News English — Vertical Integration

Today we cannot just separate online and offline... wise words by Daniel Zhang, the CEO of Alibaba, who is eyeing a $2.6bn deal to take the Chinese "Intime Retail Group" department store chain private. Source: FT.com This follows several offline moves by a number of "tradtitionally online" companies including Amazon, Made.com, Boohoo, Zalando, Farfetch and others. The main advantage moving from online to offline is the corporate culture of accepting and managing with multi-year losses to build a better business. Most offline businesses with online add-ons have a culture of carefully weighted KPI's on which bonuses and other advantages are...

Laundry Athletics Ltd, the company behind the SuperDry brand and headquartered in Cheltenham, United Kingdom, posted a a jump in total revenues for the year to April 30th, 2015 compared to the previous year. The primary driver for the rise was their retail arm. The company has announced it will be investing in developing its own retail network in non-UK locations around Western Europe in the coming year. Superdry currently has 202 own shops. Link to FT.com article (subscribers only)

Benetton accelerated with huge growth in the 70's and 80's growing into a global force in colourful fashion with controversial adverts a very innovative supply chain. However, due to its vertical focus the company has taken at least two steps backwards during the 2000's reversing its fortunes. Our view is simple - Benetton, follow what you say! Take the initiative. Download our free Benetton report here # Companies mentioned in this report includes: Inditex, Zara, H&M, LVMH, New Look, YG Entertainment,