Brunswick is cruising to success with Dynamics 365

Brunswick Corporation (NYSE: BC) is the global leader in marine recreation, delivering innovation that transforms experiences on the water and beyond. Its unique, technology-driven solutions are informed and inspired by deep consumer insights and powered by the belief that “Next Never Rests™.” The company, headquartered outside of Chicago, IL, is home to more than 60 industry-leading brands, including Mercury Marine, MerCruiser, and Avator engines and Sea Ray, Boston Whaler, Lund, and Bayliner boats. Although it’s focused primarily on the marine industry, Brunswick also applies its portfolio of advanced technologies to deliver exceptional mobile and industrial solutions. After significant acquisitional growth resulted in a fragmented enterprise resource planning (ERP) landscape, the company embarked on a digital transformation to the cloud. Brunswick turned to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management to gain better oversight of multiple divisions through standardized operations and data.

Navigating choppy seas  

As the company grew, each acquisition added another legacy system to Brunswick’s growing collection—and another headache for its finance, supply chain, and IT teams. The lack of standardization made it difficult to manage operations efficiently and maintain consistent data across multiple divisions in the 25 countries the company operates in. 

Brunswick launched a digital transformation designed to modernize, harmonize, and standardize systems across the company, starting with rolling out of Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management in Singapore in 2021. Implementations in Australia and New Zealand followed. The migration from multiple legacy systems to one modern, cloud-based ERP was like a crew used to paddling a rowboat in opposite directions given a sport fishing boat and a clear course.

Spick and span warehouses 

Seamless integrations and out-of-the-box functionality

Flexibility was just one of many compelling features that propelled the transition to Dynamics 365. Brunswick is an enormous enterprise that relies on a variety of solutions for everything from B2B commerce and B2C e-commerce to customer relationship management. Seamless integration with other systems was a necessity, and Dynamics 365 was ready for sea. 

Out-of-the-box features like vendor account offsetting and bank account change workflows on customer accounts, which used to require customization, are standard in Dynamics 365 and can be easily added. 

Improvements in warehouse efficiency

Another feature that Brunswick—and its customers—appreciates is warehouse management in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. Brunswick’s warehousing needs vary from brand to brand. Some facilities carry more than 15,000 products for retail distribution, and others focus on materials for manufacturing. With more efficient operations at the eight warehouses where the system has been implemented, the company has seen significant performance improvements in picking and packing processes.  

An automated fallback system ensures that if an item isn’t available in one warehouse, the demand is automatically fulfilled by the next closest facility, maximizing order fulfillment rates and minimizing costs. Master planning in Supply Chain Management ensures that inventory is recorded at the warehouse it ships from and tracked by the customer’s home warehouse so that demand is correctly accounted for in future forecasting.  

Better inventory management

Prior to Dynamics 365, warehouses lacked robust inventory controls. Manual processes risked inaccuracies, and newer workers relied on experienced employees who knew how to find stock that wasn’t in the system. Now, handheld scanners and the Warehouse Management mobile app in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management track and analyze stock levels and guide workers around the warehouse from receiving through dispatch. 

“We’ve experienced vast improvements in our warehouses with the addition of the Warehouse Management mobile application and RF scanners,” explains Andrew McLean, Senior Director Supply Chain. Everyone in the warehouse knows where each order is in real time, giving managers the agility to adjust order prioritization on a dime. Miguel Teixeira, Dynamics 365 Center of Competency Lead agrees. “There’s more levers and tools around inventory visibility and levels thanks to Dynamics 365, so teams can spend more time on planning and other high-value tasks.” 

With better inventory management comes more accurate inventory counts. With the introduction of cycle counting and warehouse management, warehouses take stock far more efficiently. “It’s clean, real-time inventory data,” says McLean. “We don’t need a dedicated team of cycle counters. We use our existing warehousing team because it’s just part of the routine now. It’s a major win.” Warehouse management enhances the cycle counting process by automating work creation, enabling mobile processing, and providing tools to resolve discrepancies and perform different types of counts. In fact, after warehouse management was implemented, annual cycle counting dropped from 2.5 days to 1.5 days. 

