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Texte intégral
Bachelor thesis

Asian competition in the clock & [and] watch sector : what threats tp the Swiss industry ?

    2015

71 p.

Mémoire de bachelor: Haute école de gestion de Genève, 2015

English The Swiss clock & watch industry has been the indisputable leader worldwide during many decades in terms of excellence and notoriety. Many challengers such as Japanese or American companies, tried to compete at the same level without dazzling success thus far. However, three main competitions had significant impacts on the Swiss industry over the years. The first was the new production process of American companies that forced Swiss companies to shift from an artisanal production to a mass production factory system in the late 19th century. The second came the Japanese watches quartz innovation that obliged Switzerland to differentiate its products with a “Swiss Made” label for protection. The last and current competition is coming from Mainland China which is omnipresent in the low-end segment, having the largest production of watches in terms of volume, and that is willing to upgrade its production to high-end segments. Under this third competitor, the Swiss clock & watch industry is once more challenged. This paper focuses on the understanding of the competition that the Swiss industry is currently facing and identifying the levels of threat on the different steps of the value chain. Comparing the previous Japanese competition with the current Chinese competition will lead us to the identification of the imperfections of the Swiss industry in which competitors found a failure or an opportunity in order to contest some market shares. In the first part of the analysis, different threats are distinctly identified at different stages of the value chain. For example, Chinese firms bring a serious menace in the upstream stages of the value chain in raw material production, intermediary manufacturing, and assembling. Whereas there is a lack of know-how when it comes to market and communicating the brand to the end consumers. Moreover, the help of the local government is non-negligible for the future growth of Chinese watch brands. In the second part, several similarities and differences between the previous and current competitions are determined. It comes as no surprise that the low-end segment is the most vulnerable. The Swiss industry was strongly challenged in this segment by Japan as well as by China. In addition to that, Switzerland has not been protecting enough its products and is still struggling to improve it. Last but not least, technological innovation is and will always be a factor that could call into question the industry, talking about the quartz revolution in the past and the possible smartwatch revolution nowadays, which could not be measured for the moment.
Language
  • English
Classification
Economics
Notes
  • Haute école de gestion Genève
  • Economie d'entreprise
  • hesso:hegge
License
License undefined
Identifiers
  • RERO DOC 258573
  • RERO R008353166
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/hesso/documents/314775
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