????西班牙北部的拉科魯尼亞，一輛摩托車呼嘯著駛到交通燈下，在一輛黑色的林肯城市轎車旁停住。車內(nèi)的乘客向車窗外瞟了一眼，看到了俯在車把上的年輕摩托車騎手。后者身穿一件貼花斜紋粗布夾克，帶有一種上世紀(jì)70年代的復(fù)古風(fēng)情。車?yán)锏哪凶颖闰T手要大上幾十歲，他把視線集中在那件夾克上。老年男子拿起他的手機，打給自己辦公室的一名助手。他的視線仍然鎖定在騎手的身上，對那件夾克的針腳、剪裁和顏色進行了描述，最終發(fā)出一條指令：“?Hácedla！”意思是：“做出來”。

????綠燈亮起，騎手駕車駛遠(yuǎn)，他并不知道自己跟身上的夾克剛剛在我們這個時代最偉大之一的零售店里跑了一回龍?zhí)住?/p>

????車內(nèi)的男子是阿曼西奧?奧爾特加?高納，他是全球排名第三的富豪。在西班牙海風(fēng)吹拂的西北部海岸線上，印第迪克集團（Inditex）這位76歲的創(chuàng)始人已經(jīng)在加利西亞省的一角避開公眾視線，生活在拉科魯尼的中部多年。這是一座擁有246,000人口的城市。每年有數(shù)以百萬計的消費者光顧印第迪克集團的旗艦品牌Zara，給奧爾特加帶來了驚人的財富，但他的顧客中卻很少有人聽說過他的名字。這是奧爾特加本人要求的，他回避在社交場合露面，并拒絕一切采訪（包括本文）。在1999年之前，他的照片從未在媒體上出現(xiàn)過。

????然而，在一個遠(yuǎn)離巴黎、米蘭和紐約浮華的世界中，奧爾特加的時裝帝國已經(jīng)將觸角伸向了80多個國家。從40年前開始，奧爾特加摧毀了歐洲時裝商店精煉數(shù)十年的商業(yè)模式，并以這個行業(yè)前所未見的快速周轉(zhuǎn)模式取而代之。數(shù)十年后，Zara已經(jīng)成為全球最大的時裝零售商。

????奧爾特加按照兩項基本原則建立起自己的帝國：給消費者他們想要的東西；比競爭對手更快地滿足消費者。這兩條組織原則已經(jīng)讓Zara（和奧爾特加）成為一個不太可能的顛覆者。相對于傳統(tǒng)零售商，它更強調(diào)對供應(yīng)鏈的優(yōu)化。這兩條原則還是印第迪克集團獲得驚人成功的秘訣?！霸谶@個時候，很少有公司能對印第迪克集團形成挑戰(zhàn)。該集團與其說是在跟別的公司競爭，倒不如說是在跟自己賽跑，”倫敦巴克萊資本（Barclays Capital）的零售業(yè)分析師克里斯托洛斯?查維亞勒斯說。服裝零售商優(yōu)衣庫（Uniqlo）的創(chuàng)始人柳井正放言，他的人生目標(biāo)就是擊敗Zara。去年8月，時裝公司埃斯普利特（Esprit）的股價在宣布其首席執(zhí)行官新人選后上漲了28%，而這位首席執(zhí)行官原先只是印第迪克集團的分銷和運營主管。

????西班牙可能正在遭受幾代人以來最為嚴(yán)重的經(jīng)濟衰退，失業(yè)率已經(jīng)達到24%，而且背負(fù)著沉重的債務(wù)。但在印第迪克集團內(nèi)部，危機卻遠(yuǎn)在天邊?！八麄兩钤谝粋€不同的世界，”莫德斯托?隆巴說，他是西班牙時裝設(shè)計師協(xié)會（Spanish Association of Fashion Designers）的主席。去年12月，印第迪克集團首席執(zhí)行官帕布羅?伊斯拉宣布，該集團2012年前三季度的營收同比增長17%——這9個月的營收總額達到146億美元——凈利潤跟2010年持平，達到27.1億美元。到目前為止，該集團的增長勢頭依然沒有顯露出放緩的跡象。

