"I knew nothing else," he says today of that momentous decision. "I had been in the watchmaking industry since I was in my early twenties and there was nothing I knew better. Although I must confess to there being some degree of sentimentality involved in my decision-making at that time. One cannot be in an industry for as long as I had been and not feel some affinity with it."

But sentimentality is hardly a firm basis upon which to start a watchmaking company. This even less so in 1976 when the Swiss watchmaking industry was undergoing perhaps its greatest crisis since the 1930's. Having recently discovered quartz technology which circumvented the need for craftsmen to manufacture the movements, the Japanese Had begun flooding the world market with inexpensive timepieces. The Swiss watchmakers, refusing to change or adapt their traditional approach were left reeling from the impact that the Japanese were making in terms of market share.

It was a period of incredible flux within the Swiss watchmaking industry, an industry priding itself on producing the world's best watches watches that were also amongst the world's most expensive. And it was the very expense of creating these watches which finally threatened the Swiss industry as the Japanese products continued to undercut it. The result was a rationalism of the industry, with Raymond Weil being one of the casualties. Suddenly at age fifty, Raymond Weil was out of a job after twenty-seven years with the one company.

Geneva born, and educated at the Geneva School of Commerce, Raymond Weil had worked at Camy since 1949, and his enforced resignation in 1975 left him with a wealth of experience just waiting for the right situation in which to be applied. Ironically enough, it would be the very quartz technology that was threatening the Swiss industry which would prove the source of Raymond's Weil second professional life.

Realising the potential of the new quartz technology, and together with a former secretary, Simone Bedat-also ousted from Camy in 1975, Raymond Weil set about establishing his own watchmaking company.

"I was very sure that given all the experience I had in the industry I could do very well," Raymond explains. "When Simone and I decided to produce our own line of watches we were certainly full of hope, but hope was not enough to guarantee success, and we put in a lot of hard work to get started." The hard work Raymond talks about involved producing a dozen dummy watches using quartz technology and then travelling the world to convince distributors to take them. Their first watch, an 18 kt electroplated model which looked expensive but wasn't due to the relative inexpensive of the quartz movement, created a wave of enthusiasm. but not before Raymond Weil himself had mortgaged his house and committed his life's savings to cover the costs of starting up his new venture.

So tight was the financial situation that at the 1976 Basel Jewellery Fair, Raymond Weil had to display his twelve watches from a stall kindly donated by a friend, and eat standing at a counter of a fast-food outlet. This situation would change dramatically within the space of ten years, but for the time being Raymond Weil and Simone Bedat were content to travel the world at their own expense, meeting with potential distributors from England to Saudi Arabia and everywhere in between. Their big break however came after a meeting with an ex-bodyguard attached to the Israeli Embassy in Paris. Benny Shabtai agreed to become the exclusive distributor for Raymond Weil watches in the United States. Shabtai's faith in, and aggressive promotion of the brand brought Raymond Weil to the attention of the huge American market, a market which today is the brand's largest.

It was 1977 and Raymond Weil had decided to name his watch brand Dinita in honour of his two daughters, Diana and Anita, but opted instead to use his own name on the advice of friends who argued that his own name was already well-known after twenty-five years in the industry and should be exploited. Another former Camy employee, Gilbert Petit-Jean had now joined the small team as the person in charge of production. Petit-Jean's appointment was a response to the positive impact of Raymond Weil's few early models which in the space of one year had managed to sell 3000 units. And Ask Raymond Weil whether this early success was the result of luck and he will fix you with his eyes and grin knowingly.

"Luck can never take the place of hard work," he says, "and we all worked very hard to make sure our watches were visible. We started off with an order for ten, then twenty and then more and more. But this only happened because Simone and I were willing to commit ourselves to doing all we could to get attention for our samples. Once we had importers interested we started extending the range of watches we had available.

By concentrating on using quartz rather than mechanical movements, Raymond Weil and his team were free of any technical problems, and team instead to focus their attention on developing the look of their watches, experimenting with designs and styles in an attempt to meet the every changing fashion demands of their potential customers. Avant garde designs, fused with modern technological developments meant that Raymond Weil could produce watches which, while bold and innovative in styling, were nonetheless state-of-the-art. Further, the savings generated by using quartz rather than mechanical movements were then able to be passed on to customers, advantageously positioning Raymond Weil watches at the upper middle price bracket: a market largely ignored by the Swiss watchmaking industry.

It was a shrewd marketing move, attributable to Raymond Weil's faith in the new technology: making him the first Swiss watchmaker to embrace quartz technology, and putting him in direct competition with the Japanese manufacturers, who although using the same quartz technology, lacked the design flair for which the Swiss had become famous. The market for comparatively inexpensive but stylish watches was there for the taking and Raymond Weil embraced it whole-heartedly.

"When we started we could have gone to a large Swiss company with our idea of developing a range of fashionable watches using the latest quartz technology, especially given the climate of the industry at the time and the challenges to be faced by anyone wanting to start from scratch, but we wanted to be independent," explains Raymond Weil. "I didn't want to waste my time organising meetings and conferences and so forth. I wanted to be intimately involved in all areas of production, distribution and promotion."

One of Raymond Weil's most strident goals was to make watches which were pret-a-porter (ready to wear); watches which would be known for their fashion sense and affordability. His coupling of quartz technology with a keen marketing sense put Raymond Weil at the head of the movement in the late seventies toward watches which were as much fashion accessories as they were functional time-keepers.

