All about Inditex Tempe perfect symbiosis story - From Inditex to Tempe, the story of a perfect symbiosis that lives its lowest hours: the flight of workers and an "ankylosed" structure in the main footwear supplier of Zara.
Tempe is, in the eyes of many, a true unknown.
The company, in which Inditex controls 50% of the capital, plays a vital role for the textile giant: it is responsible for supplying footwear to all its brands, including the ubiquitous Zara.
The company designs, markets and distributes the footwear and accessories of the eight brands that make up the portfolio of the company founded by Amancio Ortega.
The same ones that generate more than 27,000 million euros in revenue per year through 6,477 stores and the push of the online channel.
Inditex Tempe perfect symbiosis story
Tempe plays a decisive role: the company, based in Alicante, moves more than one hundred million pairs of footwear per year and its turnover exceeds 1,000 million euros per year, according to the accounts deposited in the Mercantile Registry.
All this places the company as a national and undisputed leader in its sector, and therefore, the family behind it, the García Peralta, in one of the richest in Spain, with the permission of its partners, the Ortega.
However, this entrepreneurial brilliance contrasts with a "systematic" talent drain and motivated, according to its workers, by the difficulty of growing internally and an "ankylosed" structure without synergies with Zara, the flagship of Inditex.
The history of Tempe goes back 30 years ago, when it started its operations.
Behind the company is Vicente García Torres, a consecrated Alicante footwear entrepreneur.
Inditex Tempe perfect symbiosis story revealed
Her family is the founder of the Garvalín brand, one of the largest children's footwear groups in the country, together with Pablosky, and which is led by her brothers, José and Estanislao.
Vicente García Torres disassociated himself from the family business when, at the end of the eighties, he began his relationship with Amancio Ortega.
What, a priori, was going to be a one-off order for one of the brands, crystallized in a firm and lasting relationship over time?
To materialize this commercial alliance, García Torres founded, in 1989, Promociones Azarbe, the holding company through which he controls 50% of Tempe, where his daughter, María Isabel García Peralta, represents the interests of the family.
Through this company it also operates in the real estate sector, in oil production and even in the cinematographic world, with Aliwood Mediterráneo Producciones, according to the local media Las Provincias.
Inditex Tempe perfect symbiosis story functions
Currently, García's functions would be more focused on the strategic plan than on the operations of the business, led by his son, Antonio García Peralta, current CEO.
The family, despite its proven discretion - which it shares with its partners, the Ortegas —, is ranked 110º of the richest in Spain in 2022, according to the list made annually by El Mundo.
Spain plays a major role in the footwear sector. In 2020, the domestic market produced more than eighty-three million pairs, which translated into 1,457 million euros.
The pandemic took a bite out of its accounts of 643 million and thirty-seven million fewer items, according to the latest annual report of AEC, the industry association.
How important Elche is in this scenario is reflected in the fact that it assumes 62% of production at the national level. Only the Valencian Community accounts for 82% of the companies dedicated to the sector, whose number currently rises to 3,543.
In all of them, internationalization is key. According to the General Directorate of Customs, last year 131.4 million pairs were sold abroad for a value exceeding 2,250 million.
The Tempe facilities occupy an area of 460,000 square meters. The last expansion was completed in 2019, after the award of a plot of almost 300,000 square meters, owned by the Port Authority of Valencia (APV), for thirty-one million euros.
Regarding the business model, Álvaro Sanchez, general director of the Spanish association of footwear components companies (AEC) clarifies that the sector's operations have well-differentiated phases: design, manufacturing, and marketing.
And Tempe, despite being in one of the largest industrial poles in the sector, does not manufacture in its centre. As stated in the Mercantile Registry, in national territory, the company only assumes the distribution and design of the product — in addition to having its headquarters located—.
The commercialization of this falls on three subsidiaries -2 in Shanghai and Hong Kong, respectively, and one in Istanbul-.It also has two more companies, in Mexico and Brazil, both without activity.
The visible head of the association points out that the manufacture of footwear — which includes the phases of cutting, folding, and machining — consists of several steps. For some of them, they work with companies in the region, while others are carried out outside the country.
"Inditex designs in Elche and can use leathers that come from another country, while resorting to a company in the region to, for example, make the soles and ask, in turn, that it move the material to another location where the complete assembly of the footwear is carried out," he points out.
This explains the usual fact of resorting to auxiliary companies in the area, while the assembly of the footwear can be carried out in a country that offers a lower production cost.
# Inditex Tempe perfect symbiosis story #
