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Staff post about: Jean-Claude Biver Become an Author

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I went to the Valée because I enjoyed the nature and the lifestyle of this retired region of Switzerland close to Geneva. While living there in a wonderful farmhouse in which Louis Elysee Piguet, the famous watchmaker, used to produce its Minute Repeater and other complicated movements, I met a lot of the inhabitants of the Valée and a lot of them were watchmakers. One of them was the grandson of Louis Elysee Piguet, Mr. Jacques Piguet who was running the movement factory Frederic Piguet. I fell in love with his watch, which was a skeleton ultra-slim watch and asked him if he would see any opportunity for me to join the watch-making world. A few days later I had a job at AP, and had the unbelievable and unique chance to be offered one full year of stage inside AP.

I learned with the production manager how to make a watch, how to manage fine regulation, to learn with the product manager how to design a watch, and with the salesman how to sell watches. I got the infusion into my blood of the love of fine watches.

I worked with passion at AP until the end of 1979 when I started to have some frustrations because I was of the opinion I could do better if I had the full power and trust. Although my job as Sales Manager for Europe was successful and well paid, I decided to join my brother and my friend Fritz Ammann at Omega.

It was an incredible international experience, but my nostalgia for the very fine watch-making art did stay and pushed me out of Omega at the end of 1981 in order to go back to the Valée and join my old friend Jacques Piguet and buy the oldest brand in the world: Blancpain.

We bought Blancpain at the end of 1981, and started to develop the brand from zero in 1982 with the concept that we would never make a quartz watch, because we would stick to and develop only and exclusively the traditional watch-making art.

Since 1735, there has never been a quartz Blancpain watch. And there never will be.

If it was a certain emotional loss for me, it was certainly not bad at all for Blancpain. Being a member of Swatch Group gave to Blancpain an incredible access to the mechanical technology and enormous power in the distribution and organization.

The brand's turnaround is proceeding. We have quadrupled our results, passing from a turnover of 26 million CHF to about 100 million. And, this has been done without any bank debt or increase in capital.

I will be the master of my cheese until the last piece.

In 1980, the whole Swiss watch industry was oriented to develop and present its collection of Quartz watches. Even prestige brands like PP, AP, VC had in those days a proportion of 70% more or less quartz movements in their collection. The Swiss watch industry had its biggest crisis and many watchmakers couldn't find a decent job and as a consequence left the industry.

When we came out in 1982 with the statement that we had never made a quartz watch and that we would never make one, the statement made a lot of noise. The entire philosophy and concept of Blancpain was based on the revival of the traditional art of watch-making.

The resurrection of mechanical watches was on track, and we can admit today that myself through Blancpain was the drive behind it.

More than a watch, I recognized in Hublot the incredible strength of its concept: the fusion of the watch-making art...the link between tradition and vision.

I believe a tradition remains alive not only through its repetition, but much more through the combination of present and future. I believe in this fusion not only in watch-making, but also in other fields.

With Hublot I took the same traditional approach I had 20 years ago with Blancpain and fused it with new elements that traditional watch brands do not usually do. I added new elements of the future, like new materials.

In 1980, it was the first brand to create a fusion between gold and rubber. This visionary concept that was entirely unexpected at the time (mixing gold with tires?) has since become a norm...To make a complication watch in a ceramic case is also unconventional as the majority of brands place complications in gold or platinum.

I am fascinated by concepts. Brands that make watches just to sell them are of no interest to me. As soon as they encompass a concept and I have a mission within that, I love getting involved.

As far as Hublot is concerned, the concept is extremely clear; this is not about a watch-making yardstick, but about a watch-making fusion.

Having a certain difficulty in obtaining products is part of the definition of luxury. I do want product to always be less than demand...People want exclusivity, so you must always keep the customer hungry and frustrated.

I deeply believe that this is how strong brands are created, brands that last...This enables the brand to keep its rarity and cleanness. This is my goal for Hublot.

We control our distribution network in the sense that we are monitoring their sell out before we sell in. In other words, a retailer cannot get a shipment of watches as long as we are not convinced about the fact that he has sold them and that he is not piling up stock.

If you are a mono-product brand, you have to ask yourself how many of the same watch is a consumer willing to buy from you. He can buy one watch ultimately. If I make the same watch in three materials, in theory, he can buy three. But how can I get him to buy the fourth one?

You see, when I have a customer with my watch on his wrist, I never want him to quit my brand. But if he is buying three or four watches per year, I want to remain in consideration. How do I achieve this? How do I get these people? I make a limited edition in memory of Ayrton Senna because it has a great emotional story. Or, I make one related to Alinghi, or Manchester United because this will strike a different emotional chord.

Between the necessity of making a few and the evil of making too many, there is a fine balance. We lost this balance but have corrected it.

But from next year on, we will work on additional special editions both for Brazil in 2014 and also some special editions for historical World Cups since 1930.

We never enter any sport or event because of personal connections or preferences. Our decisions are motivated through our customers. Wherever our customer goes, he must meet Hublot. It is our goal to make the customer feel that we belong to his world, to his lifestyle, to his emotions, and to his dreams.

Our involvement in sport is motivated because sport belongs partly to the world of our customers. And our objective is clearly to belong to the world of the consumer. Be it in the materials he is surrounded with (Carbon, Kevlar, Ceramic and so on) or in his leisure and holiday activities represented through sport.

