Quality implementation in Swiss luxury industry : an empirical investigation on watches

In the past luxury was specialized market for some group of people but now a day it has globally recognized and become more accessible market. While many studies has been performed through luxury industry but current research is mainly focus on sociological, banding and marketing aspect. As a starting point in order to analyze luxury sector deeper, CSFs of the industry have been taken into account. Among these, the premium quality was found the most important element to be considered in current research. However; in recent years, quality management have been deeply studied, but few authors has been mainly focused on luxury industry or indeed Swiss luxury industry. The Swiss country has been chosen according to its worldwide reputation in terms of luxury watches. Moreover, Swiss watches are still synonyms with luxury all over the world. Current research involves four different data collection surveys that primarily aim to describe quality management organization, system and practices of Swiss watch industry firms, and investigating the significant possible impact of contingent factors on those variables. Then, user based perspective has been taken into account in order to investigate the quality perceptions from a consumer point of view. Subsequently, market perspective and Swiss association has been analyzed. Accordingly, a deep literature review together with the study of watch, luxury and Swiss watch industry has been implemented. Next, the most significant quality organization and management variables together with relevant contingent factors were identified and formed the current research framework. Then, four case studies were conducted. At the end, information and data gathered from sample cases were summarized in a cross-case table to be analyzed. In addition, fifteen sample consumers have been taken into account in order to study the quality perception from a consumer point of view. For this reason a most relevant variables considered to form the research framework and the relation between independence variables (Manufacturing location, origin of the watch, perceived quality) with dependence variable (customer satisfaction) has been analyzed. Finally, the data collected from sample consumers were summarized in order to analyze. The results represent that, all the large and Exclusive luxury companies adopt quality management department as a separate function in their organizational structure and a common approach has been adopted regarding the process quality assurance among sample companies. Moreover, a high commitment regarding quality has been found among sample companies, all companies perceive the necessity and importance role of quality for a long-term acceptance in a market. Meanwhile, a TQM principles adopted by all sample companies with some differences. In general company size and luxury level positioning considered the most impacting contingent factors in current research.