Apple Watch finally getting luxury watchmakers attention
How many times have we heard someone comment on how he or she wished they invested in Apple, or Google stocks decades before? When looking at the staggering dominance of companies such as these, how can we not pick up on certain signals early enough to capitalize?
Ironically, the same mistake can be made about products from these same companies, especially by competitors whose lack of vision prevents them from realizing they might be losing a battle that didn't even start yet.
The scenario is starting to dawn on luxury watchmakers who, for decades, have gone about their business with nothing to worry about except each other. Design, materials, craft, and history have been at the core of the business, and it worked for as long as it has, without a scratch.
It’s easy to imagine how Tag Heuer, and an increasing number of companies are beginning to feel something changing in their path. The change began before the Apple Watch, but it took Apple, a world-renowned technology giant, for Tag Heuer to notice and take appropriate steps.
Inevitably, all industries must adapt to survive, like living organisms, and it takes steps that begin, most often, with denial and rejection: the perception of imminent threat from an unknown and often underestimated rival... Apple.
Palm CEO Ed Colligan’s famous last words on the iPhone still probably ring in his ears today:
“We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone, PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.”
Oops, there goes Palm.
Can we imagine the same “PC guys” making watches?
Now would be a good a time as any to start.
Last month we have learned about how the luxury watch industry is reacting to smartwatches. The first step: denial and rejection. A massive investment in legal recourse to stop smartwatch users to wear functional simulations of luxury timepieces. Alas, Omega, Tissot and Mundane know too well this is not a long term solution, and as wearable technology advances, as all technology inevitably does, a “next step” is necessary.
This next step is being taken by Tag Heuer, whose global conglomerate LVMH previously described smartwatches as lacking sex appeal and, in reference to the Apple Watch, looking as if they were “... designed by a student in their first trimester...”, according to LVMH’s Jean-Claude Biver.
The statement was made back in September. Since then the conglomerate has acquired quite a different stance.
LVMH’s general manager Guy Sermon was quoted saying that “...smartwatches represent a challenge to the Swiss watch industry that is comparable to the appearance of quartz technology...” and ultimately admitted that “...We cannot ignore this tsunami that is coming closer.”
Will Luxury Watchmakers turn into tech companies?
Tag Heuer is certainly not waiting around for the tide to come crushing down, and its plan of action is clear: Take on the Apple Watch and the entire smartwatch industry, by integrating the technology into its own creations.
In order to do that, deals will have to be made, and partnerships built, with chip suppliers like Samsung or Intel, and perhaps even telecommunication providers like Verizon and AT&T.
As far as the amount of technology that these future timepieces can pack, the sky's the limit. Even without the technology built into the Apple Watch, most Swiss watches already come with price tags of upwards of thousands of dollars, only in precious stones, metals and design, and, most importantly, there is a market.
Competing with the Apple Watch:
While watchmakers know their way around design, as well as their more traditional audience, Apple, in particular, has plenty more experience of the tech industry and its untapped potentials for watch manufacturers.
Apple’s way is not to be first, but rather to be the best, and if Apple has decided to make smartwatches, it only means that the Cupertino giant has already secured itself at least 5 to 6 years of headway, into a technology that is guaranteed to be successful for years, with plenty of time to explore future options.