“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,”
quips George Buckley, Brunswick’s chairman and CEO. “We’ve left Navman alone
since it already had what we wanted—able, energetic and creative people. The
company’s also a key part of a long-term Brunswick strategy.” Buckley recognizes
that new electronic-oriented companies like Navman, with short product-cycle
times and an obsession with cost control and product reliability, operate under
different rules than Brunswick, which manufactures boats, engines, fitness and
bowling equipment. But he admires Navman’s culture so much that he plans for it
to eventually be adopted by the parent corporation. “It will serve as a
model for Bruns-wick’s New Technologies division, with increased emphasis on
materials science, electronics, and software-driven products,” says Buckley.
“That, in turn, will be a model for the Brunswick of the future. I’m a believer
that electronic technologies are what will differentiate us from our
competitors.” Navman, says Buckley, will benefit from Brunswick’s powerful
balance sheet and some of its discipline. But he adds, “We don’t want to break
it by meddling too much. When you hire or acquire good people, you need to trust
them to get along doing what they do best.” What does Peter Maire, the man
who founded Navman 17 years ago in his Auckland bedroom, think a year after his
company was acquired on “B-Day,” as he calls it? “We were all pretty worried
about it initially,” he says. “These things always look great during the
engagement. But after the wedding, it’s not always so pretty. But it’s been even
better than we expected.” Navman, in hyperexpansion mode when Brunswick
bought a majority stake last March, saw 100 percent revenue growth last year
(and 220 percent in 2002), and its workforce of 440 has essentially doubled in
two years. “It’s business as usual—times 10,” says Maire, who has no plans to
step down as president. “We could’ve kept up this pace on our own, but we
wouldn’t have had the same confidence without Brunswick. Now that we’ve expanded
beyond marine electronics into the far bigger consumer electronics market, it
can be a scary, competitive place.”
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