Interview with Raymond Lim

Today, we’re seeing that our customers desire higher-range, higher-end products from well-recognised brands and prestigious watchmakers. But due to the lack of stock from many renowned brands, there’s growing interest in independent watchmakers which produce limited, hand-made and rare timepieces.

Singapore’s watch collectors and our customers are what I’d define as very mature in and around the industry. Not only do they understand the products very well, they also know what to buy, and they are not impulsive in their purchase. They only opt for a purchase when they are certain it is what they desire. And they will find a way to get the products they desire.

We’ve been slowly and steadily moving towards retailing watches at a higher retail point. That doesn’t mean that we’re excluding brands, but within our portfolio of brands, we’re focusing on the products our customers desire most. For watches that are less costly, customers have many options to choose from including a smartwatch, which are ubiquitous today.

The market challenges are not equal across the board. The lower segment brands are encountering less interest from customers for their regular or basic products. The middle segment products are lacking in stock. What we’ve done is to curate brands and products within our portfolio that offer the best range of options for our customers. That means that there’s slight overlap between brand products and brand equity, so that we always have something suitable for their interests.

There’s still strong demand from customers today, and there are important brands retailed by Cortina that are performing well. As I said earlier, there’s more demand than there is supply. This is a problem that existed before the pandemic started, and it has exacerbated the situation. But it’s also an issue that exists across the entire supply chain, not merely at the watchmaker’s level. Their raw material suppliers face the same difficulties, and as a result, there are very few brands that can continue to increase their production to try to keep up with demand.

Then there’s also the challenge of human resources. Unfortunately watchmaking is one of those industries where the work cannot be done at home, at least for most brands. And for some small manufactures with just a handful of staff, if two or three people are down, the work process is disrupted for some time. Fortunately, at Cortina we’ve not seen as much of an impact in Southeast Asia because of our brand portfolio.

To some extent. A long time ago, we developed the Espace modular multi-brand store concept, and that is the basis of our store designs today, highly refined to meet our customers’ and partners’ needs. Some partners prefer to focus on monobrand boutiques, whether managed by themselves or retailers. Then there’s also e-commerce, which is highly progressive today and gives customers a different kind of access to their desired watches.

Meanwhile we work with brands in different ways to create more exclusive retail experiences with them. We’ve developed our retail outlets to give more floor space per brand, to create an all-encompassing brand experience within our multi-brand stores. We’re also spending a lot of time and energy training our staff and perfecting the customer experience in our stores. We want to be able to offer our customers the best service possible, by giving them the best retail experience possible.

I officially joined the company in October 1980 as a sales associate. I started at the store in Orchard Towers and then I moved to our store in Lucky Plaza. I was part of the team that was assigned to establish our Malaysia subsidiary, so from 1982 to 1983, I was based there. Then in 1986, we opened our flagship in Raffles City Shopping Centre, and that was a big milestone for us, and for me personally.

The store was around 1,400 square feet in size, which was incredible, and we had major brands like Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet there. Compared with the other stores that we had, this was a big shift and opportunity for us. The ’90s were an era of change for watchmaking and watch retail. This was a crucial turning point.

It was different. We had to engage the customer and show them the novelties. To bring them into the store, we would talk to each brand via their dealer or the local office, and convert the store into an exhibition with a concept behind it, to create a boutique experience for the brand. At the time, none of them had monobrand boutiques in Singapore. Most retailers would have long counters, and a part would be assigned to each brand.

So we would execute these trunk shows or exhibitions for two weeks, and customers would come in to discover a brand’s products, and familiarise themselves with the brand, and ourselves as a retailer. At the time, the retail scene was on Orchard Road. Raffles City wasn’t where the footfall occurred, so we had to find ways to drive traffic to our store. This was what we began to focus on and develop: a local audience for international fine watchmakers.

When we celebrated our 20th anniversary and we created our first limited edition, that was an important moment for me. Then in 1996, we opened the Paragon store and also celebrated our Silver Jubilee with the Patek Philippe Calatrava Ref. 5057R-001. That was the largest watch retail store in Singapore at the time, at 1,700 square feet.

The next major milestone was the Espace store concept launch in 2001. It was a transformative concept that we introduced in Malaysia and Thailand as well.

At the time, we had a small 1,000 square feet store in Millenia Walk. And the adjacent store was empty, with 8,000 square feet of space. I was visiting one of the watch manufactures at the time when the discussion turned to the allocation of shop spaces. This was a problem that had been discussed before. We couldn’t give every brand the biggest space within a store. I could see how this was a trend that would persist. So I proposed to my father and our Founder, Mr Anthony Lim, to take over the adjacent store space at Millenia Walk and see how we can create something new. My father considered it and at first he thought it was a little over- ambitious for us to take over such a big space but he wanted time to think it over.So the idea went on the backburner for a while, until when I was on holiday in December with my family and out of the blue at midnight, my father rang me suddenly and said, “Remember the idea you proposed when we were on the train in Switzerland ? Let’s proceed.”

