CASE STUDY ON TIMEXCASE STUDY ON TIMEX

PRESENTED BY

GROUP-3

OVERVIEW:

1. FACTS ABOUT COMPANIES

2. POSITIONING OF THE BRAND

3. COMPETITIVE FORCES & COMPETITOR’S STRATEGY

4. REASON FOR SUCCESS AND ADVANTAGE INDIA FACTOR

5. STOCK PERFORMANCE OF TIMEX

6. FAILURE REASONS AFTER 2000

7. SUGGESTIONS FOR TIMEX

FACTS ABOUT TIMEX:

• Timex Group designs, manufactures and markets innovative

timepieces and jewelry globally. Timex, founded in 1854, has

expanded to become Timex Group with 25% market share in India

currently.

FACTS ABOUT TIMEX:

• For over 150 years, it provides innovative, well-designed and

reliable timepieces with styles among its Fashion, Sports and

Outdoor lines and has sold more than one-billion watches.

• One of the largest watch makers in the world, the Timex Group

companies market global brands including Timex, Versace,

Valentino, Salvatore Ferragamo, Guess, GC, Vincent Berard,

Versus, TX, Marc Ecko, Nautica and Opex.

• Timex having 5,000 employees, sold in more than 100 countries

and it has manufacturing and distribution facilities in 20 countries.

• Timex manufactures GPS enabled watches, heart rate monitor

exercise watches and similar high tech devices

FACTS ABOUT TITAN:

• Titan Industries is the world's sixth largest wrist watch

manufacturer and India's leading producer of watches

under various famous brand names with 65% market share

in India currently.

• Founded in 1987 with H/Q in Hosur.

• Joint venture between Tata Group, and the Tamil Nadu

Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO).

• Portfolio includes watches, accessories and jewellery, in

both contemporary and traditional designs.

FACTS ABOUT TITAN:

• Titan formed a joint venture with Timex, which lasted until

1998

• Titan Industries has claimed to have manufactured the

world's slimmest wrist watch - Titan Edge

• Precision Engineering Division of Titan was started in

2002. It has become one of the leading manufacturers of

Precision Parts for Automotive and Aerospace Industries.

• Tanishq is currently the most prominent jewellery brand of

India. The name Tanishq has been formed by combining

"Ta" (the first two letters of Tata) and "Nishk or Nishkh"

(meaning gold coin or necklace in Sanskrit).

FACTS ABOUT CASIO COMPUTERS:• Casio Computer Co., Ltd is a multinational electronic

devices manufacturing company founded in 1946

FACTS ABOUT CASIO COMPUTERS:

• The firm makes a wide range of electronics for consumers,

including calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, portable TVs,

watches, and musical keyboards.

• CASIO also manufactures computing and communications devices,

like PDAs and electronic cash registers.

• Casio was launched officially in India with a Joint Venture

Company with Bharti Telecom Ltd., India with 40% equity share,

Mitsui & Co., Ltd, Japan, with 9% equity share and Casio Computer

Co., Ltd a major 51% equity share on first of February 1996 to

manufacture and market Casio Brand Radio Pagers in India.

FACTS ABOUT SEIKO HOLDINGS:

• Seiko Holdings Corporation, more commonly known simply

as Seiko

• The company started in 1881. The first watches produced

under the Seiko brand appeared in 1924.

• Manufactures Watches, clocks, printers, semi conductors,

mecha-tronics devices, machine tools, optical glass

materials, jewellery, eyeglasses.

• Seiko is also the official timer of many major sporting

events AND Various Seiko watches were worn by the

cinematic James Bond 007 in four films.

FACTS ABOUT SEIKO HOLDINGS:

FACTS ABOUT SWATCH:

• In 1982, Swatch was conceived and it was introduced to

the market in Switzerland in March 1983.

• From the original cult plastic watches, Swatch has

diversified its offerings considerably, including:

1. Metal-bodied watches (the Irony series)

2. Diving watches (the Scuba series)

3. Thin and flat bodied watches (the Skin family)

4. Internet-connected watch that can download stock

quotes, news headlines, weather reports, and other data

(the Paparazzi series).

POSITIONING:

Companies tried to use this:

1.Positioning in terms of sales - Tie up with TITAN

2.Positioning in terms of price - Low due to tie-up

3.Positioning in terms of availability - easily available

4.Positioning in terms of variety, suiting to needs

5.Positioning in terms of value for money

6.Positioning in terms of tradition / culture / situation

7.Positioning in terms of brand building – marriage of

fashion & technology.

COMPETITIVE FORCES AND STRATEGY

NEW MARKET ENTRANTS

SUBSTITUTES

SUPPLIERS CUSTOMERS

FIRM COMPETITOR

COMPETITIVE FORCES AND STRATEGY

Firm:

• Timex: Became a major brand after tie-up with Titan

•Second largest Selling Watch group in India (third largest

market across the globe)

• Easily available (transportation) and affordable

• Variety was available according to customer needs

• Large sales implied more growth for the company

• Theme music of Titan-Timex added the charm to the

product than anyone else.

• Currently has 59 time factory stores.

COMPETITIVE FORCES AND STRATEGY

Competitors:

1.Had 3 competitors in watches area: Seiko, Swatch & Casio .

2.Post breakup, Titan gave tight competition.

3.Swatch stresses more on quality and longevity.

