The answer to questions 12 originally published in 2018
12. Where do you think the industry is going to be in 10 years time.
Particularly conservative devotees of the traditional watch industry like to mention how resilient and industry that has lasted hundreds of years is. What they always fail to mention is how many gaps in operation many of today's most famous historic brands have had in the past. Even if ideas can live on for many generations, business structures are not as stable.
I mention this to warn about the fragility the industry faces and that past endurance is not a promise of future appeal. Luxury watches are nothing without supportive people to make and care for them. The watch industry today faces a human resource and management problem. Not a product or idea problem.
I've already said that I think the watch industry is shrinking. The question is whether or not it will start to grow again. Mechanical timepieces will not become any more obsolete than they are today. As long as the beauty and joy of wearing an analogue instrument on the wrist continue to have appeal, then people will want watches.
The future of the watch industry is in its people. Those people need to be made and educated. That is unlike today when good members of the watch industry are produced by accident. The watch industry needs to start investing in making smart, educated people who will take care of its future. Just as in so many industries, this one needs to invest in people in a way it has not done so quite some time. Barring that I envision the watch industry of 10 years from now to be much like that of today, just with fewer actors in it. $