Brunswick Corporation trims infrastructure costs **IBM SmartCloud services help improve technology fitness through a hybrid environment.** Brunswick Corporation needed to upgrade to newer technology that could support its mobile workforce. Seeking to reduce IT spend, the manufacturer contracted with IBM to implement a hybrid environment, keeping core business applications on-premises and moving email and online meetings to the cloud. By so doing, Brunswick estimates that it avoided hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital expenditures, and is saving up to USD75,000 annually.

1. Social Business
IBM Software Fabrication and Assembly
Headquartered in Lake Forest, Illinois, Brunswick Corporation designs,
engineers, manufactures and distributes a wide variety of products for
prominent brands in the marine, fitness, and bowling and billiards
industries. It employs approximately 16,000 people worldwide and
reported 2012 net sales of roughly USD3.7 billion.
Challenge
Faced with needed infrastructure upgrades to its older IBM systems,
Brunswick sought a solution that would fit within its IT budget and
support mobile employees using a variety of devices. “The upgrade
offered a perfect opportunity to investigate cloud computing as a means
of containing costs,” says Gerry Orten, manager of the Electronic
Messaging Group at Brunswick. “However, we needed a hybrid solution
because we wanted to keep our IBM Lotus Domino applications in-house
and just move email, instant messaging and meetings capabilities to the
cloud.” The company has a large investment in Lotus Domino (now IBM
Domino) applications that runs some essential operational functions,
including an engineering analysis system used across the corporation
and a number of websites.
Solution
With a hybrid solution as a key requirement, Brunswick quickly
narrowed the search to IBM SmartCloud®
for Social Business
technology. The company contracted with IBM Software Services for
Collaboration to help roll out IBM SmartCloud Notes®
services to the
global Brunswick workforce.
The implementation team began work in January 2012 on documentation,
help-desk personnel training and migration-plan testing. Next, the team
started implementing the solution by location and division for groups
of between 400 and 500 people at a time. By August 2012, approximately
6,800 employees used the SmartCloud Notes services worldwide.
During the rollout, Brunswick added access to IBM SmartCloud Meetings
services for migrated users and IBM SmartCloud Traveler for Notes
services for mobile employees.
Brunswick Corporation
trims infrastructure costs
IBM SmartCloud services help improve technology
fitness through a hybrid environment
Overview
Brunswick Corporation needed to
upgrade to newer technology that could
support its mobile workforce. Seeking to
reduce IT spend, the manufacturer
contracted with IBM to implement a hybrid
environment, keeping core business
applications on-premises and moving
email and online meetings to the cloud.
By so doing, Brunswick estimates that
it avoided hundreds of thousands
of dollars in capital expenditures, and
is saving up to USD75,000 annually.
Solution Components
Software
• IBM®
SmartCloud®
Notes®
• IBM SmartCloud Traveler for Notes
• IBM SmartCloud Meetings
Services
• IBMSoftware Services for Collaboration

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Today, Brunswick has a single messaging policy across the enterprise,
and employees save time because they no longer need to access a virtual
private network (VPN) to view or send email. For example, when
Brunswick service technicians are at dealers’ sites, they can address
questions and issues immediately instead of taking notes, retrieving their
notebook computers and finding a hotspot to get answers. They simply
use SmartCloud Notes software to send emails or instant messages from
their mobile devices. If the issue requires answers from a team of people,
they can initiate a web conference on the spot using SmartCloud
Meeting services.
The company’s future plans include adding IBM SmartCloud Engage
Advanced services to help employees and Brunswick customers
collaborate on completing orders, resolving issues and launching
new products.
Benefits
• Avoids capital expenditures of between USD200,000 and
USD400,000 to refresh hardware and add storage disks
• Saves as much as USD75,000 annually in IT costs and reduces
stress on the backup environment
• Gains ongoing, non-disruptive technology updates as well as the
freedom to add functionality and users as required
For more information
To learn more about IBM SmartCloud services, please contact your
IBM marketing representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit the
following website:
ibm.com/cloud-computing
“With IBM SmartCloud Notes, adding additional
capabilities or users is as simple as 1 – 2 – 3. We don’t
have to worry about whether our hardware
is adequate.”
— Gerry Orten, manager Electronic Messaging Group, Brunswick Corporation