Chapter 15 Article: Companies Willing to Take Risks in a Recession

I chose an article from BusinessWeek. The article talks about companies that are taking risks in this recession. The article was pretty long and talked about many different companies all using the recession as a tool to either buy out companies with cash hoards or expand globally. I turned my focus on one particular section about a company called Inditex based in Spain. This company chose to continue to go global even in this recession. Inditex is one of the worlds leading textile distribution groups. They are the owner of clothing retailer Zara which has annual sales of $14 billion across 4,264 outlets. The company has been praised for its outstanding supply china management organization that allows it to adapt to changing economies.

Inditex is now expanding aggressively adding as many as 450 stores this year! This has to do with chapter 15 because they are not only expanding throughout Spain but also into the U.S. They already have 42 stores in the U.S. and will be adding to that number by opening stores in Chicago, the Midwest and Florida. The company is fortunate enough to take advantage of this economical climate especially in the United States. Right now in the U.S. there are so many retail stores going out of business. This has left prime real estate open and available to be bought up very inexpensively by Inditex and other companies wanting to get a chunk of the U.S. market.

This article shows that with the proper planning and knowledge of your global market you can be successful in any sort of economy. Initex has been lucky to have such a strong supply chain management system. This has given them the base to go global and continue going global keeping all operations in order. With further research I found that Inditex has also recently moved to a centralized web based shipping platform to improve shipping visibility. The message I took away from this article was that even if a company has already gone global there is still always room for expansion. With expansion may come further improvements that a company must be willing to roll with in order to be a success.

Works Cited

Weber, Joseph. (June 11, 2009). Companies Willing to Take Risks in a Recession. Retrieved June, 15, 2009, from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_25/b4136036137349.htm