Only a disused, shabby warehouse - one of the companyвЂ™s original buildings - harked to the companyвЂ™s past.ДЇounded in 1895 by Daniel Swarovski, his brother-in-law Franz Weis and a business partner, Armand Kosmann, the company has roots in Victorian-era disruptive technologies. Engineers kept watch over machines that were originally built for the semiconductor industry but have since been modified to pump out minuscule crystals, some barely visible when held on a fingertip. In another building, several 3-D printers whirred away, producing spare parts and prototypes of jewelry designs. At one new production line, two robotic arms, painted bright yellow, spun in a midair ballet as workers checked the gauges while Kings of Leon, the rock group, played on the radio.

More industrially functional than catwalk chic, the campus was dotted with people driving forklifts, shuttling boxes of crystal and other raw materials between buildings. One enters via a high-security revolving door that would not seem out of place in a spy movie. The companyвЂ™s manufacturing center is usually off-limits even to most Swarovski employees. The crystal maker, which has avidly guarded its trade secrets for over a century, rarely gives a glimpse into its inner workings. Langes-Swarovski, who in 2002 at the age of 28 took over the company from his father. вЂњIt was hard to get the family on board,вЂќ said Mr. The companyвЂ™s annual revenue reached $3.8 billion in 2015, up 10 percent from the previous year. The reluctance was compounded by the fact that Swarovski was far from facing ruin. вЂњFew, if any, have been successful at it.вЂќ

вЂњBig legacy companies want to reinvent themselves for the digital era,вЂќ said Julian Birkinshaw, a professor entrepreneurship at the London Business School. It also raises questions about whether it is an industry suited to embracing the hoodies, start-up incubators and other trappings that have given Silicon Valley global cachet. To many, SwarovskiвЂ™s tech dream seems an odd strategy for a 121-year-old crystal maker better known for its (sometimes ostentatious) figurines, designer jewelry and even a $2,000 Cinderella slipper. вЂњWe need to do that to ourselves before it happens to us.вЂќ вЂњTech companies can disrupt whole industries within a couple of months,вЂќ said Markus Langes-Swarovski, 42, chairman of the board of the Swarovski Group and a great-great-grandson of the founder. Swarovski has also hired Silicon Valley advisers and sent executives to the West Coast of the United States to meet venture capitalists and others, trying to add a little tech pizazz to a business whose roots date to the days of buggy whips. It has revamped how it sells online, invested millions in high-tech machinery and signed partnerships with smartwatch makers like Misfit. The project is part of an unusual effort to refashion Swarovski into, of all things, a tech company.ДЇearful of cheap Chinese competition and wary of a profitable complacency that has felled giants in the past - Eastman Kodak, destroyed by digital cameras, is often cited - the company is developing new crystals that double as solar panels or that change color when tapped with a finger.

Here, in this bucolic village nestled in the Austrian Alps, a co-working space sits in the original 19th-century manufacturing compound of a decidedly old-school manufacturer - Swarovski, the crystal company. вЂњI mean, weвЂ™re literally in the middle of nowhere.вЂќ вЂњWhen we moved in, we werenвЂ™t sure this place was for us,вЂќ said Valentin SchГјtz, 24, a founder of Gronda, a smartphone application for hotels to use when recruiting staff members. The budding entrepreneurs had arrived at the space - replete with fridges crammed with craft beer and a $3,000 coffee maker - only late last year. Others mingled around a new foosball table, playfully arguing over the prospective teams. WATTENS, Austria - A group of millennial programmers swapped jokes recently in their officeвЂ™s well-stocked kitchen while preparing salads for a weekly barbecue.

Crystal maker cost