The main challenge was to believe that we had the right concept. Usually brands decide to link themselves to one or two sports. We on the contrary decided we should link ourselves to our customers. And meet him wherever he goes. On the sea, on the GP circuit, on the football field, on the polo field, and so on.

It is important for us to be the first, or to be unique, or to be different. With football, we were the first luxury watch brand to enter football. It is difficult to believe but both the Euro and the World Cup have never had an ‘Official Timekeeper' nor and ‘Official Watch.' It has now become crucial for Hublot to maintain its exclusivity at this level of sponsorship, both in F1 and football.

The people in the Middle East are very sensitive to luxury. People of the Middle East have always considered that watches express your status and personality and as a result they have a true appreciation for watches. They appreciate the workmanship, the quality of the product and are truly passionate about watches. This is what makes the Middle East such an enormous market and can only be developed further. Even though the population is small, the tremendous wealth and watch consciousness of the consumers makes the market quite vast.

I think in times like this for luxury, the more we attend conferences, the more we continue to develop with our activities, the more we continue to share with our peers, the better. Now is not the moment to stop. Unless you believe the slump will last several years then perhaps you need to re-organize and look at your expenses. As long as we believe the crisis is short-term, that is, 6-18 months which is nothing in the history of a brand, then there's no reason to stop being active. In fact, on the contrary, we must invest in innovation, we must invest in marketing, we must invest more - not less!

When the crisis comes and you see the brand you like diminishing in visibility, you think they are affected. So, when you see a brand continue to be strong, it simply reaffirms that they are strong. We did not panic. We did not give up in marketing expenses. We did even more events... During the worse part of the crisis, we increased traveling while others are decreasing travel costs. We spent 2 million Swiss francs more on traveling because I told everybody now is a time for us to go to all our markets and show we are still here.

I went once every month to China in 2009. And you see from the results that we are really gaining momentum there. We have kept our visibility and we were constantly in the press, constantly in the market and taking advantage of our great relationship with our partners and friends.

It is with regret that I say the crisis is now over.

You should never stop learning. When we are young, we very often believe we know everything. And I realized when I was 40 that I have to start to learn, because through learning you grow richer and you improve yourself.

We must be prepared to share our knowledge, our experience, our success and failures. Once you share, you will find that people around you are ready to help which only makes you stronger. The sharing process is extremely important because it allows you access to other perspectives and knowledge.

Omega was very clever to be the first brand to handle the Chinese market in a proper way - it's not a market where you ship all the goods that you cannot sell in other markets (as was the norm in those days). We had to treat them as well as we would treat the Swiss market, or the US market.

To demonstrate our seriousness, the first thing Omega did was set up proper service centres. In fact, at one point, Omega had more people working in the service centres than we had working in sales. That was very important - the only other example in history where this happened was when Volkswagen set up shop in the United States: they first built the service centres before selling the cars because they wanted a reputation of reliability. The retailers welcome Omega in a very positive way because we were helping them. Within ten years, Omega was the undisputed number one brand in China.

We must always have our eyes and ears open. One has constantly to listen to the market and be able to evolve and change. The world is not static and a brand has to constantly adapt its concepts, products and DNA to the changes.

It is not a fight. You see, the stronger Omega, Rolex or Longines becomes in China, the more they help to create a market for ‘the next watch'. Sure, the consumer will first buy Omega or Rolex, but soon he will want another watch. So, now brands like Panerai, Richard Mille and Hublot have to work on presenting themselves as ‘the next watch'. Ultimately, an evolution in consumer taste is inevitable. I think that 15 years ago, it would have been impossible for Richard Mille, Panerai or Hublot to have a foothold in China because the market had not yet matured. But thanks to Omega, Rolex and Longines, the market has now grown - it has matured to a level where consumers are moving beyond these mass-appeal brands, as seen in other more sophisticated markets of the world. So you see, the foundation that has been built with Rolex, Omega and Longines, and the future of the watch market in China is proportional to the strength of this base.

The watch does not represent the indication of time anymore.

One of the fundamental errors that new CEOs make when they take the helm is that they fail to build on the brand's roots and foundations that are already there. Instead, they try to start all over again. But when they do this, their brand becomes fragile - it doesn't benefit from the foundation and strength that history provides.

The past became my friend and not my enemy. The past provided credibility.

I abused limited editions. But they did not to any lasting damage and we had it corrected.

The key is that marketing and branding success is never due to just one element. The key is everything must be aligned. There must be total alignment between the message of your brand, between the product of your brand, between the communication of the brand and your distribution. If any of these are not in synch you will fail. If you have all these you have the tools to be successful, provided that what you produce has aesthetic emotion and appeals to your consumer.

I always tell my people now is the moment to invest, but in what? Invest in travel costs, in promotions, in research and development.

We have to carry on with our creativity, with innovation, our marketing investments and that's it.

Success brings satisfaction but it brings enormous obligation. First of this is the obligation to share. Success belongs to everyone who helped you. You are the tip of the iceberg and your team is everything that you don't see. Second, success must be transmitted to others to perpetuate and repeat this success. Third, your obligation is to stay humble because you never know what the next step of your life might be. You have success today but you might have defeat tomorrow. The Tibetans say when you have reached the top of the mountain, go on climbing.

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