El Corte Ingles Study Case
El Corte Inglés can be considered one of the most successfully world case in its sector of business nowadays. The expansion along the history until it becomes a leader in the Spanish market was impressive. El Corte Inglés is originally a department store opened in 1935 in Madrid, Spain. From 60’s, the shop starts its expansion in line with the department store concept into other cities of Spain, and then diversified its commercial activities in other business sectors, like travel agency and supermarket.
In this text, I will try to make an international analysis of this particular company, El Corte Inglés, presenting all the steps studied in four parts: Demand analysis, Supply analysis, Industry structure, Strategic issues for the industry.
1. Demand analysis
El Corte Ingles is the first group of Spanish distribution and one of the world's leading department stores. In a traditional store, there are more than 10 departments, including Electronics, Informatics, Culture and Books, Sports Equipments, Fashion and Wearing, Kids Accessories, Toys, Home Furniture, Perfums and Fragrances and others. In most of them, there are also a Coffee and Gourmet Shop, Travel Agency and Insurance Center. All of them are almost in a same place.
The department stores are located in large urban centers, as Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Bilbao and now in Lisbon. Their space is designed like a Shopping center with a great variety of products and services, distributed in a large, fashion and comfortable dimension (more than 2.500m2) with 2 or more floors and escalators, to satisfy the customer.
The company is located in Spain and Portugal, and plans to expand into other parts in Europe where concentrates 24% of the geographical distribution of consumption (FREIRE, 1998). El Corte Ingles uses modern commercial equipments that facilitates the staff’s work and accelerate time to their customers. The company also has a social concern...
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