From Apprenticeship To ZARA, Ortega Became The Richest Man In Europe.

ZARA, 313, and 418, Times Square, 1, Tongluowan, Hongkong. Two stores are opened here in one breath, showing the latest style of the season in the glass window. The big signs attract people's attention, and next door is a world-famous one.

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This is ZARA. It only selects the best locations to open stores, and is not afraid to compete with the top brands in the world.

In New York, ZARA (micro-blog) chose Fifth Avenue; in Paris, ZARA chose Champs Elysees street; in Shanghai, ZARA chose Nanjing road.

In the past 36 years, ZARA has always adhered to the strategy of "zero advertising".

Every time a new market is landed, ZARA will first open a shop in the most prosperous section of the big city center, then extend its tentacles to smaller towns, and let the brand influence radiate across the country without advertising.

"It's like a drop of oil spreading slowly on the fabric surface."

ZARA founder Amancio Ortega (Amancio Ortega) called this strategy the "oil pollution model".

In August of this year, the ugly old Spanish old man, Warren Buffett, was the third in the list of the world's richest men.

Looking back on the list in recent years, as long as we pay a little attention, we will find that the position of the top three companies has been monopolized by Mexico Telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helu, Microsoft (micro-blog) founder Bill Gate and "stock god" Warren Buffett.

However, this pattern has now been reversed by Ortega.

On the list of 2012 billionaires announced by Forbes this spring, oat ranked fifth in the net assets of 37 billion 500 million dollars, and Buffett ranked third in assets of 44 billion dollars.

Only half a year later, Ortega achieved pcendence.

Bloomberg's latest Bloomberg billionaire index shows that the European upstart squeezed Buffett, the $46 billion 600 million, to become the only rich list after Carlos ($74 billion 200 million) and Gates ($63 billion).

Under his leadership, Inditex group (ZARA parent company) has a global revenue of 13 billion 790 million euros in fiscal year 2011, exceeding the US GAP, Sweden's H&M and Japan's UNIQLO, becoming the world's top apparel retail group.

The group's share price also rose from 23.65 euros in March 2009 to 91.37 euros in August 8th this year, or 286%.

At the same time, ZARA headquarters in Spain is another scene: the domestic unemployment rate is as high as 20%, and the government is very tight financially, almost relying on borrowing.

Apprenticeship Ortega

ZARA parent Inditex group is located in La Coruna, northwest of Spain. It is only 280 thousand of the remote fishing port town. It belongs to Galicia. It used to be a private dealer, pirate and medieval tailor.

It is also known as "the end of the world", and it can be completed in 10 minutes along the coastline.

Ortega's achievement is not only because it happened in a depressed country like Spain in an economic depression, but also because it happened in Galicia, the most depressed area in northwestern Spain.

This is one of the poorest parts of Spain. Most of the economically healthy residents move to other provinces or emigrate overseas.

In local elections, a funny phenomenon can often be seen: politicians in the region will run to Argentina to vote with Mexico, because these places often focus on a large number of local voters, and overseas voters in some cities even account for about 30% of the total number of local voters.

In Spain, most successful entrepreneurs are backed up by solid families. Large family businesses are everywhere in this country.

Ortega is obviously a special case.

He has neither design talent nor "rich two generation". He was once described by the media as "a poor boy from a small fishing village".

Such an appraisal is not excessive.

In 1936, a few months before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Ortega was born in Leon near Galicia.

His father was a railway maintenance worker. His salary was only three hundred pexas a month, and it was difficult for a family to eat five meals.

At the age of eight, Ortega's family moved to La Coruna for his father's work.

Here, men go to sea to catch fish, women do housework, and life is simple and leisurely.

No one would have thought that this remote place would become the start and takeoff of Ortega's career.

An ordinary afternoon in 1948, mother went to school to pick up Ortega from school.

On the way home, I passed a grocery store, and my mother was going to buy some sweets for Ortega.

The counter of the shop was very high. Ortega, who was so short, could not see the shopkeeper. He heard him say to his mother, "madam, I'm sorry, I can't give you any more credit."

"I heard very clearly. I thought at the time that I was going to make money. This kind of thing could never happen to my mother."

Ortega was sensitive and shy in childhood, but at the same time he had an arrogance and was afraid of being looked down upon.

It is more painful for your mother to be treated like this than to be humiliated.

At that time, La Coruna was already the traditional textile and garment industry center in Spain, where residents had many opportunities to master the whole process of fashion design, processing, wholesale and retail.

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Ortega, 13, dropped out of school, and he went to a clothing store as an apprentice.

This is a high-end tailoring shop specializing in making shirts for the rich.

Ortega's job is boring: run errands in town every day and deliver the new shirts to the guest's home.

Later, he began to work as an assistant for the tailor and gradually came into contact with the core area of costume design.

In the process of working, he found out.

The "hidden rules" of the industry: a garment from design to production, and then to store shelves, this process contains huge profits.

He dreamed of earning money one day.

So he began to focus on how to skip middlemen and sell products directly to consumers.

