Development of a distributors review process and performance scorecard. Case study: Brunswick Marine in EMEA

Abstract

The project developed in the company and exposed in this thesis consists of the creation of a performance review process for the distributors of Brunswick Marine in EMEA. This American firm is the regional headquarters of Mercury Marine, the well-known boat engine builder, for Europe, Middle-East and Africa. In order to supply their products, the company works with distributors in countries where they have a poor knowledge of the market. The review process had to be constructed following the principles of the Balanced Scorecard. Moreover, the integration of the scorecard in a business intelligence tool, Power BI, was also required to turn the tool into a dynamic and functional one. This system will allow the company to collaborate better with its distributors by targeting strengths to maintain and weaknesses to fill. During the first stages of the project, I got to know the company and its actual communication system with the distributors. Then, an analysis of the distributors evaluation processes in similar firms that Brunswick Marine in EMEA brought an insight in their best practices. During the improvement stage, a new performance review process was put in place. This structure is constructed in waterfall from the global strategy of Mercury Marine to specific objectives linked to the business of the distributors. Furthermore, indicators allow to measure the performance of each distributors on those objectives. Finally, a scoring system distinguish the best distributors. The technical and organizational constraints of this project imply that only a part of the objectives was integrated in the performance review process immediately usable with the distributors. Various indicators have been proposed in the recommendations section for a future implementation. Nonetheless, enhancements must also be undertaken on the scoring system and on the business intelligence tool.