Good Enough for the Swiss

For every high-end Swiss watch brand there’s a mass-market product that relies on suppliers like family owned precision engineering firm and Haas customer Pierre Bercher SA. These relatively low-cost watches may not be as coveted as the Piquets or the Pateks of this world, but they trade on their Swiss-ness just as much as their pur sang cousins. They tell the time, too.

Bercher SA makes plastic parts for some of Switzerland’s best-known watch brands, although Monsieur Bercher senior, founder and CEO, prefers to talk about how they make what they make, rather than who they make it for.

‘Seventy percent of our work is for Swiss watch companies,’ he says (he’s even more reluctant to talk about the other 30% of his company’s revenue). ‘Typically, these companies want fast turnaround and the peace-of-mind that comes from knowing that their suppliers know what they are doing.’ The other reason they continue to use local companies is that generally, people don’t want a ‘Swiss’ watch that’s made in China, even a low or mid-price brand. It’s about provenance.