At that time, in a bar called "Sarri n" in the city, people often saw a young clothing delivery clerk holding a friend to talk about entrepreneurship.

"I must make something!" this guy shouted all day.

Needless to say, he is Ortega.

Because of his dream of starting a business, Ortega is very good at learning. If he has the chance, he will personally participate in the design and production of clothing, which will lay a foundation for his future in the fashion industry.

From pajamas processing plant to ZARA

A few years later, older oajia came to work at La Maja senior clothing store.

Soon, he and a client's daughter talked about love.

The girl's mother is very rich.

One day, she came to the shop and asked the boss, "how about your son? Come out and let me see you."

When she learned that Ortega was not the boss's son and was just an ordinary shop assistant, he ordered her daughter not to return to Ortega.

"At that time, all the rich people were very concerned about their money. In fact, they were not big money, but they thought they were superior to others."

This little incident touched Ortega very much. "I have to prove myself with no slack work."

Ortega, who was smart and smart, worked hard to get ahead. He quickly rose to the fore and was promoted to department manager.

A few years later, he married Rosalia Mela Gyenicella, the girl who was squeezed under the position of department manager. This is his first wife.

In the early 60s of last century, the boss asked him to sell a beautiful and elegant lady's cotton pajamas.

He noticed that this kind of Nightgown is very popular among female consumers, but the price is too expensive for most consumers. Only a few wealthy customers come to ask for it.

So he began to cut and sew on the rough cardboard model with cheap cloth produced in Barcelona, and made a similar Nightgown style, but the price was reduced by half.

In 1963, he founded the ConfeccionesGoa clothing factory, specializing in producing cheap and cheap nightgowns and selling them to local stores.

He was 27 years old.

In the ten years, ConfeccionesGoa expanded from three small family workshops to more than 500 large garment factories, and also had its own design team.

What Ortega lacks at this time is just a retail channel.

But the final birth of ZARA is somewhat wrong.

The oil crisis in the 70s of last century swept the European business.

In 1975, a German company temporarily cancelled a large order.

Ortega, who is on the verge of bankruptcy, decided to save himself, and temporarily set up a ZARA brand to produce and sell himself.

This year, he opened the world's first ZARA store in the most prosperous business district of La Coruna.

He chose the store on the opposite side of the most famous store on central street.

ZARA soon won the attention of young European consumers for its fashionable designs and approachable prices.

"Fashion follower"

Although the GAP brand has been successful in North America and the UK with the same marketing strategy, Ortega has come up with a new way to define ZARA as a pioneer of Spanish popular fashion.

At that time, the British palace and Cortefiel two department stores controlled the middle end clothing market in Spain, but they did not have the fashion sense that young people needed.

Unlike the fashion industry's popular fashion promotion promotion brand, ZARA always studies consumers' buying tendency first and then launches micro-blog's fashion products to meet their needs.

In the process of thinking and figured out until the finished product, ZARA undoubtedly walked ahead.

A spokesman for the Inditex group said that the secret of ZARA's success is to "keep pace with customers' needs in the shortest possible time".

More than 260 civilian designers hired by ZARA often travel to various fashion conferences around the world for inspiration, get in and out of all kinds of fashion venues, collect trend information, pick the most popular styles of customers, and then change the design to quickly pform the brand new products of ZARA into production and sales.

Each product of ZARA will last five weeks from design to shelf. The refurbishment time of the module will be shorter. It will take only two weeks, far ahead of most of the industry's 8 months or even more than a year.

The Harvard Business Review called it the "15 day myth of ZARA".

ZARA launched a total of 11000 ready-made garments in one year, and in the same time, Europe's clothing retail giant H&M and American leisure chain GAP also launched less than 4000 models.

Ortega was therefore called the "fast fashion maker" by the outside world.

"In fact, shopkeepers and people who sell things think differently."

Antonio Kamenillas, his good friend and former president of the New York chamber of Commerce in Spain, had a deep observation on him. "The boss can choose what he likes to sell, while the salesperson has no choice. He has only one aim: to sell the things in the shop.

Ortega is the latter.

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The fast selling fashion chain from Spain is growing at a staggering pace. From the first ZARA clothing store in La Coruna, the brand store in 1980s has spread all over Spain.

In 1989, Ortega opened more than 100 ZARA stores across Spain.

At the same time, he also led ZARA step by step onto the international stage.

In 1988, ZARA opened its first foreign branch in Oporto, Portugal, and opened its stores in New York in 1989.

In 1990, ZARA even attacked Paris, the global fashion capital.

This is one of the most expensive areas in Paris.

The Paris Opera House is directly opposite, ZARA and Chanel, Dior and other high fashion shops are far away from each other.

On the day of opening up, he was extremely disturbed.

Far away, he looked at the customers waiting to enter the shop and lined up on the road. When he came near the shop door, he found he could not cross the endless stream of people in the shop.

ZARA was accepted by the most strict Parisians.

Ortega, 54 years old, stood at the door of the shop and cried excitedly like a child.

