When Raynald Aeschlimann took over as CEO of Omega in April, he was already a 20 year veteran for Swatch Group’s biggest brand.
Dramatic change seemed unlikely following the reign of Stephen Urquhart, and so it has turned out.
In an interview this week with Hodinkee, Mr Aeschlimann says that its brand strengths have been built over decades and he is not about to switch course.
Listing Omega’s strengths, he tells Hodinkee’s Arthur Touchot: “They are the ones everyone knows about today. Our universal presence; we are in every major market and in every major market we can be found in multiple locations. If you look here in London, we have seven stores. So we are a very dynamic and business oriented company. And then we are four very solid lines. We are not mono-product. We are multi-product, which is not the case for very many of the big luxury companies in our industry. Those lines [our core products] and their evolution is very focused.”
He goes on to say that the target, as was the case with Mr Urquart, is to overtake Rolex to become the world’s biggest watch brand. But he qualifies the goal, saying that he wants to have the biggest following, not necessarily the biggest total of units sold.
