“VMF has passed through some difficult moments during the economic crisis and during the restructuring. In order to preserve and maintain our production tool, we have reorganized our structure. The passage from an artisanal manufacture to an industrial manufacture required new strategic orientations. Thus, we have repositioned our offer to meet the needs of the marketplace by revisiting our key processes and our business plan,” explains Florian Serex, General Manager of Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier.
Employment is again up, five months earlier than expected, and VMF today has 160 employees. An optimist, Florian Serex adds, “we are ready for a growth of 100 per cent over the next five years.”

Verticalized ensemble
Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier—which belongs to the Sandoz Family Foundation and which has grown at the sides of Parmigiani for which it is the main manufacturing group of various companies—seriously suffered during the watch recession that followed the economic downturn of the years 2008-2009. After having recruited 60 new workers in 2008, Vaucher had to lay off 14 people in March of 2009, then reduced hours to 70 per cent, before again reducing staff in April of 2010, passing from 210 to 160 today.
Since then, not only has the wind begun to change direction (returning much more slowly to fill up the sails of the ateliers and the annex branches than those of the brands, whose stocks were expecting only that), but, as Florian Serex explains, the crisis—as painful as it was—also made the brand seriously revisit its strategy. It has been all about keeping a large company operating, one that is now nearly totally verticalized (at the sides of VMF, there are its sister companies, namely Atokalpa for movements and Elwin for primary component parts such as oscillators, assortments, and cutting, as well as Les Artisans Boîtiers/Quadrance & Habillage which make cases and dials). Up to now, Vaucher Manufacture has been criticized for its weak presence on external markets (it is there mainly with Hermès, which holds 25 per cent of VMF), its relatively inadequate offer, and its prices that have been considered too high.
The new strategy put into place by Florian Serex largely takes into account these criticisms. Thus, VMF now proposes a greatly reorganized offer, composed of six mechanical calibres, including two new ‘basic’ calibres whose industrialization has been optimized and which can therefore be proposed at more ‘affordable’ prices. This is news that will certainly attract watch brands.