Vaucher - A network of competence open to watchmaking talent
The Sandoz family foundation (Manufactures Horlogères de la Fondation) is gathering all the expertise in top-of-the-range mechanical watches and making it available under one brand, for their exclusive clients and for the preservation of the diversity of watchmaking talent.
A network of competence open to watchmaking talent
Fleurier, 5 June 2013. The trade fair for watchmaking and jewellery (EPHJ), held between 11 and 14 June 2013, was the first occasion at which all the companies in the watchmaking group established by Michel Parmigiani in 1975, were gathered together in order to present their wide range of expertise. This open watchmakers’ network, rich in competence and innovation, used the Geneva platform for members to get to know one another and to promote a new Private Label unit, VMF Private Label, the mission of which is to allow smaller clients to gain access to mechanisms, dials, cases and finished products.
The competence network integrates the companies atokalpa, Elwin and Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier, who work with mechanisms and Quadrance & Habillage and Les Artisans Boîtiers for all packaging and casing needs. Each one has their own purpose, identity, method of managing growth and growth rhythm: they may provide oscillators, whole ranges, precision-turned parts, mechanisms, dials and cases. Together the manufacturers cover the entire production of the watch. Initially, the vertical integration strategy for the manufacturers was centred on the full autonomy and independence of the Parmigiani Fleurier brand. While their common majority shareholder is the Sandoz family foundation, Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier can also count Hermès as a key shareholder as it holds 25%. Each of the companies has a variety of outside clients that can be considered high-end customers.
A new unit for the craftsmen of time
With the creation of VMF Private Label, the watchmaking group is clearly demonstrating its intention to pursue and strengthen this collaboration with smaller brands, the craftsmen of time whose inventiveness and creativity is a key asset in maintaining the influence of the Swiss watchmaking industry. Therefore, in the eyes of the Sandoz family foundation the idea is to encourage and maintain contact between watchmakers, through Parmigiani Fleurier and MHF, to ensure their expertise is not lost, to strengthen the spirit of enterprise and innovation, and to guarantee respect for the Swiss industrial tradition, a high level of quality and fundamental social values.
VMF Private Label: strength in unity
“We are offering talented brands the possibility of developing their business by personalising their mechanisms and allowing them to benefit from an established and independent production plant. In our prestige sector, we take orders of 25 pieces and upwards. We also offer services and products from Quadrance & Habillage and Les Artisans Boîtiers. We hope that this will allow us to contribute to preserving creative and diverse watchmaking skills and to help these brands grow as they benefit from our reactivity and fast delivery times. Our manufactory holds a large range of sizes adapted to our own supplementary models as well as numerous market models; we can take on the project management and can collaborate with the model manufacturers. Annual production is currently 25,000 pieces; in the long term we envisage this figure will be 36,000”, explained Jean-Daniel Dubois, Managing Director of Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier.
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