Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2012; “third richest man on the planet” reflects the 2012 rankings and “present in more than 70 countries” is the 2012 store footprint, both since changed. His property investments grew considerably after 2012.
Until now the talk has been about the Inditex empire. We have written a great deal about this company’s secrets to its well-deserved success, but the truth is we have learned very little about Amancio Ortega, its creator, because, among other things, discretion has been one of his hallmarks. David Martínez, a journalist at La Vanguardia, has published a book (Zara, visión y estrategia de Amancio Ortega, “Zara: Amancio Ortega’s vision and strategy”), an unauthorized biography that looks at Amancio Ortega as an entrepreneur.
The journalist begins by saying that people talk a lot about Amancio Ortega but write very little about him, and lately, as we can see, he is paying the price of fame: he is criticized even when he donates 20 million to Cáritas (the Catholic charity).
Amancio Ortega, like so many other business people who are at the top today, comes from a humble family, and the truth is that those who know him say he has never lost the humility that defines him. If we have sometimes said that Inditex is the Spanish Apple, David finds quite a few similarities between Steve Jobs and Amancio Ortega, since both have been visionaries in their fields.
Amancio Ortega’s secret as an entrepreneur
Visionary, trend hunter and trendsetter
Amancio Ortega started out by tracking every trend moving through the market. He picked them up and manufactured them quickly, without hesitation, which defined Zara as fast fashion: in a matter of a week, an idea goes from sketch to the store hangers. It sells what the consumer asks for, and anything that doesn’t sell is quickly marked down or got rid of.
Discipline and perseverance
You have to be disciplined in anything you set out to do in life. In Amancio Ortega’s case, he has built that discipline into Inditex. One of the goals burned into Inditex is to send new products to the stores at least every two weeks. Once the products are in the stores, inventory is constantly monitored.
Keeping your feet on the ground is another trait the author sees in Amancio Ortega: a man of character who imposes a way of working that is not authoritarian but is very clear. He is open to talking with anyone and to receiving suggestions from his staff.
At the main plant in Arteixo there is an exact replica of 40 of the group’s stores, recreating the atmosphere a shopper finds on walking into one of them.
In technology as in fashion, change is constant and you have to adapt. Perhaps this is where we find the similarity between Jobs and Ortega, since both were constantly evolving. “One product has barely finished being made when another is already being designed,” and most importantly, it is the customer who tells you what they want (you just have to listen), and as Steve Jobs rightly said, very often “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” That is what Amancio Ortega has managed to do: see a type of garment in the United States and bring it to his stores, see a new fashion in Germany and take it to his stores in the United States.
Nonconformist
Nonconformity is the twin brother of ambition, because to be an entrepreneur you have to be ambitious (but not greedy).
Amancio Ortega grew up in a small town where, for a young man his age, the normal thing would surely not have been to start a medium-sized company, let alone an empire like this one. He decided to take the plunge. Growth was really fast. For most people, the easiest thing would have been to open a couple of stores and leave it there. Fewer headaches. But after the first two stores came four more, then 16, then 100, until today the company is present in more than 70 countries and he is the third richest man on the planet.
And finally, I would add something no less important: keeping debt under control. Amancio Ortega could give us master classes on this, because part of his success has been to base his growth not on buying property but on renting most of his stores and developing an extensive franchise system. Only now is Amancio Ortega starting to buy more stores outright.
Further reading
See also: Small things, if not corrected, become big things
Featured image: Nemigo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