ZARA has made an incredible success, and even advertising has completely lost its role, because word of mouth is enough to fill every store with young people.

Young girls know that every Tuesday and Thursday ZARA will launch new products. They will even go to work in droves to buy new clothes.

India's business world magazine thinks: "the traditional fashion industry always tries to influence consumers with the trend of early prediction, but ZARA is just a fashion follower. It concentrates its energy on catering to consumers' tastes, what they want, and what they produce, and then let the product go on as fast as possible."

"It must be terrible for him."

Ortega replicated the success of ZARA in the other five brands.

In 2001, Inditex group went public and its share price soared. Ortega became Spain's richest man.

After becoming famous, he became more and more low-key.

He doesn't print business cards and rarely accepts media interviews.

He said, "there are only three things in life that need to appear in newspapers: birth, marriage and death."

Before 1999, his pictures never appeared in the media.

It was not until 2001 when Inditex first published its annual report that he had his first official portrait.

He still does not change his simplicity.

At noon, he still used to walk into the staff restaurant and eat with his subordinates.

In addition to formal banquets, he always likes to order an omelette sausage and fries, which is simple and not wasted.

At Inditex group headquarters, although there is a room called "exclusive office of President", it is hard for you to see Ortega there.

As he entered the old age, he still shuttled in various departments or workshop of the company, paid attention to the details of the fashion design and production process, and chatted with the designer who was only more than 20 years old with average age. He was also nicknamed "no office boss".

Ortega doesn't like working with people who are wearing uniform.

When preparing for the Intidex group's listing, he faced endless harassment from investment bankers.

"It must be very hard for him."

At that time, a banker told Spanish reporters.

The brand that he created all over the world's streets and alleys, he is famous but he is hidden in the market.

Last January 10th, at the most brilliant stage of his career, Ortega announced his retirement from the Inditex group and left the company he founded and insisted on for nearly 50 years.

"Dear friends, now is the time."

No media photo, no farewell party, he issued a short statement to 98000 employees, appointed Inditex vice president and chief executive officer Pablo Ira as CEO.

"Ortega will not play golf after retirement."

Jose Reno, a friend and professor of marketing at IESE business school in Barcelona, jokes. "He likes this career from his bones. I don't think he will give up his job until he dies."

ZARA's China strategy

At the time of retirement, Ortega's career also reached its peak.

As of 2011, ZARA has opened nearly 5000 stores in more than 70 countries and regions, with a turnover of up to 13 billion 790 million euros last year and net profit of 1 billion 900 million euros.

Although the European debt crisis has hit Spain in recent years, the Inditex group has been developing against the trend and has made brilliant achievements.

In the first 3 quarters of 2010, when the economy was at its weakest, group turnover continued to grow by 14% to 8 billion 900 million euros.

According to analysis, the success of Ortega's success is due to the rapid development of Inditex group in China and other emerging markets, thus reducing its dependence on the domestic market and greatly reducing the impact of the European debt crisis on enterprises.

Statistics show that from 2007 to 2011, the number of new stores opened in China every year increased year by year, followed by 12 in 2007, 23 in 2008, 44 in 2009, 71 in 2010, and 101 in 2011 in ZARA.

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In February 2006, ZARA opened in China's first store, Nanjing West Road store, Shanghai, which is a classic case in the industry.

In order to be in the most prosperous area, ZARA waited patiently for 1 years.

On the first day of opening, the store created a record of 800 thousand yuan in daily sales.

However, the sale of hot ZARA in China is not without weakness, and the quality problem becomes its Achilles heel.

In 2009, in the Shanghai industry and Commerce Bureau (micro-blog) exposure of unqualified sandals brand, ZARA was in the list; Beijing Municipal Association also detected a coat of ZARA coat containing unqualified cashmere.

"The characteristics of ZARA are always in the forefront of the trend. The target customers are those fashionable women who will wear clothes. This part of the crowd likes to follow the wind, and the demand for quality is relatively backward."

One industry insider said.

Ortega admits that ZARA is a fast fashion brand. It is not a creator, but a quick responder to the trend.

The word "Shanzhai", which is made in China, seems to have been used flexibly by Ortega.

The fashion company has no way to deal with him. After several days of the new conference, there will be a similar style in the ZARA store.

Every year, ZARA pays tens of millions of euros for this mode of infringement, but Ortega did not give up because ZARA earned a lot more money than the fine.

Now, Ortega still has 60% of the group's shares and remains in the company and board of directors.

He was no longer poor. He had the ability to buy a yacht and build a racecourse for his daughter.

However, the more successful his career, the more he longs for answers to life.

He once held a wooden stick with four degrees, and embarked on the famous pilgrimage road, "Saint Jacob's road", to endure the high temperature of 40 degrees in summer and cross over four mountains on foot.

When ZARA became Spain's largest

When he was a retailer, he went back to his hometown and opened a store.

"It's a very small village with only four families."

At that time, the little boy who could not reach the counter had become an old man. "No one can hurt me. The past is gone. I never hate anyone."