Mercury Marine, a division of Brunswick Corporation (NYSE: BC), today earned the distinction of receiving the first ISM Supply Chain Trailblazer Award in the Risk and Crisis Management category. Institute for Supply Management (ISM), the first and largest not-for-profit professional supply management organization worldwide, established the award this year “to celebrate the organizations that set new standards, drive innovative possibilities and exceed expectations within the supply management field,” according to the organization’s website.

The award recognized the Mercury procurement and supply chain teams for helping the company achieve ambitious growth benchmarks throughout a period that presented seemingly insurmountable challenges. Despite rolling shutdowns across the globe resulting from the pandemic, hamstrung supply chains, a winter storm that crippled the southern United States, labor shortages and other challenges, the Mercury supply-management team kept the company’s manufacturing operations furnished with raw materials and components that are critical to production.

“We have overcome extreme stress in the supply chain by outthinking problems and collaborating with our supply chain partners. We established centers of excellence to drive collaboration, created labor pools and accelerated our strategy- and response-development processes to ensure our acquisition of safe and high-quality products,” said Sekhar Visvanathan, Mercury vice president of global procurement and project management.

“Our approach required a deep understanding of tiered global supply chains to gather early warning indicators and effectively mitigate risk. We quickly created cross-functional teams consisting of sourcing, supply chain, engineering and operations professionals. These teams had the autonomy to work quickly through the validation of alternate materials and processes, the application of alternate sourcing models and other creative solutions,” Visvanathan said.

“It wasn’t easy, but our exhaustive efforts proved worthwhile. In light of the tremendous work by everyone on our team, this acknowledgment from ISM is gratifying.”