The Gap's history goes back to that famous 1969, when men made their first steps on the Moon. Today, the Gap Inc. is a company, which operates the market of clothing retail and owns over three thousand stores in such countries as the USA, the UK, Canada, Japan and France. In the year of 2005 its annual revenues came up to sixteen billion dollars. The Gap Inc. gathers under its umbrella such worldwide famous clothing brands as Banana Republic, Old Navy and Forth & Towne. These brands design, manufacture and sell accessories, clothes and personal care products to customer audiences, which consist of women, men and children.
The Gap Inc. has over one hundred and fifty thousand people on staff with them, ready to service the Gap's clients' need in different regions of the world. The Gap Inc. holds to the highest standards of quality, integrity, creativity and respect in its business operations. Operating local markets of different countries, the Gap Inc. takes up the responsibility of a corporate citizen and puts its efforts towards improving life conditions of the local communities. Thus, in this article we will take a look at how the Gap clothing is made and at some stages of this process.
The process of creating, designing and manufacturing of the Gap clothing has five main stages. Let us take a closer look at them.
It all starts with some creative ideas and design, inspired by some feeling, vision or piece of art, such as a good classic movie or a song. Hence, before the Gap clothing is created, there comes a concept or idea of a new collection. Gap designers work on generating those creative ideas and then on translating them into clothing models, drawings, attaching color and trend design to their clothing patterns. After those patterns and drawings rough clothing models are being made.
The next stage in the Gap clothing creation is planning and sourcing. This process involves the co-work of distribution and merchandise specialists, which decide on how many models of which style are to be manufactured and at which store departments they are to be presented to their target consumers.
Next come production and marketing. On this stage there has to be a decision made on manufacturing facilities, fit for meeting Gap's needs, and the production of the Gap clothing begins. Along the way there comes in the team of marketing professionals, ready to work on developing a marketing plan and communicating information on a new product assortment to Gap's consumer target audiences.
The stage of distribution is also very important, as on this stage, the Gap products are being delivered to the point-of-purchase places. All the products are being checked for quantity and are being presented to customers by size and color.
Finally, the process of creation of the Gap clothing ends by sales and analyses. When any item is being purchased by consumers, the information about such transaction goes to planning and account department. In this way the company management can successfully monitor the overall and local level of sales and replenish the products at the stores. Moreover, gathering such statistic information, the Gap Inc. can monitor its performance, gather customer feedback and introduce necessary improvements.