Zara’s are just two to four weeks, allowing it to release one hundred collections per year. This blistering pace is possible because Zara controls its value chain from end to end, and its choices all along the value chain are different from its rivals. Zara makes some significant trade-offs—in how it promotes its brand, how it designs its merchandise, and how it manages production, logistics, and inventory. Zara’s success comes not from one choice, but from the way these many choices fit together to reinforce each other.
