Second wind

KARL MARX’S adage about all that is solid melting into air has never seemed more apposite: even staid businesses such as law firms and universities are threatened by technology-cum-globalisation. But look at the air more closely and you can see some strange objects floating around: Swiss watches, Montblanc fountain pens, Harris Tweed jackets, Folio Society books and old-fashioned sailing boats. Management gurus may tell people to bow down before the great god of disruptive innovation. But some companies are cheerfully doing the opposite—preserving or resuscitating traditional technologies and business models.

Ryan Raffaelli, of Harvard Business School, has examined these examples of “re-emergent technologies” in detail. The most striking example is the Swiss mechanical-watch industry. In the 1970s it was almost washed away by a tide of cheaper and more accurate digital watches. Today the industry is more successful than ever, providing the country’s largest source of exports after pharmaceuticals and machinery, and the engine of its revival is the old-fashioned wind-up watch.