Watches of Switzerland has left the dated head offices it occupied on an edge of town trading estate to one which management say finally fits the image of a £1.5 billion turnover global brand. The group – which takes in Goldsmiths and Mappin and Webb – has moved its 500 head office staff to a smart, three storey office complex with room to grow, just outside Leicester.
Its former offices, a couple of miles down the road, will be kept on and redeveloped as a distribution centre for its stores, and another site called Millfield House, also nearby, will become a Midlands watch service centre, creating 60 new jobs in the coming months.
Group chief executive Brian Duffy said the business had been through huge changes over the decade since he joined – including an IPO, an eightfold growth in online sales, overseas growth and store openings across the UK – and it was time for a new home.
Cutting the ribbon to the Carlton Park HQ, a mile from Junction 21 of the M1, he said the group was four times the size it was when he joined 10 years ago and thanked staff for putting up with its old Aurum House offices for so long.
He said: “As time went on and the business grew we were keen to move to somewhere that would properly represent the company and be a great place to work.
“Coming out of Covid, we had to find somewhere big and luxurious enough to ensure all of our colleagues could be seated and work together, as well as being in an environment which is reflective of who we are – a retailer of luxury products.
“We have 2,800 employees around the world and 500-plus based here and plan to grow that. I think we’re going to have many, many happy years here as we grow and continue to develop.
The group’s UK and Europe president Craig Bolton, said the 70,000 sq ft office – previously occupied by Santander – had room to create around 100 new jobs over the next few years as the business continues its expansion in the States, which now accounts for 42 per cent of revenues, and into Europe.
The group has 193 showrooms across the UK, US and Europe including 80 dedicated mono-brand boutiques selling brands such as Rolex, OMEGA, TAG Heuer and Breitling. There is also a big presence at Heathrow Airport and seven online shops. Rolex remains its biggest watch brand.
Mr Bolton said the rate of job creation would partly depend on expansion in Europe while there was still huge opportunity in the States.
He said: “America is a market that we have already become big in but we’ve only developed a fraction of.
“Our UK business is quite mature, but there are still opportunities for organic growth here.
“Europe is more complicated, and ideally what will happen there is that we will pick up an acquisition. We have opened eight stores in Europe in the last 12 months, which are all mono-brand boutiques and which started with OMEGA in Stockholm.
“We like Scandinavia because retail there is a bit old fashioned and it’s a wealthy population, and we like Germany because it has a similar feel to the UK.”
Brian Duffy told BusinessLive: “We’re the biggest watch retailer in the world, based right here in Leicester.
“We were invited to get involved in the US market by landlords over there in 2016/17 and took a big step to open in New York in the Hudson’s Yard complex, and in Soho, and we bought the Mayors Group [which cost around $108 million] and pretty quickly became a big presence in the US.
“The UK market is the most successful watch market in the world but what we were doing here nobody was doing in the US and we’re now almost as big there as we are in the UK.”
He said the business coped well through Covid, with people splashing money they had saved in lockdowns on smart watches, but was seeing a tougher environment as interest rates and inflation took their toll on people’s disposable incomes.
But he said: “Because of our scale and success people trust what we do. You can’t do luxury on the cheap – you have to put your money where your mouth is.”
He also said that over the past two years the business had put £6 million into a Watches of Switzerland Group Foundation helping local communities through foodbanks, homelessness support and support for young people.
Ex-rugby international Martin Johnson, DJ Spoony, Mary Portas and actor John Hannah are all ambassadors.
The business has also backed a US charity called Habitat for Humanity which helps homeless people build their own homes.