Flexibility with a user-friendly UI

Warehouse management’s user-friendly interface gives the company more flexibility to multi-skill its teams in shared warehouses and assign workers depending on where the volume of work is. “We can just change the screen from one brand to another,” says McLean. 

Ease of use is key for seasonal businesses like recreational boating, which need a high infusion of workers at certain times of the year. “The great thing about Dynamics 365 is it helps us draw and retain talent,” explains McLean. “People want to work with the latest technology, and because the system is so user-friendly, we can start them off picking and they can grow into other roles.” 

Streamlining operations

Dynamics 365 makes data retrieval easier than in the legacy systems it replaced and has streamlined operations throughout the business.

More efficient procurement

Brunswick uses Master planning in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management as a central function to manage the procurement needs of its various branches and subsidiaries. Master planning balances demand and supply, avoiding overbuying when demand needs fluctuate, eliminating stock outs, unhappy customers, and carrying too much inventory, which affects the bottom line.

Faster month-end processes

The finance teams have reported notable improvements, particularly in the speed of month-end processes, thanks to the user-friendly interface, which makes tasks much quicker and more efficient to complete.

Reduced risk with continuous updates

The previous on-premises ERP was difficult to update and relied on single data centers, with obvious risks of outdated software and site outages. With Dynamics 365, the company enjoys frequent additions of new functions and improvements without requiring additional efforts from Brunswick’s IT teams. Dynamics 365 also offers better disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities. Brunswick adopts at least two product updates annually and also incorporates all proactive quality updates. 

Center of Competency brings everyone aboard

Rather than working with an implementation partner, Brunswick established its own institutional resource in its Center of Competence (COC). Traditionally, a corporation might have separate teams for infrastructure and development, along with business analysts who work independently, and a great deal of coordination is needed to bring all perspectives together. But Brunswick’s COC is a cohesive unit that considers the long and wide view of the corporation in its harmonization strategy. Hari Kiran Varre, Technical Architect at Brunswick, refers to it as “the one-stop shop for deployments and application lifecycle management.”  Matt Webb, Sr. Director, Enterprise Business Process Leader (IT), Brunswick, adds, “This is a platform team. It eliminates operational silos and makes the implementation orchestration across regions much easier.”  

The COC has replaced inconsistencies and ad hoc processes with documented standard processes and an implementation template. “Each new implementation is easier than the last,” explains Teixeira. “Our template allows us to showcase a system that’s working. The COC’s template allowed a recent acquisition to fully operate on the system with all finance and accounting functionality in less than four weeks.” That brand continues to grow, now with multiple locations, on the platform that the team developed. “If you don’t have a standard platform, you tend to go according to the circumstances of a particular moment in a particular geography,” says Teixeira. “But the one team, one system approach lets us widen the lens and take a much broader, more strategic view.”

On the horizon 

As Brunswick continues implementation through the EMEA region, it’s also embarking on a rapidly advancing initiative to adopt Dynamics 365 Business performance analytics. Business performance analytics transforms organizational data into actionable insights for more informed decision-making and better business outcomes. “This tool is essential for us,” says Phillip Dockley, IT Director for Brunswick in Asia Pacific. “Our goal is to empower our users to handle all reporting independently and this is a significant leap forward in the reporting space.”

The company is in the early stages of determining the best approach for incorporating Microsoft Fabric to enhance its data management. It’s also considering additional automation opportunities and AI-driven insights and actions and plans to continue expanding its standardization efforts into other parts of the business, such as its boat building and manufacturing units. Reflecting on the journey thus far, Rob Hyland, VP-CIO, Mercury Marine, says, "Dynamics 365 revolutionized Mercury Marine's operations in Australia and New Zealand, driving efficiencies and real time insights. We’ve modernized all our sales and service functions, streamlined our processes and enhanced our capabilities. With data and AI, we evolve locally while setting a global precedent for optimized performance." With a lot to look forward to, Brunswick sees calm seas ahead with Dynamics 365 at the helm.