4.Casio laid more stress on other electronic items.

5.Seiko had not much presence in the Indian market.

COMPETITIVE FORCES AND STRATEGY

New Market Entry: The threat by Titan / Swatch

Differentiated market by Sonata and attacked mid price segment

according to customer choices.

FastTrack targets the youth and Dash, to the children’s segment.

Titan Steel for trendy urban youth / Titan Raga for working women.

Nebula: Premium watch segment priced above 6000.

Swatch focused more on style, dependability and quality.

New Market Exit:

Entry was not tough for the manufacturers, but after huge

investment, exit was not easy- HMT.

COMPETITIVE FORCES AND STRATEGY

Substitute Products:

Mobile Phones, Digital Music Players.

Target Customer:

Income and class: Middle class and the rich of cities

Niche market: Teenagers, Adventurous, Sportsmen

Occupation: Businessmen, Professionals

REASON FOR INITIAL SUCCESS:

Variety of Products:

• Various options were available: formal-> casual- diff. price ranges

• Strengthened position with proper marketing and distribution

infrastructure.

• Competitively priced and better after sales service.

REASON FOR INITIAL SUCCESS:Distribution and Sales Infrastructure:

• Had a strong sales and distribution network, back by brilliant after

sales service (main strength).

• Opened branded showrooms and better distribution network.

Distribution System Improvement:•TWL has a network of 300 direct sales dealers, 20 exclusive showrooms, 70 non-traditional outlets and 4000 retail outlets.

Choice moving from single-brand shops to multi-brand shops.

•The products are sold through big size retail stores & branded stores in big towns and small retail outlets in smaller towns.

Innovation:

• Invented and launched electroluminescent tech in 1992- INDIGLO

1.Timex Datalink

2.Timex Heart Rate Monitor

3.Timex Speed & Distance GPS Watch for their high-tech

features

4.Timex Digital Compass

5.Timex MP3

6.Timex Internet Messenger

}REASON FOR INITIAL SUCCESS:

REASON FOR INITIAL SUCCESS:Brand Building Activity:

• Superbrands Council adjudged TIMEX as a Super brand in India.

Timex has been chosen from among 711 consumer brands that

were evaluated under 98 different categories to identify the

strongest brands in India. It is one of only two watch brands

selected.

• Took initiatives for creating a good brand image. TWL’s policy is to

spend on advertisement from their cash flow; since the funds are

limited they come up with innovative ideas to build the brand

without spending too much on the same.

1.Adopting a strategy of multi-branding covering the entire market

segment.

2.Signed the Australian cricketer, Brett Lee, as brand ambassador.

REASON FOR INITIAL SUCCESS:Marketing Strategy:

•In a new marketing initiative, Timex Watches is placing a series of next generation jukeboxes at fashionable outlets where the youth throng such as Pizza Hut, and Café Coffee Day outlets.

•The high-tech jukeboxes called "Qjam"s, have a database of thousands of tracks, which users can choose by genre, artist, album, mood, new releases and top numbers through a touch-screen menu.

ADVANTAGE INDIA FOR TIMEX:Leveraging India as manufacturing hub:

Timex Watches Limited is acting as an outsourcing hub for Timex

Watch BV (an arm of Timex USA). TWL is exporting watches in small

numbers to markets such as the US, Mexico and West Asia.

Offering shared services:

•TWL is offering taxing services for Timex global.

•Knowledge management – TWL has a person who is gathering

information across Timex global and sharing the same from India.

•Treasury – TWL has a person coordinating collections from retail

outlets worldwide.

ADVANTAGE INDIA FOR TIMEX:Future plans:

•Timex Watches Ltd plans to set up a resource centre at its Noida plant near Delhi. The centre will carry out back-end operations such as software development and other functions for Timex USA.

•Timex also strengthened its retail coverage. It has increased the number of Timex shop-in-shops within premium retail outlets across the country from 70 to 300 by 2005, with an investment of about US$ 1 million. More strengthening of its distribution network would provide it with a better positioning in the domestic watch market.

•TWL is planning to have the design and engineering group to come to India.

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF TIMEX SINCE 1993

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF TIMEX SINCE 2000

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF TIMEX SINCE 2000

FAILURE REASON FOR TIMEX:• Brand owners failed to position the brand properly. In the initial

years, the focus was the volume which diluted the brand and then came the lack of positioning of the brand.

• Timex have the age old positioning of " Technology that keeps you ticking". In India, the brand has changed the tagline frequently. At one point of time, the tagline was " Time on your side" . Now the brand comes with the tagline " What next".

Constant changes in the positioning statement confused the customer. Timex failed to communicate its core brand values to the consumer.

• 2003 saw a rejuvenation in Timex. The company restructured and a new marketing team was in place. But even during that time also the promotions were not upto the mark. Timex also gave importance to the retail push by opening lot of Shop within Shop outlets named Club Timex.

SUGGESTIONS FOR TIMEX:Timex is running a new commercial for the Expedition range which looks good. But for that range the tagline is " What next". May be the company wants to say to customer that Time moves so does Timex. •In our humble opinion, Timex should align the brand with its global positioning. Timex globally has the tagline of " Be There Now". Since the Indian consumer is aligned to global consumer characteristics, Timex will benefit by having a global positioning, since watches are considered now as a fashion accessory.