Zara IT for Fast Fashion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Zara IT for Fast Fashion - Essay Example The case study "Zara IT for Fast Fashion" indicates that the company relies on an outdated operating system for the store terminals and lacks readily available network across all the stores. The dilemma that the management is grappling with is determining whether they should upgrade the present system and loose the reliability that characterises the current system or proceed with the current DOS-based system that is devoid of compatibility to the future improvements. The case study focuses on Zara, the largest retail chain for Inditex, Spanish retail giant, and the manner in which it has been successful due to its flexibility, excellent fashions and application of a simple business model (McAfee, Dessain and Sjoman, 2007). The head of the IT department in the company, Salgado, is grappling with a dilemma on whether to upgrade the IT capabilities and infrastructure for the retailers or retain the current system. The case study indicates that the company relies on an outdated operating system (OS) for the store terminals and lacks readily available network across all the stores. The Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) seems to be working well as no major challenges have been witnessed in the course of its long time use. One of the major concerns expressed by Salgado in the long run is that Zara Point of Sale (POS) is running on MS-DOS that is not supported by Microsoft Inc. According to Capell (2008), DOS has been replaced by Windows since 2001, the same time that Microsoft Inc stopped supporting DOS.