The company that is most associated with the Swiss Army
brand, Victorinox, has been in existence for more than a hundred years.
Everybody knows about the classic Swiss Army knife after all these years, but
not as many people are aware of the great quality that goes into their Swiss
Army watches. This article will share some of the reasons that these timepieces
are of the highest quality.
After a century of producing Swiss Army knives, Victorinox
decided that it was time to branch out into new products. They commissioned a
study that showed them that consumers in the US expected products that had the
same qualities as their knives. They settled on producing watches because it
was in the Swiss DNA to produce high-quality watches.
Executives at Victorinox were faced with a serious challenge
in the early stages. They wanted their watches to have the same outstanding quality
as their knives, but they didn't control the entire process of manufacturing
their watches. So they could have direct, hands-on oversight of the assembly,
they actually constructed a new factory in Switzerland in 2002.
Producing high-quality watches still requires, even in this
day of automation and machine production, many specialized workers and
technicians to rigorously test each watch. When you consider that Swiss Army
makes about 900,000 every year, and that their watches have to stand up to rigorous
testing, it's really incredible that they have continue to create such
high-quality watches.
Swiss Army watches are made from only the finest materials.
Most of their watches are made out of ETA movements. ETA is the name of a Swiss
company that makes the watch movements (the mechanism that actually creates the
motion of the ticking hands). ETA movements are found in almost all of the
Swiss watches, including the high-end luxury brands such as Tag Heuer and
Omega.
Despite their great quality, Victorinox and other Swiss
watch companies are under assault from a new challenge. These genuine Swiss
watch companies are seeing more and more foreign companies spring up with
lesser quality watches. The reason these companies exist is because of a rule
that states that for a watch to be considered "Swiss," the movement
has to be at least fifty percent from a Swiss company.
A lot of foreign companies, mostly in Asia, have based their
existence on this very lenient rule. What they do is they make watches that are
lower in quality, but they claim that they are "Swiss-made" and so
they can market them and sell them for a higher price. What they are really
doing is enjoying the benefits of the Swiss name that these genuine watchmaking
companies have created over time, as customers immediately think that because a
watch is Swiss it is of the greatest quality.
Even with this controversy, both the present and the future is bright for Swiss watch companies. Swiss watches attract almost half of all the global money spent on watches, and they only account for 3% of the number of watches sold. Right on the middle of that vast market are the Swiss Army watches-a brand that is purchased both for their overall affordability and because they share the same quality standards as their other Swiss timepieces.
Check out this page for more info on Swiss Army watches or to compare Wenger watches with their Victorinox friends. ;)
