Swatch and supplying competitors

When we started this blog, I would not have expected that we would end up so many posts on luxury Swiss watches. But I like fancy watches, and the interesting stories keep coming. The most recent story comes from the New York Times (Swatch, Supplier to Rivals, Now Aims to Cut Them Off, Dec 10) [...]

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Mass customization at Burberry

Few things would be more luxurious than a truly custom-made product that is tailored to your every desire. That, of course, is expensive but there is a medium ground between a truly custom product and something that is merely off the rack. Mass customization promises customers a sort of unique offering. I say “sort of [...]

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Fancy Pants!

A few weeks ago, we posted on the steps apparel companies were taking to reduce costs, and in particular what let them make cheap pants. Today, the Wall Street Journal has a story about the other end of the market, asking “How Can Jeans Cost $300?” (Jul 7).The short answer is “Lots of reasons.”

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Lean operations for luxury bags

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article on how Louis Vuitton is relying on operations to support its growth (At Vuitton, Growth in Small Batches, Jun 27). The brand has grown significantly and is now significantly bigger than rivals such as Gucci. That raises some interesting challenges as it tries to keep up its growth [...]

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Made in Switzerland, Local Content, and Swatch

The opening case in our Operations Strategy MBA class is “The Swiss Watch Industry,” (p. 32 in my Operations Strategy textbook, sneaking in some marketing).  That case is used to contrast the business strategy of Swiss and Japanese watch manufacturers in the 1980s and to explain the drastic change suggested by then-consulting firm Hayek Engineering. [...]

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Changing how Americans buy luxury cars

How long would you wait to get exactly the car you wanted?  Some luxury car makers are trying to convince Americans that good things come to those who wait and they should opt to order a custom vehicle instead of taking one off the lot (Lean (Inventory) Times for Luxury Cars, Wall Street Journal, Dec [...]

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Toyota, AT&T and other odds and ends of the week

Here’s  few quick items we didn’t get around to writing full posts on. To begin it’s hard to say too much about Toyota this week. The Wall Street Journal had an interesting story today (Feb 6) on Toyota’s response to the crisis (A Crisis Made in Japan ).  The gist of its argument is that [...]

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Too much champagne for New Year’s Eve

Time for another seasonal post. Marketplace reports that there is a fairly serious champagne glut (Champagne’s bubble bursts, Dec 29) leading to some curious inventory management: I invited wine writer and blogger Alice Feiring down to a Manhattan restaurant called Balthazar. We started by talking about the way things used to be. The year was [...]

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Luxury in the recession

Here’s a possible downside to limiting bankers’ bonuses: More pain for Swiss watchmakers.  That’s the storyline in a recent Wall Street Journal piece (Swiss Watchmakers Await Uptick, Dec 23).  Apparently nothing is better for Rolex than flush bankers.  Luxury watches — like most luxury goods — have had a tough go of it the last [...]

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Is vertical integration the new black?

Eventually everything comes back into fashion.  It’s been true for bell bottom jeans and according to the Wall Street Journal, business strategies (Companies More Prone to Go ‘Vertical’, Nov 30).  Specifically, the Journal claims that vertical integration — a firm owning multiple levels of its supply chain — is making a come back. “The pendulum [...]

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