Inditex

“I saw it very clearly from that day onwards. I would start working to earn money and help at home. I quit school, left my books and got a job as an assistant in a shirt store.”

“His net worth today is around one hundred and twenty billion dollars. He owns 60% of a publicly traded fast fashion company called Inditex with Zara being a most well-known brand.”

“Optimism can be very negative. You have to take risks. This was something I repeated tirelessly to all those who have joined the company.”

“And what I would share, what I think Henry Ford and Ortega share is that they really built their career on one idea... The existing fashion industry already knew how to make clothes fashionable and expensive. Ortega is going to invent the process to make them …”

“That's the quote computerized the company. And he does this in 1974 before he has. The first Zara store.”

“Zara's main advantage is an astonishing ability to detect fashion trends, assimilate them, make them a reality on the hanger at a bargain price inside of a store that's conveniently located all in less than 15 days.”

“He was convinced. That if he managed to complete the cycle, meaning completely integrated, he could reduce the margins by between 70 and 80%, which would clearly affect the price the end consumer had to pay for each garment.”

“So Zara also produces in those countries, but more than half of Zara's production comes from what they call proximity.”

“Ortega came to administer a holding company of 99 companies. It's gotta be bigger than this now. Of 99 companies that guarantee complete vertical integration, covering not only the textile and clothing sections, but also logistics, marketing, construction, rea…”

“Ortega's company renews its clothes in stores around the world every week and twice weekly in Europe.”

“So they spend like less than one percent of it's estimate less, less than one percent of their revenue on marketing and advertising.”

“So Ortega was never photographed. Only his friends, families, and coworkers knew what he looked like. This is before Into Texco's public.”

“He says, we are a chain of stores with a company attached. We live. So that the store is focused on selling. All the rest of us are at your service.”

“They almost bought Sephora before LVMH buys it.”

“And so there was a Harvard case study written about Inditex before they went public that two million people read.”

“So Inditex cannot refuse an appointment. You can call right now. I'll give you the number. You can just call up and I said, I'm Nikhil Kamath, and I'm a manufacturer of T-shirts. I make sleepwear.”

“In those days, I worked for 12 years exclusively for them. I designed collections for them. I was the only men's manufacturer for them, for Zara man.”

“Zara never inspected my factory for 12 years. They never even visited where I am.”

“So our lead time in our business is generally a hundred to 140 days from order placing to shipment on the vessel. And we, I learned the nag of things from Inditech's kind of a process that you can ship anything within even 45 days.”

“We were their first technology investment, and they've been fantastic partners to work with.”

“Yeah, well, in the text, the parent of Zara just put out their targets where they want to have 40% of their clothing made from recycled sources, an additional 25% from next generation materials, which we would fall in both categories.”

“Now, in this case, and specifically, the company has already the relationships of the likes of the Inditex, the H&Ms, the large brands of the world, where what we see is basically in the first year, as soon as these brands start working with them, they almost …”