International Watch Company
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| International Watch Company | |
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| Type | Watch Maker |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1868 |
| Headquarters | Schaffhausen |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Industry | Watch Making |
| Products | Watches |
| Employees | 309 |
| Parent | Richemont International SA |
| Website | WWW.IWC.CH |
International Watch Co, also known as IWC, is a watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, an active member of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH.
Located in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, IWC Schaffhausen is notable for being the only major Swiss watch factory located in eastern Switzerland, as the majority of the well-known Swiss watch manufacturers are located in western Switzerland.
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[edit] Motto
IWC's motto is Probus Scafusia, meaning "Good solid craftsmanship from Schaffhausen" and was established in 1903 as the "Official Motto."
[edit] History
[edit] Creation
In 1868, an American named Florentine Ariosto Jones decided to found a watch factory in Switzerland so that he could supply the USA with movements. At the time, Switzerland was a low-wage country and had a ready supply of skilled watchmaking labour mainly carried out by people in their homes. Jones encountered opposition to his plans in French-speaking Switzerland because people feared for their jobs and the work they did at home because Jones wanted to open a factory.
In 1850 the town of Schaffhausen was in danger of being left behind in the Industrial Age. It was at this stage that watch manufacturer and industrialist Johann Heinrich Moser stepped in and did the region a huge service. As a pioneer of white coal, he built Schaffhausen's first hydroelectric plant and laid the cornerstone for future industrialization. He probably met F.A. Jones in Le Locle and showed great interest in his plans. Together, they laid the foundations for the first and only watch manufacturers in north-eastern Switzerland: The International Watch Company in Schaffhausen.
[edit] Early Stages
In 1869 F.A. Jones rented the first factory premises in an industrial building owned by J.H. Moser in Rheinstrasse. Very soon he had to rent further rooms in the Oberhaus, one of the oldest buildings in Schaffhausen. By 1874 plans were already being made for a new factory and a site was purchased from Moser's hydroelectric company which was directly adjacent to the banks of the Rhine and called the Baumgarten. Schaffhausen architect G. Meyer won the order to design and build the factory. A year later, in the spring of 1875, the construction work was completed. At first, 196 people worked in the 45 meter long factory, which could accommodate up to 300 workplaces.
[edit] Rise to Fame
Johann Rauschenbach-Vogel, Chief Executive Officer and a machine manufacturer from Schaffhausen, took over the INTERNATIONALE UHRENFABRIK on 17 February 1880. This change marked the beginning of the story of INTERNATIONAL WATCH CO., which would last almost one hundred years and four generations, a family-owned company that would be known under various names.
Only a year after the sale, Johannes Rauschenbach died. His son, Johannes Rauschenbach-Schenk, was 25 years old when he took over the UHRENFABRIK VON J. RAUSCHENBACH and ran it successfully until his own death on 2 March 1905.
Another significant role on the way to the company's lasting success was played by Urs Haenggi from Nunningen in the canton of Solothurn. He had got to know the watch business in French-speaking Switzerland and France; in 1883 he joined IWC and stayed with the company for 52 years. He was responsible for getting factory operations up and running smoothly and acquiring new customers. He was also responsible for warding off the danger of the factory passing into other hands "in the interest of the noble Rauschenbach family".
Likewise, technician Johann Vogel from Wangen on the Aare in Solothurn played an important role as technical director. He designed and developed IWC calibres until 1919.
IWC's manufactured its first digital watch in 1885, based on a patent from an Austrian by the name of Pallweber. A work of genius, the design was incredibly simple but was unable to replace the more practical analogue form of display. Today the Pallwebers, with their little apertures for the hours and minutes, are extremely rare and much sought-after collector's items.
[edit] Electrical Era
In 1888 electricity began to take over at the watch factory. J. Rauschenbach had a power line installed which supplied it with electricity. During the first few years the electrical power was probably used only for lighting purposes and the galvanic gold-plating of watch movement parts. Shortly before the turn of the century, the company started converting its production machines to electricity. An electric motor made by Brown, Boveri & Co. from Baden powered the engines in the factory, transmitting the energy via a complicated arrangement of shafts and drive belts in the factory workshops. These were later replaced during the 1930s with individually-powered machines.
After the death of J. Rauschenbach-Schenk in 1905, his wife, two daughters and their husbands, Ernst Jakob Homberger (director of G. Fischer AG in Schaffhausen) and Dr. Carl Jung (psychologist and psychiatrist), took over the watch factory as an open trading company by the name of the UHRENFABRIK VON J. RAUSCHENBACH'S ERBEN. E.J. Homberger was the only authorized signatory, Haenggi and Vogel were directors.
Following the death of his father-in-law, Ernst Jakob Homberger had a considerable influence on the Schaffhausen watchmaking company's affairs and guided it through one of the most turbulent epochs in Europe's history. Just before the world economic crisis, he took over as sole proprietor and renamed the company UHRENFABRIK VON ERNST HOMBERGER-RAUSCHENBACH, formerly INTERNATIONAL WATCH CO. His contribution was honoured in 1952, when he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of St. Gallen. He died in 1955, aged 85 years.