????2011年，印第迪克集團生產(chǎn)了835,000種服裝。平均算下來，每天都有新的Zara零售店開張，該集團的第6,000家門店剛剛在倫敦牛津街啟動。美國有46家Zara零售店，而這個數(shù)字在中國和印度分別達到347和1,938。奧爾特加在印第迪克集團持有的股份超過59%，他在去年7月超越沃倫?巴菲特，成為僅次于卡洛斯?斯利姆?埃盧和比爾?蓋茨的全球第三富豪。這位在家鄉(xiāng)大街上透過車窗尋找靈感的隱逸、神秘的西班牙人，現(xiàn)在的個人凈資產(chǎn)約為560億美元。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

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????譯者：王燦均

????The motorbike roared up to the traffic light in La Coru?a in northern Spain and stopped alongside a black Town Car. From inside, the passenger glanced out his window and saw the young biker leaning over the handlebars, jean jacket decorated with appliquéd patches, a throwback to the 1970s. The man in the car, decades older than the biker, zoomed in on the jacket. The old man grabbed his cellphone and, as the story goes, called an aide in his office. His eyes still fixed on the biker, the man described the jacket's stitching, its shape and color, and signed off with a single instruction: "?Hácedla!" Make it.

????The light turned green, the biker pulled away; unbeknown to him, he and his jacket had just played a walk-on role in one of the greatest retail stories of our time.

????Amancio Ortega Gaona -- the man inside the car -- is the third-richest man on earth. In this provincial corner of Galicia, on Spain's windswept northwestern coastline, the 76-year-old founder of the Inditex Group has spent years secluded from public view, all while living in the middle of La Coru?a, a city of 246,000 people. Among the millions of shoppers who patronize Inditex's flagship brand, Zara, and have made Ortega unfathomably rich, few have even heard his name. Ortega has made sure of that, shunning social appearances and refusing all interview requests (including for this article). Until 1999 no photograph of Ortega had ever been published.

????And yet, a world away from the glitz of Paris, Milan, and New York, Ortega has built a fashion empire that reaches into more than 80 countries. Beginning 40 years ago, Ortega ripped up the business model that had been refined over decades by Europe's fashion houses and replaced it with one of the most brutally fast turnaround schedules the industry had ever attempted. Decades later Zara is the world's biggest fashion retailer.

????Ortega built his empire on two basic rules: Give customers what they want, and get it to them faster than anyone else. The twin organizing principles have made the company (and Ortega) into an unlikely iconoclast, more of an optimal supply chain than a traditional retailer. They are also the secret to Inditex's astonishing success. "Very few companies can challenge Inditex at this time. The company is in a race with themselves rather than anything else," says Christodoulos Chaviaras, a retail analyst at Barclays Capital in London. Tadashi Yanai, founder of clothing retailer Uniqlo, has made it his stated goal in life to beat Zara. And last August shares of the fashion company Esprit rose 28% on the day it announced its new CEO, Inditex's former distribution and operations manager.

????Spain might be suffering through its worst recession in generations, with 24% unemployment and crippling debt, but within Inditex, the crisis might as well be happening on Mars. "They live in a different world," says Modesto Lomba, president of the Spanish Association of Fashion Designers. In December, CEO Pablo Isla announced that revenue was up 17% year on year for the first three quarters of 2012 -- that nine-month sales revenue amounts to $14.6 billion -- and net profits matched 2010's, at $2.71 billion. So far, the growth shows no signs of slowing.

????Inditex produced 835,000 garments in 2011. A new Zara store opens every day, on average; Inditex's 6,000th store just launched on London's Oxford Street. There are 46 Zara stores in the U.S., 347 in China, and 1,938 in Spain. Ortega controls more than 59% of the company's shares, and last July he overtook Warren Buffett to become the world's third-richest man, behind Carlos Slim Helú and Bill Gates. The reclusive, enigmatic Spaniard, hunting for ideas from his car window on the streets of his hometown, is now worth about $56 billion.

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