Abstract

The case explores Europe’s biggest online fashion and lifestyle retailer Zalando’s commitment to making fashion more inclusive and how it embedded Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) across its business operations as an employer, fashion platform, and business partner. Zalando wanted everyone right from its employees to its partners, models, and customers, to feel equally valued, heard, and empowered. To achieve this goal, it launched its Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Strategy, “do.BETTER,” in May 2021 that included a comprehensive action plan with 12 commitments organized across four pillars: Talents, Leaders, Customers, and Partners. As part of its diversity commitment, it had onboarded over 70 Black-owned brands to the Zalando Fashion Store as of 2023. Zalando was also one of the first online fashion platforms in Europe to offer an extensive assortment for disabled customers. In May 2023, Zalando launched an Inclusive Designer Footwear collection targeting underserved shoppers such as Drag Queens and Trans Women in 25 European markets. For its employees, Zalando built an inclusive workplace that provided fair access to opportunities. In 2022, Zalando launched its first company-wide D&I survey to help it better understand the needs of employees. It continued to invest strongly in supporting women in tech careers and leadership roles. By the end of 2023, women accounted for almost half (47.4%) of Zalando’s workforce and held 25.9% of roles across Zalando tech job families. Though Zalando had made progress toward many of its D&I goals, going forward the challenges before Co-CEOs of Zalando, would be to sustain and deepen the fashion retailer’s commitment to the areas of D&I, constantly improve diversity in all areas of the business, and help shape a fashion industry where everyone felt wanted.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand the concept of inclusive fashion
• Analyze the state of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) in the fashion Industry
• Assess the need for fashion brands to prioritize D&I
• Evaluate Zalando’s D&I strategy “do.BETTER”, and how it promoted D&I within and outside the company
• Identify challenges in achieving D&I in the fashion industry and formulate strategies that can make Zalando more inclusive and diverse

Keywords

Inclusive fashion; Diversity and Inclusion (D&I); Gender neutrality; do.BETTER; Adaptive fashion; Genderless fashion; Inclusive workplace; Inclusive leadership; Modest fashion; Inclusive beauty