Alexis Gouten, director of Gouten Distribution SA and Macher SA
“The distribution network in Switzerland is still rather conservative”
The current economic crisis also has positive consequences. Witness the still flourishing activity of Gouten Distribution SA and Macher SA, the two companies run by the family-owned independent structure headed by Alexis Gouten. Created in 1995, the structure handles a network of points of sale on the Swiss market for 14 different brands”. In concrete terms, the distribution company builds up its own stock that then serves to supply those of its retail partners. The distributor also takes responsibility for training the retailers on brands and new products as well as cooperating with them in undertaking communication operations.

“We represent exclusively independent Swiss brands”, points out Alexis Gouten, alluding in passing to some youthful companies that are not always too easy to sell to retailers. “The distribution network in Switzerland is still fairly conservative; retailers are not particularly avant-garde and tend to be very cautious about taking aboard new brands.” So it’s a tough market for anyone to conquer, especially since it generally takes around three years before achieving a reasonably representative range. “But the Swiss market also serves to generate significant turnover for brands”, insists Alexis Gouten, whose job it is to assume the delicate task of making the first inroads into the market, while not always being certain that the brands will not end up deciding to manage their own retailer network once the latter is well established.

Alexandre Schwab, director of Forum Distribution SA
“We have a Damocles sword hanging over our head”
“The distribution trade is like first love”, says Alexandre Schwab with a smile. Composed of a twenty-strong personnel working in two different locations, one in Lutry and the other in Moscow, Forum Distribution SA has been active since 2001 in Russia, along with other Eastern European countries and the Baltic nations. Its director considers that its activity can be equally exhilarating and disappointing. “Unfortunately, we work with three to four-year renewable contracts, which is just long enough to develop a market that is uncharted territory for a brand and to make it profitable for them. A distributor never knows what is in store and we live with a Damocles sword hanging over our head. Fortunately for us in the areas we cover, laws change regularly and there is a high level of corruption, which means it is preferable for brands to have a distributor that handles 97 customs and domestic policy issues for them.” Ten brands currently entrust their business to Forum Distribution SA2, thereby benefiting from a comfortable means of attempting to enter a new market or to develop an existing one. This is especially true in a crisis period, because it is the distributor’s responsibility to take the necessary risks, build up stock and sell it, as well as handling retailer training – the later being one of the main budget items for Forum Distribution. While the current crisis has halved the company’s revenues, Alexandre Schwab nonetheless has no plans to cut expenditure related to training. He insists that “staying close to retailers remains the key to a good partnership”. So everyone will just have to patiently await an economic upswing…

John Simonian, director of Westime
“The American market is a market of countless dreams and disillusions”
The American market is not dead. You can take it from John Simonian, since the director of Westime certainly knows what he’s talking about. The company he created around 20 years ago, in addition to commercialising watch brands in its two points of sale in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, also operates as a distributor for 10 brands3 in the United States, South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. A market that is “huge and very expensive to develop”, as he points out, adding that “It is as market of countless dreams and disillusions. You can gain everything and also lose everything here. You only need to look at the number of brands that have popped up on this market, even on several occasions, and have later backed out. There are plenty!”

The crisis has not altered Westime’s approach. “We just have to work twice as hard to achieve the same result… or sometimes a slightly lesser result”. Generally speaking, retailers contact Westime to establish a new cooperative relationship and to represent one of the brands in their range. According to John Simonian, the key to the success of this cooperation lies in human relationships. “Whether it’s with retailers or with the brands, as well as the media whom we must never neglect, our various forms of cooperation are always linked to the personal ties I cultivate with people across the board.” He is not too concerned about the future, merely clearsighted with regard to the state of the market in these tough times. “The watchword for the brands that are holding their own remains “ consistency”, which implies never betraying their origins and their identity codes, not attempting to be active on all fronts, and knowing how to choose their battles… Those who have hopped on the bandwagon when it was already rolling are unfortunately having to jump off again; they benefited from the euphoric times but in the difficult period we are going through, only those that evoke genuine values will survive.”