What could Seiko do to move upmarket?

For Seiko, a feasible and relatively fast option is to acquire some country-wide luxury watchmakers. According to Seiko’s history, Seiko has had this kind of experience and could well handle this. To detail the option as actions, here are the recommendations Seiko can take into consideration.

•Firstly, continue the investment on R&D and the nurture of innovation culture, which will secure the market share of the segmentation Seiko is currently playing in. It is very important because it will provide Seiko sufficient cash flow to win the luxury battle.

•Pick up a country with a well-known luxury watch brand and similar culture with Japan. Merge or acquire the brand.

•Consolidate Seiko’s blood with the brand and aggressively promote the brand in that country. Take care of the potential culture conflict and choose a right brand spokesman.

According to analysis, the idea to my brain is what kind of high-end watch maker could Seiko acquire?

Swiss watch maker
Obviously, If chose acquiring brand to improve Seiko's watch image, Seiko would like to Swiss brand. But what kind is the key question.
In my idea, Seiko emphasized its technology advantage in watch before and advanced technology was still the highlight for Seiko. Similar brands which had better brand image than Seiko were just RADO, Rolex and IWC.
But any brand of above three is very difficult to be anquired by Seiko.
If Seiko acquired such brand, I thought the management was still a big problem. I thought Swiss guys did not want to listen to Japanese.

To satisfy high-end market and improve the reputation to be a luxury brand, the company would have a lot of things to do to reach the target. In the technology side, although quartz movements offered superior accuracy, they contained consumable parts and lacked the mechanical intricacy valued by luxury watch buyers, so maybe more hand made effort could be added to the watches to outstand its value. In the other side of brand promotion, the company could open flagship stores in luxury shopping mall and five stars hotels to attract more high-end watches buyer, sponsor for the worldwide highest class championship, such as Olympic Games and Formula 1, and invite famous pop song singers or movie stars to be the spokesperson.

Seiko should not only build its brand image in Japan, but also in the international market. As we all know, most successful brand with high prestige has its own historic tradition and profound culture. It will take a long time, perhaps one hundred years to become a well-known luxury watch brand. Therefore, Seiko need focus on much more on the culture cultivation of its luxury brand in the future.

To survive in the fierce competition, technology as the Spring Drive alone will not be sufficient for Seiko. It’d better to develop more sub-brands with different targeting market to have more profits and avoid the fierce competition in the luxury market. For example, it could launch fashionable dress watch to earn profits in the fashion industry. On the other hand, it could help Seiko save more investment in other developments and be more concentrated on the other markets easier to make money.
To put everything into the nutshell, Seiko and all the other watch makers need to take innovative steps in the future for further development. Take a look at other industry and add more functions to watch may be a good choice for watch manufactures.