Ten years has since passed since Oliver Ebstein and his wife took over the management of Chronoswiss.
Since the 2012 takeover, the brand has continued to evolve, with growth since COVID something the entire company from top down should be proud of.
Building on that success, Chronoswiss has tapped into the old adage of “Less is more,” and is reshaping its distribution network.
This will allow the Chronoswiss team to focus on quality, but remains keen on ensuring availability across its key markets.
Discussing recent growth, COVID and where it is headed as a brand, CEO Oliver Ebstein sat down with WATCHPRO.
Here’s what he had to say:
WP: How important is it for a brand like Chronoswiss to have a personal connection with the supply chain as well as others in the industry?
OE: It is absolutely critical to have good partners. We have built the supply chain completely from the ground up over the last five or six years and we work mostly with smaller companies, all of them located in Switzerland.
We are a family-owned company so we can appreciate the risk and the need in these types of relationships so it all works really well. We do of course work with bigger companies as well but sometimes they need to move you around so in terms of relationships, having that closer, personal connection is critical.
WP: I see and hear that things have been going well for you this year and Chronoswiss has seen a lot of growth. Part of that success has been involved with the reshaping of your distribution network, could you explain a little more about that?
OE: For a couple of years now we have increased the complication of our timepieces and experienced a growing demand. We are now producing around 1500 pieces and increasing our work of complications in terms of dials and finishing even further. At the same time we want Chronoswiss to stand for rather accessible luxury and this focus is really important to us.
If you admire something, but can’t get hold of it, it is really not a nice situation. It was because of this that at Chronoswiss we wanted to make sure that if you’re in contact with a partner, jeweller or whatever, then they have the models available and if people want to see it, they can.
However, there were too many dealers who had too many brands so we are now actually going with the slogan “Less is more.” Focusing on those who have the right positioning and understand where we are heading.
We do happen to have more complicated products than others and at the same time we are a niche brand so people also need to explain in more depth to a potential buyer about the exact intricacies of the watches. We want to work with those who understand the product.
WP: You’ve mentioned your work with the likes of Cellini in the US and Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons in the UAE, what qualities do these jewellers have that suit you so well?
OE: We have so many others too who are really good at what they do. However, those two in particular know very well that it is necessary to understand a brand DNA in order to work together towards a sustainable development. They wanted to make sure, people in their shops would be interested and thus really worked hard to understand all of the details associated with Chronoswiss.
They have all the experience and understand what makes the difference rather than just displaying the watch, they know it is important to share more about the content and context of the timepiece. Therefore, educating the salesperson on the product, the story and its background is vital because that is what luxury is all about.
WP: How are you hoping to use growth to expand even further?
OE: We saw a lot of growth, let’s say, healthy growth, the last couple of years in spite of COVID and that was because we were able to showcase the brand to a bigger public due to the power of the internet, mainly YouTube and social media channels.
Over the past two years, people were sitting at home, they couldn’t travel and so they began more intently reading and discovering new things online. This means that it has become increasingly important for us to have a solid presence online to tap into both an existing audience as well as the new customers.
We’re healthily growing from year to year.
WP: We see it from a media point of view, but how important do you think presenting a watch in-person is, as opposed to via Zoom or something similar?
OE: It is really important, and we did of course sell watches online during COVID but speaking to our retail network we see that there is a huge thirst to be back in-store and in-person again so we went to work with that.
Sometimes it is actually not even about talking watches but just building a relationship with people you can trust and respect. That takes us back to a pre-COVID situation and we want to see more of that.
WP: How do you expect to continue on this trajectory in the next two or three years?
OE: Primarily, it is absolutely key to have a good team in place so we can understand exactly where we are going. From the watchmaker to the head of sales, it is only this way you can explain the strategy and emotions while distilling the DNA of the product to the end consumer.
That’s where we see the base to build from and by the end of the year, we are looking at introducing an entirely different mechanism so in terms of product we are on the right track. I am absolutely confident for a healthy future ahead.
WP: Is there anything we can look forward to in terms of product in the coming months? What’s the plan on that front?
OE: We have our 40th anniversary by end of the year starting next year, so the whole of 2023 will be the anniversary year. We took some famous models, and in particularly one famous model from the past, which we are going to kind of reinvent for the next generation.
