The Business Model of Swatch

Swatch is a Swiss watch company that first launched a watch design in 1978. Initially, they wanted to produce a quartz watch, which was to be the thinnest of its kind, in order to keep the Swiss watch market competitive with the increasingly strong markets of the East. Now the company is one of the most famous Swiss watch groups and advertises their plastic watches in a wide variety of colours. Every year a new collection is launched with new colour combinations. Swatch is also known for being an affordable alternative to the other watch manufacturers in Switzerland.

The company was founded by Nicolas Hayek, who finally launched the first Swatch in 1983 in Zurich after many years of development. The actual sketches, however, were not by Mr Hayek, but by two young engineers.

The Swatch watches were developed during the "quartz crisis" (1970s - 1980s).