On November 29, 2012, Tsinghua Eminent Entrepreneur Lectures welcomed its first guest speaker from outside China, Mr. Jean-Claud Biver, Chairman of Hublot, a leading luxury wrist watch-maker in the world. In two hours, the legendary Mr. Biver shared with the audience his understanding of how to successfully market luxury goods, drawing from his rich experiences in the industry. Dean QIAN Yingyi met with Mr. Biver before the lecture.

Before going into industry specific details, Mr. Biver first summarized three key drivers of success for any business, namely passion for the job, love and ethical behavior and differentiation advantage. He said, “First, there are many ways to success of a business. My way to success is to find a work that does not remind me of work. The secret is to find where your passion is. Nobody can work 18 hours a day unless it is based on your passion. Second, I always believe in love both at work and in family life. Love means we should behave ethically. Love means sharing your knowledge, experiences, your doubt, your mistakes and of course success with people around you. Third, never go to the same direction others head for. No matter what business I am in, I always try to be the first, unique and different.” 

Mr. Jean-Claud Biver

Speaking of Hublot, which he bought the name for a meager amount of money and in less than ten years brought to the prestigious position of the industry leader, Mr. Biver said, “We brought vision, logic and a completely different philosophy to Hublot. People buy Hublot not to tell time but for other reasons such as prestige. We always work against the then dominant way of thinking. Against quartz watch, we only produce mechanical watch. We place our factories deep in the mountain of Switzerland. People used to associate heavy weight with quality of watches. Now we are leading the trend by providing super light watches. That is why the whole watch industry is following our footsteps.” 

In two hours, the passionate Mr. Biver led the audience through the fascinating evolution of the watch industry and gave them a taste of the courage and wisdom of indulging in the marketing of luxury goods. At the Q&A session, Mr. Biver answered questions regarding talent retention, brand proposition and the future of China’s watch industry. 

The Tsinghua Eminent Entrepreneur Lectures, hosted by Tsinghua SEM, invite business leaders with outstanding innovation capability and visionary leadership to share their experiences of starting up and managing businesses as well as their philosophy of life.  The lectures aim to deepen the students’ understanding of private companies, reformed state-owned enterprises in China, as well as transnational companies and to invigorate entrepreneurship in the students. 

About the speaker Jean-Claude Biver

Jean-Claude Biver is one of those rare men who have genuinely left their mark on Swiss watch-making. Born in Luxembourg on September 20th 1949, his family moved to Switzerland when he was ten years old. He attended the Collège de Morges, obtained his maturité at the Lausanne Business School and completed his studies at the University of Lausanne. Having obtained his HEC (University of Lausanne Business School) diploma, he settled in Le Brassus. His time spent in the Joux Valley, the cradle of fine watch-making, had a decisive impact on his life. He took up residence next to a farm, which in later years became the headquarters of Blancpain. He seized the unique opportunity of a year's "all-rounder" training offered to him by Audemars Piguet in 1975, after which he concentrated on sales and marketing. During that year, he was immersed in all aspects of the business, which enabled him to acquire a deep knowledge of the watch-making art. This is how he developed his passion for watch-making and watchmakers. In 1980, he left Audemars Piguet to join Omega as gold products manager. In this position, he learnt the rules and constraints inherent in working for a big international brand. In 1982, feeling nostalgic for the watch-making culture of the Joux Valley, he and his friend Jacques Piguet bought the Blancpain name which had been dormant since 1961. 

Using the slogan "Since 1735 there has never been a quartz Blancpain, and there never will be", he quickly revived the company and increased the turnover to 50 million Swiss francs. Within a few years, the brand was competing with the biggest names in watch-making. However, in 1992 he decided to sell Blancpain to the SMH Group (later to become the Swatch Group) and joined Nicolas G. Hayek’s management team. As a member of the Swatch Group's Management Committee, he was given the task of developing the marketing and products for the Omega brand, a company he had leftten years earlier. The Omega revival was impressive, focusing in particular on the development of new products and the recruitment of famous names such as Cindy Crawford, Michael Schumacher, James Bond - alias 007 - and Pierce Brosnan. 

At the end of 2003, he decided to take a year's sabbatical but, ever the man of action, he quickly changed his mind in order to take over the leadership of a small business founded in 1980: Hublot Geneva. In 2004, as CEO he decided to focus on Hublot's original product and develop a new concept for the brand: "The Art of Fusion". In fact, in 1980, Hublot was the first watchmaker to create a watch which fused different materials, by combining gold and rubber. By dedicating all of his expertise and marketing talent to the brand, in April 2005 - within a year - he had achieved the tour de force of launching a revolutionary chronograph: the Big Bang. Unveiled at BaselWorld 2005, it was an immediate success. The awards came thick and fast. Hublot was injected with an extraordinary dynamism, guaranteeing exceptional growth. Jean-Claude Biver was truly responsible for the rebirth of this brand, and perhaps even for its birth, if we consider today, in 2012, the path it has travelled in just seven years. The company owes its impressive growth to the boundless energy of its unique owner: firstly, the company's economic growth, with turnover increasing in 4 years from 25 million to more than 200 million Swiss francs in 2008, when the brand was sold to LVMH.