3M COMPANY CASE

INTRODUCTION

3M-BRAND-PROMISE
Practical and ingenious solutions that help customers succeed

3M-BRAND-ESSENCE
“harnessing the chain reaction of new ideas”

The 3M Company, formerly known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation based in St. Paul, Minnesota. 3M headquarters are in the St. Paul suburb of Maplewood, Minnesota.

It produces more than 55,000 products, including: adhesives, abrasives, laminates, passive fire protection, dental and orthodontic products, electronic materials, medical products, car-care products (sun films, polish, wax, car shampoo, treatment for the exterior, interior and the under chassis rust protection), electronic circuits, and optical films.

BACK GROUND

Five businessmen founded 3M in Two Harbors, Minnesota, in 1902. Originally a mining venture, the goal was to mine corundum, Corundum is a mineral rock derived commonly called “RUBY” but this failed because the mine's mineral holdings were Anorthosite (non-refine form), which had no commercial value.

Co-founder John Dwan solicited funds in exchange for stock and Edgar Ober and Lucius Ordway took over the company in 1905. The company moved to Duluth and began research and producing sandpaper products. William L. McKnight, later a key executive, joined the company in 1907, and A. G. Bush joined in 1909. 3M finally became financially stable in 1916 and was able to pay dividends.

Twelve years after its inception, 3M developed its first exclusive product: Three-M-ite cloth.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this analysis is to provide the evolution strategies used by different companies in order to get the idea of success and failure of certain businesses and to clear the mind, why you should think strategically in the world and to think of ahead future because it is used by the famous companies almost 2 decades ago to remain successful and survive in this completion.

LIMITATIONS: 

This purely is my opinion to the evolution strategy of 3M Company and may contradict with ideas, opinions and suggestions of hundreds of other.

QUESTIONS: 

The main focus of this report is to answer the following questions

1.    Either the company’s success is result of long term strategic planning

2.    Or the company’s unplanned response to the unpredictable circumstances

METHODS: 

Method of analysis in this report is theoretical history provided by the company’s website, related analysis of different authors on web and my own analytical thinking

RESULTS: 

Long term strategic planning

The strategic planning is always long term planning as defined “is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy”

It is clearly shown in the history of 3M Company that it states “THE INNOVATION MINDSET IN ACTION” it continuously strives for the better fulfillment of needs of its customers by making different strategies and one stated focus on just “INNOVATION” and they see and act on opportunities. 3M was awarded the US government’s highest award for innovation.

At start of 3M Company, it seems like they don’t have applied scenario planning and I proof this by taking example of its start products like corundum. If they use scenario planning they surely have what-If planning then they plan for an alternative product if it fails but it flop and they discontinue it. The business is handover to Edger and they now work from scotch tape to cars material, medical research to almost in each field they first find the need of customers and then tried to solve it.

This company encourage it employees to think the solutions of problem identified by its customers and they specially invest 15% of its revenues in research and development department to make its vision clear and realistic in practice.

It is shown in this example “A 3M customer identifies a problem, and a 3M engineer expresses confidence in being able to solve it. He bangs his head against the wall for years, facing repeated setbacks, until management finally tells him to stop wasting time and money. Undeterred, the engineer stumbles onto a solution and turns a dead end into a ringing success.”

They also strive for EXPANDING THE PIE as shown by different policies of the company stated below:

1.    Seed Capital: Inventors can request seed capital from their business unit managers; if their request is denied, they can seek funding from other business units. Inventors can also apply for corporate funding in the form of a Genesis Grant. (The Post-it was funded by a Genesis Grant.)

2.    New Venture Formation: Product inventors must recruit their own teams, reaping the benefit of 3M’s many networking forums as they seek the right people for the job at hand. The recruits have a chance to evaluate the inventor’s track record before signing up. However, if the product fails, everyone is guaranteed their previous jobs.

3.    Dual-career ladder: Scientists can continue to move up the ladder without becoming managers. They have the same prestige, compensation, and perks as corporate management. As a result, 3M doesn’t lose good scientists and engineers only to gain poor managers, a common problem in the manufacturing sector.

Unplanned/emergent strategies:

Electronic stethoscope: 3M engineers and scientists can spend up to 15% of their time pursuing projects of their own choice, free to look for unexpected, unscripted opportunities, for breakthrough innovations that have the potential to expand the pie. For example, some employees in the infection-prevention division used their “15% time” to pursue wirelessly connected electronic stethoscopes. The result: In 2012, 3M introduced the first electronic stethoscope with Bluetooth technology that allows doctors to listen to patients’ heart and lung sounds as they go on rounds, seamlessly transferring the data to software programs for deeper analysis.

Post it notes: 3M also has a rich tradition of telling the stories of famous failures that subsequently created breakthrough products— such as the weak adhesive that inspired Post-It notes— to ensure a culture that stays innovative and risks failure for unexpected rewards.

Wetordry sandpaper:  Another 3M failure story from its early days, still repeated inside the company: 3M’s initial business venture was to mine corundum, a material they planned to use to make grinding wheels. Instead, what they found was inferior abrasive. After much experimentation came their first breakthrough product: Wetordry sandpaper.

Recommendations: 

The companies like 3M have all it policies and structure devoted towards the innovation and bring new ideas to the market. They surely face some problems like huge expenses, training and competition but I recommend that if you done any business like 3M than you would apply the culture and policies they adopt, avoid mistakes and encourage employees to think out of box and emerge products from the daily needs of customers.

Summary

3M use both strategies “long term and emergent from the ideas of their employees”

References: 

(Srinivas, 2015), (wikipedia, 2015)