The Effects of Zara to the SMEs of an Emerging Market ZARA

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국마케팅과학회
· 수록지 정보 : Journal of Global Fashion Marketing / 2권 / 1호 / 1 ~ 10페이지
· 저자명 : Gresi Sanje Dahan, Filiz Balta Peltekoglu

초록

Globalization can be described as a systematic decline in theboundaries of the cross-national flow of products, values, ideas,labors and capitals. In other words, globalization disregards anyphysical boundaries and wipes out the classical meaning of domesticmarket. Therefore it creates a true challenge for everylocal enterprise but especially for SMEs (Small and MediumEnterprises) of the emerging countries since competition is increasingand every local industry is losing its exclusively nationalcharacter by globalization.
While the definition of SMEs can easily be a topic of anacademic paper, SMEs are commonly regarded as small businesssystems with some unique characteristics. Some of theseunique characteristics are positive business attributes such asflexibility, independency, informality, innovative behaviour, operationpossibilities on slim margins, high motivation of employees,short decision-making chains, and negative attributessuch as limited financial, managerial, human and informationalresources. Besides these attributes, SMEs are mostly defined aslocal businesses, significantly having highly personalized managementstyles, employing less than one hundred employees.
As SMEs are more vulnerable, especially due to the lack offinancial resources, most of the SMEs can’t meet the needs ofthe global competition and get vitally effected by the growingpace of globalization. It is known that SMEs are significantlyimportant for a country’s financial environment, therefore therelatively high rate of SMEs failure can easily damage theeconomy of any country. This fact is especially true in emergingcountries where economies are fragile and any kind offailure is harmful. Yet the interest of global companies towardscreating global brands has a negative impact on the SMEs ofthe emerging countries. As the relative prices of SMEs productsfall due to the increased global competition, these firmsfind themselves in financially difficult positions especially interms of cash flow circulation. Under the pressure of globalization,enterprises encounter major challenges that can besummarized as retaining short-term competitive advantages, reactingto globalization challenges in real-time and solving issuesconcerning long-term competitiveness. One good exampleof globalization’s negative effects on SMEs is as seen in theclothing industry by the global brand Zara. The global fashion brand Zara, the subsidiary of the SpanishInditex Group, is credited as the leading company offast-fashion. The brand, that was ranked 73rd on the list ofthe world’s 100 top brands 2006 by Interbrand, has transformeditself from a local brand to a global brand in less than30 years. The success of Zara basically comes from thechange it has made to fashion industry; from changing fashionfrom an elite accessory of the super-rich to a mass-marketproduct. Additionally Zara handles fashion products as non-durableand disposable items with a maximum three to fourweek sell-by period and this mentality is called fast-fashion.
It’s been observed that customers react to the fast-fashion approachdifferently and estimated that customers visit Zarastores 17 times a year on average. As the result of these frequentvisits, Zara handles a great velocity of sales, in 2008Zara has announced 10,407.435 million € turnover with 1,253million € profit.
Since Zara’s products are not associated with any country-specific image, they are labeled as global products representingglobal fashion trends. With this global appeal, Zara becamevery successful in every country within a short period oftime, inevitably effected every local market, and Turkey wasn’tan exception.
Turkish clothing industry is relatively an important player ofthe global arena as it is the world’s sixth biggest ready-wearmanufacturer and The European Union’s second largest supplierafter China. The industry is typically characterized by small,low-capital, family-run businesses, many of which has simpleoperations generally with no original designs. Since most ofthe companies are family owned and managed by the entrepreneur,the industry is left without well-trained, professionalmanagement. Short term gains are becoming more importantthan long term goals, therefore the industry is falling behindfrom brand investments, research and development. Anothermajor issue of the SMEs are the high energy costs and unpredictablepower cuts. Additional to energy problems there isthe issue of high rates of taxes and financing. These highrates causes another disadvantage to the SMEs as these costsare cutting down most of their profit. Labour costs which represent12 to 20% of production costs, is another problematicissue. Although labour costs remain low compared to Europe,it is still much higher than in Asia. Yet despite the negativedevelopments, the industry has been able to compete successfullyin the global arena. But since globalization has broadenedthe challenges and fashion brands such as Zara has entered thedomestic market, the cost-based competition with an increasedtime pressure demand will be shaping the Turkish industry innear future. After the brief literature review, this paper provides aclose-look at Zara’s effects on SMEs of Turkish clothing industryby utilizing a survey of 50 SMEs that are active in oneof the busiest retail districts of the industry. As for the outcomeof the survey, it is found that all SMEs are strongly effectedby the entrance of Zara in terms of competition, increasein the number of items, pricing and decrease in thequantity of items. As for the result of Two Step ClusterAnalysis two main cluster group of SMEs are defined. Thefirst cluster, which is formed by SMEs targeting women,working in the market for at least 10 years with more than 25employees is definitely effected by the entrance of Zara.
Where second cluster, which is formed by SMEs targeting otherthan women, working in the market for less than 10 yearswith less than 25 employees is less effected by Zara.

참고자료

· 없음