"We came in at a time when there was a gap between what the Japanese were doing and what we Swiss were producing," he adds. "Switzerland was a little behind technologically and we filled that gap with watches that were distinctly attractive and reliable, yet very affordable. Our combination of style, design and affordable price is very important to our success." As important perhaps as the elaborate distribution network Raymond Weil, Simone Bedat - and since 1982, Raymond's son in-law, Olivier Bernheim have established.

Working out of an office in the Jura watchmaking region of Switzerland, Raymond Weil likes to have a hands-on approach to his work. While Gilbert Petit-Jean looks after all the technical details of production at the company's ultra-modern Les Brenets atelier near Neuchatel, Simone Bedat oversees design, production and promotion, and Olivier Berheim sales and marketing. Raymond Weil continues to travel the world, putting a genial face to the watch that carries his name.

The seventy world-wide distributors Raymond Weil watches have direct access to the three principals: Raymond, Simone and Olivier, and can usually get a decision on any issue, or answer to any question within hours. There is nothing of the ivory-tower mentality at Raymond Weil, the continued success of the entire organisation depends on the company's ability to respond quickly and accurately to the changing demands of the market place. As a point in example, at the time of Milos Forman releasing his film Amadeus, Raymond Weil appeared to have anticipated the interest that would be generated by the film by producing a watch of the same name. Not only was the watch released before the movie, but Raymond Weil executed a major publicity coup when he personally presented the watch to the film's director.

That Raymond Weil should have fortuitously brought out a watch with a musical theme at the time of such a major cinematic event, is not as coincidental as one might think: literature and art, and classical music in particular, being areas of intense interest within the Weil's family. One of Raymond's daughters is in fact a professor of the piano, while the other is an accomplished painter and sculptor. The influence of great music has always been of significance to Raymond Weil, and it is little wonder that some of his major watch collections should reflect this heritage: collections such as Adagio, Concerto, Traviata, Fidelio, Orthello and Tosca. More recently there has been Nabucco, a stunningly beautiful tribute to the master Italian composer, Giuseppe Verdi in the style of ancient Babylonia.

"In many ways watches are looking more and more like jewels," says Raymond Weil. "I guess what we did was respond to the customer's demand that watches be fashion accessories as well as reliable timepieces. People all over the world love what we do with our dials for instance making them in a variety of materials and colours, shapes and sizes. While it may be nothing new to have elaborate dials and elegant bands and so forth, the fact that our watches are immensely affordable is a very important part of the success of Raymond Weil watches."

It was Raynond Weil's recognition that people wanted quality and elegance at affordable prices that allowed him to take an initial production run of a mere twelve watches to something close to 600,000 within the relatively short space of fourteen years. No-one else had been able to emulate this kind of market penetration in the watch industry anywhere in the world in so brief a time. While most other manufacturers keep watches in stock to a practical minimum, Raymond Weil is heavily stockpiled in outlets around the world. The company has seized the opportunity to supply distributors with their merchandise quickly so that an ever-increasing demand for Weil watches can be promptly met. In 1987, when other manufacturers were felling the grip of the slump in the market after the stock market collapse, sales of Raymond Weil watches rose by a staggering 30% over the previous year; an unprecedented increase for any watch manufacturer.

Today over twenty airlines sell Raymond Weil watches on board their aircraft as part of their duty-free agreements, as far cry from the days when Raymond Weil himself could scarcely afford the price of an airline ticket. And as part of the Weil philosophy that both his watches and the man behind them should be accessible, Raymond spends a considerable part of his year jetting from country to country - his watches being available in all five continents today, meeting and talking with the people who sell his product.

As testimony to his belief that only someone who lives in a country can really understand, and therefore anticipate the needs of the people in that market, Raymond Weil refuses to employ anyone but locals to run his international operations. It is a strategy that has proven effective, allowing Raymond Weil to streamline his manpower to the mere 35 staff who work directly for him in Switzerland, and distribute under agreement with locals who hire their own staff and set up their own outlets as required. All watches are assembled under the direction of Gilbert Petit-Jean from components bought from Swiss suppliers and then shipped to Weil's international representatives on request. This allowed him access to outlets such as the large department stores in the seventy different countries with their enormous customer base.

It has been said of Raymond Weil that he is nothing if not a master conductor of his company's destiny, playing every instrument in the complex orchestra of his watchmaking concern without seeming to dominate any of them. His is a very subtle control, as evidenced by his decision to involve the company in sponsorship deals to promote up and coming young musical and artistic talents in his homeland - the annual 'Diplomatic Golf Cup' in Evian, and even act as a patron for the National Opera Company in Australia: all events that associate the Weil name and therefore the Weil product with life's more refined activities. it is amove calculated to cultivate an image for the Raymond Weil brand, one that sees the company now creating for the first time, watches made of solid gold rather than electroplate.

Not that Raymond Weil are necessarily looking to challenge the established prestige names at the top end of the watch market, rather they are looking to consolidate their position at the upper middle, lower upper price bracket. With the most expensive Raymond Weil watches hovering around the $2000 mark, these new models are seen to be attractive alternatives to their more expensive counterparts rather than vehement competition to them.

"I don't believe in diversification," explains Raymond Weil. "If you are good at something then you should keep in that line. And I am very optimistic about what we are doing, because more and more people are looking to buy watches that show off their good taste, and it is precisely this demand that we have been able to continue to address."