Up to this point it can be stated that Zara follows a cost leadership strategy; it is driven by following the lowest cost operation in the apparel industry, it produces highly standardized products using high technology. This holds true at their DC’s where a great amount of automation is used because the rest of the business is falling short. Stores have to rely on fax machines and phone calls to headquarters for orders, inventory is not up to date at store level, even PDA’s used by managers are not connected to other stores to share information about inventory. The lack of a chief information officer impoverishes Zara’s decision making in their initiatives to upgrade their IT department.Up to this point it can be stated that Zara follows a cost leadership strategy; it is driven by following the lowest cost operation in the apparel industry, it produces highly standardized products using high technology. This holds true at their DC’s where a great amount of automation is used because the rest of the business is falling short. Stores have to rely on fax machines and phone calls to headquarters for orders, inventory is not up to date at store level, even PDA’s used by managers are not connected to other stores to share information about inventory. The lack of a chief information officer impoverishes Zara’s decision making in their initiatives to upgrade their IT department.