Singularly Simrad

As Simrad marks its 75th anniversary, the top player in marine navigation tech remains ahead of the pack.

It is almost needless to say that, for any company, marking a 75th anniversary is an enormous feat — one that speaks of laser-focused dedication to its craft, as well as a commitment to continually chasing innovation. Simrad is now a company that has achieved this milestone. Parented by Navico alongside an equally impressive fleet of brands, Simrad — which crafts marine navigation technology for every type of recreational runabout, sportfisher and luxury yacht one can imagine — is staying poised to maintain its position as a market leader in its field. 

In late June 2021, it was announced that Navico itself will be acquired by Brunswick in a deal worth $1.05b. Once the deal is closed in the remaining months of 2021, Simrad — alongside sister companies Lowrance, B&G and C-MAP — will be housed under Brunswick. Despite the long-term effects of this switch still largely veiled, Simrad will continue to confidently do what it does best, backed by plenty of vision for the years to come and a collective passion for increasing the accessibility of boating. Of this, Mike Fargo, Executive Vice President of Simrad, is certain. 

Thanks for your time, Mike. How did Simrad first find its feet as a pioneer in the marine technology industry back in 1946?

The story is pretty well-known, mainly because of the name Willy Simonsen of Simonsen Radio and how it then became Simrad. He was an entrepreneur and quite a character who became involved in radio electronics in Norway. He contributed to the war efforts with radio technology, ultimately supplying radios and telephones for the commercial fishing fleet after that ended. That was the first product back in 1947 which was quickly followed up with the Echo sounder in 1950 for the fishing fleet — that really traced the true origins of Simrad.

How has the company adapted to the leaps and bounds that electrical technology has made since that time?

Obviously, things change, but some things stay the same — and the principles of Simrad have always been about the folks that go out on the ocean. In the early days, these people needed purpose-built products that kept them safe, were reliable and were useful in their tasks. Of course, we in the Navico family over the past 15-16 years have evolved this to suit the joy of boating, as well. What’s stayed the same is the focus on performance, reliability, robustness and making equipment to fulfill tasks efficiently to make boating more enjoyable and more attainable. That’s been a big part of what Simrad has done.

Can you go into greater detail about the last decade (of success) in particular?

In 2006, Navico was formed, a year before they had acquired the rights to make and market the Simrad brand, and it’s been a string of innovation for boating equipment since. One of those that comes to mind and a story I really like to tell is around our broadband radar — it was really quite a break with tradition. 

Radar was largely unchanged since its invention in the 40s. We introduced the BR 24 in 2009 and it was really, really revolutionary to move to solid state radar. At that time, we were the only one promoting and marketing that technology. It took quite a while for the industry to realize the benefits of that and catch up. Fast forward to today and we’ve continued to invest in the evolution of solid-state radars — now with our latest Halo Radars. But every single competitor and manufacturer in marine electronics now touts the benefits of solid-state radar. It was one of those examples in the history of Simrad where we had to innovate and push forward; we changed the industry. For serious navigators that was a key part of the picture.

Are there many challenges inherent in keeping the company’s collective finger on the pulse of new advancements being made, and how these can be integrated into new Simrad products?

In the history of the company, there has been so much change in raw performance that you could evolve products and improve the performance. The speed, the rendering speed — like going from black and white to color, from analog to digital signal processing. I think, today, it’s much more involved in the nuance of the performance mixed with user experience and ease of use — that is, making boating attainable. That’s one of the things that we are really focused on today; making sure that we are really in-tune with our channel partners and the feedback mechanisms that we get from the market. In addition, we get strong feedback from our consumers, super users and ambassadors of the brand to make sure that we are solving real needs and making strides for making boating more enjoyable and attainable.?

Can you explain a little about the process of transitioning from designing/creating products for small sportsfishing vessels and runabouts to superyachts and luxury cruisers? 

We’re like any other industry in that technology trickles down from a lot of different places, though we’re also unique in that we have a very strong position in that premium field of super-yachting and mega-yachting with very sophisticated systems on those larger yachts as well as in the commercial segment. By combining the commercial, professional and mega-yacht segments, what we’ve seen is that some of the rigors and functionalities we can get from those areas can be brought into smaller boats, sport boats and centre console boats. Some of those include monitoring engines and how you can control a variety of systems on a boat — the industry calls it integration. 

It’s not dissimilar to cars in what we saw in the automotive industry in determining how to get the right level of information to the driver on their info screens.

In terms of being a job creator for an evolving industry, does Simrad place an emphasis on providing training and education opportunities for its team?

We have ‘People’ as one of our company core pillars for a reason. You don’t get to stay around as a brand for 75 years without having a solid mission and vision and that starts with the people. I can say that the people that work on the Simrad brand are incredibly passionate — quite a lot of us are boaters. We’re passionate about boating. Fundamentally, we want to make boating better and that’s very much a simple message for our team to follow. So, in that sense we provide an environment for our people to thrive because our goal is for all of us to make boating better and easier.

Brunswick’s acquisition of Navico is obviously significant news in this space — once the transaction has been closed, what kind of positive flow-on initiatives and effects are you expecting the acquisition will have on Simrad longer term?

At this point it’s too early to comment on what it looks like for the future but what is very clear right now to us — and something that was made clear during the acquisition announcement — is that there is a long history of Brunswick and Simrad working together, and that both organisations share very similar views and values on the future of boating. If you look at where we have been focusing our efforts with both of our companies, you’ll see some obvious synergies and similar philosophies — that’s what makes all of us so excited about the future opportunities.

Do you expect Simrad will largely retain its autonomy in terms of design processes and operations?

Brunswick cares tremendously about the brand equity and history of the brands they have under their fold. You can see that within the Advanced Systems Group, which is what our brands will be a part of as an independent business unit. We’ve found a dream home within Brunswick.

Reaching a 75th anniversary is an enormous milestone for any brand — what is the company most excited about moving forward?

I think there are a few pieces to this. There is quite a lot of opportunity to innovate from a user-experience level, and what I mean by that is blending innovation, autonomy and how you think about what aids and functions you can bring to boating in a smart way. That’s something that is super exciting right now. That’s ultimately what innovation is: bringing about change and helping users. As boating evolves, we are excited about that opportunity and of course very excited about our dream owners in Brunswick. We also know these increases in boating numbers from the last year plus are also translating into new boaters with changing demographics, and that’s exciting to be part of going forward for everyone in the industry.