You can be excused if you haven’t heard of Swiza before. It’s both an old and a new company – as a true Swiss manufacture of table and alarm clocks, Swiza has been around for 113 years, but the new part of the company, focusing on manufacturing knives and watches, has only been operating for a couple of years.
“In 2015, we launched wristwatches and a new brand of Swiss Army knife,” explains Peter Hug, CEO and founding partner, Swiza. “Swiza wants to build up a lifestyle brand. We have identified three very clear design directions – the signature line, defined by the knives; business classic; and urban sport.”
Four new collections launched today: the Magnus, the Magnus GMT, a redesigned Alta and the automatic Kretos.
The Swiss Made Kretos features an ETA 2824 movement and retails for a very reasonable $700 – $750, depending on the model, with a three-year warranty.
“The pricing is very important to us,” Hug, who was the CEO of Swiss knife and watch brand Wenger for a number of years, emphasizes. “We see our brand as a high quality Swiss brand, but we still want to offer products at a reasonable price. We have all the connections here in Switzerland and we have a very slim structure. We are not a huge company with big overhead. Everybody here is a sales person and we try to offer the best possible price performance ratio.”
Swiza’s approach to selling its product will vary depending on the country in which they are selling. “We will not exclude any sales channel, as for us it is important to be available and present in on-line sales channels, but it is also important to be present and touchable in brick and mortar retail,” Hug details. “It’s the only way to operate in today’s world that it is viable. We have to be active in every sales channel.”
Swiza first turned heads with its new Swiss Army knife, a redesigned version of the classic, featuring a unique Safety Lock System, where you just press the Swiza cross to release the lock allowing the blade to close. Manufactured and assembled in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland, the new knife has established the company and Hug plans to use this success as a springboard for its watches and other products.
And leading the way is the new automatic Kretos.
“I think Kretos is a very nice watch for everyday use, for someone who is willing and able to spend a little more for a real Swiss watch with an automatic movement,” Hug says. “The Kretos easy to read, it has a classic touch to it, but it is very modern as well. Our plan is to introduce another line of automatic watches, we are working on the prototyping right now, and this will be part of our signature line. We will also launch more product with quartz movements ($180 – $500). Some countries are much more interested in automatic watches, but other countries prefer the less expensive quartz watches. Overall, we sell more quantity in quartz watches, but automatic watches are very important for us.”
Swiza is working hard to develop itself as a lifestyle brand, with watches, knives, small leather goods, bags, backpacks and luggage. After only two years, the company is well on its way.
Technical Specifications:
Kretos
Case: 44mm stainless steel, 10 ATM water resistance, exhibition sapphire coated crystal case back
Movement: ETA 2824-2 Automatic
Strap: Genuine calf leather
Magnus GMT
Case: 48mm stainless steel, 10 ATM water resistance, exhibition sapphire coated crystal case back
Movement: Ronda Swiss quartz
Strap: Genuine calf leather
Magnus
Case: 48mm stainless steel, 10 ATM water resistance, exhibition sapphire coated crystal case back
Movement: ETA Swiss quartz
Strap: Genuine calf leather/Nylon
Alza
Case: 40mm stainless steel, 10 ATM water resistance, exhibition sapphire coated crystal case back
Movement: Ronda Swiss quartz
Strap: Genuine calf leather/stainless steel Milanese