[edit] 1900 - 1960
During the period just before and after the First World War, E.J. Homberger devoted himself to devising and setting up social institutions. He extended the living quarters for factory employees and established a fund for widows and orphans. In 1929, the name of the fund was changed to the J.Rauschenbach Foundation and in 1949 he founded the Watch Company Welfare Foundation.
On 1 April 1 1944, as a result of a fatal error, Schaffhausen was bombed by the United States Army Air Force. The watch factory was hit by a bomb which failed to detonate after crashing through the rafters. The flames from incendiaries exploding nearby penetrated the building through the broken windows but were extinguished by the company's own fire brigade.
After World War 2 a change of direction was called for because the markets of Eastern Europe were lost completely following the descent of the Iron Curtain. Germany, too, was in ruins and could be written off as a market until its economic revival. As a result, old contacts and connections with other countries in Europe and the Americas as well as Australia and the Far East were revived and intensified or established. The period of global economic growth that began in the late 1940s and lasted for several decades was also the economic heyday of the watch factory in Schaffhausen and the entire Swiss watch industry.
Hans Ernst Homberger was the third and last of the Rauschenbach heirs to run the factory as a sole proprietor. He had joined his father's company in 1934 and took control after his death in April 1955. In 1957 he added a new wing to the factory and in the same year set up a modern pension fund for the staff. Always a forward-looking entrepreneur, he bought new machines to meet new demands and continuously brought his production technology up to the very latest standards. He died in 1986 at the age of 77.
[edit] 1970's - Present
In the 1970s and 80s, the Swiss watchmaking industry underwent a phase of far-reaching technological change. Following in the wake of the use of miniaturized electric batteries as a source of energy for wristwatches from the late 1940s onwards and the invention of the transistor in 1947, purely mechanical watch technology developed into a hybrid discipline of precision mechanics and electronics.
IWC read the signs of technological progress very well and managed to avoid investing heavily in expensive and misguided technologies, such as the electronically controlled balance. The UHRENFABRIK H. E. HOMBERGER co-founded and was a shareholder in the ""Centre Electronique l'Horlogerie Suisse"" (CEH) in Neuchâtel and was financially involved in the development of the Beta 21 quartz wristwatch movement, which was first presented to the public at the 1969 Industrial Fair in Basel. In actual value terms, this movement accounted for about 5-6% of total sales of quartz watches. Parallel to this, the company expanded its collection of jewellery watches to include ladies watches with mechanical movements. The year 1973 was IWC's most successful of the post-war period.
The cataclysmic rise in gold prices in 1974 had grave consequences for the watch exporting industry. Between 1970 and 1974 the price of gold rose from 4850 to 18 000 francs and the value of the dollar against the Swiss currency plummeted by up to 40%. As a result, the price of watch exports rose by as much as 250%. At the same time Japan was flooding the market with cheap quartz watches.
A change of direction was necessary and this led to the adoption of a number of measures. In order to survive, IWC, under the leadership of Director and CEO Otto Heller, built up a line of high-quality pocket watches, and, apart from setting up its own modern wristwatch and case manufacturing facilities, began working closely with Ferdinand A. Porsche as an external designer. In addition, IWC pioneered new watchmaking technologies, notably the first titanium braclets, developed in 1978.
For its new plans IWC required a high level of venture capital. With the help of the Swiss Banking Corporation, the company was put in contact with VDO Adolf Schindling AG, which took a majority interest in IWC in 1978.
At the same time, IWC reacquired the name it had originally been given by its founder F.A. Jones (INTERNATIONAL WATCH CO. AG).
In 1981, Otto Heller succeeded H.E. Homberger as general manager following the latter's retirement on age grounds. The new director, Günter Blümlein, pushed for rapid implementation of planned changes, put the existing advertising campaign to work, built up the customer base, and solidified IWC's finances.
In 1991 IWC director Günter Blümlein founded the LMH Group with its headquarters in Schaffhausen. With a 100% stake in IWC, 60% in Jaeger-LeCoultre and 90% in the Saxony-based watchmaking company of A. Lange & Söhne, the Group employed some 1440 persons.
In July 2000, LMH was acquired by Richemont, a Zug-based luxury goods group, for CHF 2.8 bn. Despite the takeover by Richemont, IWC was guaranteed that it would continue to be managed by the same executives from the LMH Group.
In the year 2001 IWC went online with the Collectors Forum.
[edit] Sales History
In Germany, the largest market for IWC watches, sales rose between 1895 and 1900 from 553 500 to 805 000 francs; in Austria from 121 300 to 261 920 francs during the same period and in Russia from 29 400 to 182 300 francs. These impressive figures were due largely to the acumen of the company's management as well as the discipline and reliability of its employees. The enormous demands placed upon them can be seen from the official working times in February 1880: "The usual working time is 11 hours, between 6 am and 7 pm. The owner is free to determine the starting and finishing times." And that included Saturdays.
For every year since the 1880s, IWC has kept records of every watch manufactured and sold.
