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IBM_BT21_Bachelor_Thesis_DOLLA_Maxime.pdf
Bachelor thesis

Digital opportunity in an environment rooted in craft and tradition : the case of the luxury Swiss watches

SONAR|HES-SO

  • Genève : Haute école de gestion de Genève

142 p.

Bachelor of Science HES in International Business Management: Haute école de gestion de Genève, 2021

English This Bachelor Project aims to highlight the main digital solutions currently used by luxury Swiss watch brands. Additionally, it intends to analyse how the Swiss luxury watchmakers can preserve their brand equity while leveraging these digital solutions. Data have been collected through survey and interviews from watch industry’s professionals as well as watch enthusiasts. This project leads to three different main outcomes: Firstly, Swiss watch companies faced the important growth of the digital marketing. It has been concluded that, in order to preserve and communicate brand equity, luxury watch brands had to become real content creators in order to meet the requirements of the luxury characteristics. To preserve a qualitative brand image, luxury watch manufacturers shall invest in the quality of their content. Additionally, Swiss watch companies should build a strong digital marketing strategy in order to correctly leverage social media. The adoption of the social network codes could help watchmakers to become real actors of the media, and thus, communicate their values to their customers. Finally, to secure relevant brand equity, the online environment must be as qualitative as the physical one. Therefore, watch brands shall have a high level of control of their environment. Secondly, luxury watchmakers started selling their timepieces online. Since the pandemic, e-commerce became a top priority for Swiss watch manufacturers. The project shows that e-commerce is not a disruptive enemy, but a complement of traditional retailing. Therefore, the most optimized sales strategy is omnichannel. Analysis shows that the majority of the major luxury Swiss watch companies embraced e-commerce while developing their corporate e-shop or by working with authorised retailers online platform. To build a seamless customer experience, which is key for luxury watch customers, Swiss watch manufacturers should break the barrier between the physical channels and the online channels. As brands rely heavily on the emotional aspect of their products, a current opportunity is to embrace the “phygital” experience by leveraging the new technologies. Thanks to features such as augmented reality, 3D visuals, virtual tours, live chat, virtual boutique appointments, online corporate websites became a real comprehensive platform which acts as a source of information, as a customer experience and as a point of sale. Lastly, since 2019-2020, a couple of luxury watch brands started using blockchain-based technology to fight against counterfeit and to certify timepieces’ authenticity. Additionally, the NFTs started entering the watch world with a few first digital watch auctions. Criticisms have arisen as to whether blockchain is a real need or not. To conclude, despite the high advancement and constant evolution of the digital world, it is still hard to communicate the emotional aspect of the watchmaking universe. The “Swiss made” tradition, such as craftmanship, precision, quality, authenticity, and elegance should remain a priority even in the new technologies. Watchmakers should not launch themselves directly into a completely new digital revolution without thinking about integrating what they do best; Selling an emotional, with rich heritage product in a qualitative environment made with an important human dimension.
Language
  • English
Classification
Economics
Notes
  • Haute école de gestion Genève
  • International Business Management
  • hesso:hegge
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/319800
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