So when I came back, we began to plan and propose this new idea to the brands. And the response from them was very strong; they were definitely open to developing a new retail concept with us. The challenge was figuring out how we could be even-handed within this Espace concept to everyone. But once we managed to sort out the details and develop a design that worked well, it was a great success for us. So we took it to other markets.

Over the next few years, some brands began to focus their efforts on setting up their own boutiques and so we decided to do away with the Millenia Walk space and we worked with them to build and develop unique setups for each brand. It was also around this time when Marina Bay Sands was opening, and this paved the way for a new phase of development for us.

Across Singapore and Malaysia first, and then in the other markets we had presence in, we began to renovate or change our retail spaces to find a good balance between multi-brand stores and monobrand boutiques that we operated for the brands. We had already seen that brands were moving towards this direction and so we were ready for it. By strategically planning ahead for new retail experiences in major cities across Southeast and East Asia, we were poised for growth.

As a retailer we need to be able to anticipate the demands of our business partners and customers. And we need to continue to enrich the relationship we have with them. Not only do we need to have foresight when it comes to retail trends, we also need to know the right time to make these moves. We can’t wait for them to decide that they are ready, that would be too late.

Within Cortina’s management, my father [Mr Anthony Lim, Founder and Executive Chairman] and brother [Jeremy Lim, CEO of Cortina Watch] and I form a very effective team. Jeremy foresaw the importance of Marina Bay Sands and he proposed how we should approach our retail strategy there. Then when we discussed it over and agreed, we embarked on that project. Entering the Taiwan market with boutiques in Taipei 101 was my idea. Venturing into Malaysia and expanding there was something we all contributed to. So we are both our strongest critics and supporters. Only when we agree, do we make the move.

I think we all have different skills and experiences. I have more experience in this trade and therefore have a sense of how and when to venture into new markets. Jeremy’s skill is to really grow each market and turn them into self-sustaining and self-maintaining operations.

We’re also very circumspect when it comes to finding the right markets and ways to develop or open them. In countries where we can fully own our subsidiaries, these are places we see strong growth and investment potential. In countries where we have trusted partners, we also invest our resources in growing them. So when we make decisions as a company, it’s when we all agree that every due diligence has been done to ensure our efforts will reap rewards for the company and our staff.

We believe that Sincere Watch Ltd offers us new opportunities to grow a new segment for the Cortina group, primarily that of boutique and independent watch brands. Sincere has always nurtured and introduced new brands to its customers, and it represents a number of independent brands on its own. This gives it more freedom to explore new opportunities and introduce new brands to the market and to watch audiences in general. It already has a strong reputation for supporting boutique watch brands, so there’s trust within the community in its retail and distribution.

So the two brands complement each other very well. Cortina has always offered, and will continue to offer international luxury watch brands and Sincere will have more boutique brands under its portfolio. We acquired Sincere Watch Ltd because it is a different kind of watch retailer, with an original concept of its own. Not only does it open up new markets that Cortina isn’t currently present in, we’re able to do the same for it. There’s great synergy between the two brands.

We’re not looking to add more brands right now. At this time, we’re focused on streamlining operations across the board in both companies, as well as enhancing the digital tools we have to develop the company further. We’re always communicating with various independent watchmakers to see if there’s potential. We are very careful about the brands we represent and retail, especially with independent watchmakers and the post-retail service we offer to our customers.

Take Parmigiani for example. It’s a brand that has strong foundations behind it, and that’s why we signed a dealership with them for Singapore. There are other brands that we believe are better represented by Sincere for now. We will continually evaluate their positions and see how things develop in the future.

What Sincere offers us, and its brands, is the opportunity to experiment and accelerate their growth. It helps us garner data on what customers want in independent brands, and how they can develop their products or build up their business so that they can become part of our retail across both brands. I believe this brings new possibilities for us as a group.

I think the role of the retailer today, at least from my perspective, is to have an active role in helping brands develop their presence in our markets. We need to be a stepping stone for them to grow, and this entails a lot of trust on all sides: the brands, our customers and ourselves. When it’s successful, everyone gains from this process. Trust is what has shaped our work and success, from 1972 till today.

Every brand has their own digital priorities and that extends to digital retail and marketing, naturally. And just like in physical retail, we want our e-commerce experience to offer something exciting and fresh to our customers. This is a different kind of challenge because e-commerce tends to be a very impersonal experience. In order to create a different retail experience online, we need to first understand how they behave online. That’s why we’ve been adding digital tools to our retail arsenal, and we will continue to do so. When we believe we are able to bring something different to the digital retail space, then we’ll take action.

Jewellery Time was a very iconic thematic exhibition by us, and it was really unique. It was a niche segment within the market that had been overlooked and we saw there was an opportunity that we could develop. It was an incredible learning experience for us, and when it comes to creating a thematic exhibition like that in the future, we have new ideas on how we can create something fresh and engaging for the public.

Of course, there are new considerations today when it comes to planning something like that, given how disruptions over the last two years have transformed how we work, live and experience. We have had internal discussions on how we might one day re-introduce a different type of exhibition, but all I’ll say is, it’s still brewing for now