Embark on a journey of discovery as we dive into the 2024 boating season’s new products from marine leader Brunswick Group.
Interview with Dave Foulkes, CEO Brunswick Corporation and Gemma Davies, Marketing Director EMEA Navico
Location: Cannes, France
By Maria Elisa Altese
The Boat Show 2023
Hello the boat show lovers our journey starts in the Mediterranean charm we are in Mandel lanap located in the French Riviera get ready to set sail into Innovation and exploration of Cutting Edge Maritime technology welcome to the Brunswick media event where nautical Brilliance meets the sea and we don’t want you to
Miss a single moment of it today our goal is to make you better understand how that bridge between you and the Open Sea comes to life and when it comes to Marine Recreation the Brunswick group is at the helm so I know that the brunic group has
The philosophy of next never rest which is a commitment of keep improving and staying ahead in the market and I know that when it comes to Innovation efforts there’s a new uh strategy which is ases innovation strategy can we talk a bit about that sure you know I think next
Never rest I think captures us perfectly you know we’re always trying to satisfy our customers better with new experiences I think technology is changing so fast we can satisfy them in different ways uh but we we think about the overall experience whether it’s an ownership experience or a shared access
Experience like in Freedom or it’s the way that they interface with new technology we always try and be on the Leading Edge of that and a big part of that as you mentioned is the Asis strategy so ases stands for autonomous connected electrified and shared and those are themes that you will see
Across many verticals you see them in automotive all the time right you think about autonomous uh road vehicles connected cars electric cars shared access like Uber or lift or those kind of things we think they’re equally applicable in the Marine space and we’re on the Leading Edge of all those things
Through Innovation and technology-driven solutions they create unique experiences and reshape the very essence of nautical Adventure not only that it is home to more than 60 industry-leading Brands among these is the Nava group who has recently joined the Brunswick group and is igniting that wave of transformative
Solutions but how it all starts from a blend of deep understanding of advanced technology and what voters truly need and desire especially when they’re out there in the [Applause] water Naval group has a huge number of Brands and some fantastic technology which is kind of central to Aces really
If you think about autonomous vehicles they need sensors that give feedback on the environment and of course navico has Sona and radar um which is wonderful they have these beautiful displays just like here that you need for an autonomous vehicle then they have a lot of battery and power management
Technology which is Central to the e in our electrification and our Asis strategy electrification um navico group did the battery for the avator uh electric motor uh they did the fathom system which is the generator replacement system uh which is really becoming popular already on boats so navico brings uh Advanced
Marine Electronics Advanced power management Advanced Battery Technology a lot of lithium ion um Battery Technology all of that is Central to the kind of systems that we’re developing for Aces a team of Engineers and designers research and develop Integrated Systems and products that redefine the way people interact with the water from state-of-the-art navigation and fishing systems to intuitive displays and userfriendly interfaces how important is consumer insight when it comes to the development of new technologies and new products and
What are the challenges also uh I think consumer Insight is absolutely vital I think um you can you can have great technology but doesn’t add a lot of value to a consumer and so nobody really benefits so we try and make our Technologies very consumer oriented a
Thing we do a lot is called ethnographic research and that’s where we actually spend time with Bas and we watch how they operate the boat and we look at what things they find easy and things they find difficult and things where they might be improvising in some way so
If they’re improvising that’s an opportunity for us to provide a new feature or function our designers spend a lot of time with customers what features that they want in the interior and then you know we do long-term research as well so if you think about electrification what’s important to a
Consumer is it performance is it range is it the weight of the batteries there a lot of things to think about as you’re prioritizing your individual products and where you put the technology and how you apply the technology navico group formed about a year ago um and we now have a house of
Over 20 Brands um so as we all work together internally we’re working really hard to bring those Brands together to connect them up to really develop unique experiences for the water so imagine that a group is like the captain of a fleet steering together renowned brands that cover the Marine
Spectrum so it doesn’t matter if you’re a pro- skilled sailor or a newbie when you hop on board a boat you always have the same goal you want to have fun either you’re with friends with family even on your own want to relax and be safe and that’s when certain instruments
And products help you and they make a difference when you’re in boat because they enhance your experience which kind of products follow me today we’re talking about Simrad NSX so NSX is the latest multi-function display within the Sim red range um it’s fully touchcreen um and it has our latest um
UI so it’s um completely kind of app driven um so you can drag and drop the different features and functionalities that you want to use when you’re on the water so we’re on board the new Navan s30 and when I was talking about those prod products that can enhance your
Experience on board I was talking about products such as these These are multi-function displays these are from Simrad which is one of the brands from nav group think of them as high-tech censor controls that help you manage and control everything on board basically they are the electronic brain for your
Entire boat so the latest um update and it’s our 1.5 software so basically when you switch on your NSX you should get an update saying there’s new software available so it’s easy for you to download within that update I think one of the biggest things is um Mercury integration
With Mercury smartcraft connect you can now access a lot more engine data through the system um the other thing within the new software is um the new cmap X chart manager so you can actually download the charts directly within the display too um and NSX uses our latest
Charting so we call them X charts so they only work on NSX so they have um number of great features um it also gives really um detailed high level bimmetry um so if you’re looking um for fishing spots too so it’s super easy to find where you you may want to catch
Fish the feedback that we get from the communities is taken straight into our development team and we can push through those software updates really regularly so the great thing is about multifunction displays is that they’re customizable so any d you want firstand to see you can put it on your
Display yeah I think it’s really open-ended so you can have it really simple you can drag and drop the icons you want on your home screen so if you’re really just focused on jumping on board and navigating to the you know the best beach for the day you can just come
On click on the cmap chart go in use Auto rting that’s I suppose that’s another thing we haven’t really touched on yet that there’s this great Auto routing functionality so um you can basically put a pin of where you want to go and the NSX will smartly navigate
Your route for you so it will avoid all hazards um and even take into account the tides that you may encounter so that you can get there safely without having to literally go through and put in every Waypoint that you need to get there and look at all the charts and worry about
The depth that the system will do it for you they’ve been designed around user experience to make it completely easy to use um and the actual um the UI within it is completely familiar so we all use tablets of some kind so it’s literally now you hop on board your boat and even
If you’ve never used a multifunction display on the water before you should feel like you’re using an iPad you can literally drag and drop the icons move things around so you may not be familiar with using a multi-function display but it’s really like just an iPad on the on
The Helm of the boat and the great thing is is they come and different sizes and different levels of complexity so I think most people should feel comfortable with the NSX to just play around with it really it’s not going to break and it’s so easy to Use what excites you of you know the future of the Marine industry and as the CEO of the brunic group what in what way will it keep influencing the market and the SE we’re in a really unique position in Brunswick we’re the largest business in the in the whole recreational Marine
Industry by quite a way so I think that carries with it some responsibility so we feel that our role is to Pioneer in some way in the future but in partnership with all the people that we work with I think we have more influential if we have great Partners
It’s just a pleasure to to work with them and just let them innovate and see them shape the future thanks for joining us here at the Brunswick media event I hope you have a better understanding of the work that goes behind the development of those products and those instruments that help
You connect to the water in a meaningful way I’ll see you next time always here always on the boat Show
3 Comments
Thank you so much 👍
Più servizi di Maria che è la numero 1!!
That NSX software looks amazing.