex for the composition of capital, but has always been closely linked to family lineage.When Emilio Botín happened in office, the current presidency decided to place himself in the focus and push with his image the position of the bank in debates such as climate change, gender gap or sustainability.
But Amancio Ortega's daughter can also follow the steps of Juan Roig.The President and main shareholder of Mercadona never grants interviews and only shows the face once before the press, at the annual press conference, to present the group accounts.It is the only day of the year that is put in the trigger before the media.
In his hand - and in the army of inditex advisors - there is the decision to become the protagonist of the successes, which also implies assuming a risk: to load with the greatest invoice of the failures.
