The 3M Company case study

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Introduction

The 3M Company is a $18 billion diversified technology company with leading positions in health care, safety, electronics, telecommunications, industrial, consumer and office, and other markets. Headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, 3M has operations in more than 60 countries, serving customers worldwide. 3M is one of the “top 50 ”Fortune 500 companies and has been one of Fortune magazine’s “ten most admired corporations”for the last ten years. Since its founding in 1902, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company has become one of the world’s most innovative and productive companies. 3M’s primary growth strategy is to sell more existing products into new markets and to introduce new products into new or existing markets.3M mission is to be the most innovative enterprise and the preferred supplier to customers. 3M vision is to sastisfy customers with superior quality, value, and service. A division of the 3M Company, 3M Health Information Systems, the largest and one of the fastest-growing of 3M’s seven major businesses, serves medical, dental, pharmaceutical, and personal care markets. 3M Health Information Systems is a leading provider of advanced software tools and services that help health care organizations capture, classify, and manage accurate health care data. With more than 20 years of industry experience, 3M Health Information Systems’ solutions help ensure the quality of data and the processes that drive an organization's ability to manage revenue, comply with regulations, improve the quality of patient care, and manage resources effectively.

Through this paper, 4 main points will be discussed in order to identify the position of 3M strategy regarding its innovation management,especially in the health care division . First of all, lets identify the main issues of 3M affecting its innovation management. The second point will be to discuss  the national system of innovation in health care.As a third point , three academical framework will be applied to 3M innovation management. Lastly , based on the findings get on analysis of the theories , some recommendations will be suggested to improve 3M innovation management.

Section 1: select an organisation and outline the main problems which impact on the effective innovation management.In answering this part of the question you may, if appropriate, provide examples of recent innovation in product, services or process.

In the field of innovation management , 3M is the leader. 3M's corporate strategy shows anyway some internal and external concerns which impact the effective innovation management put in place at 3M.

The first concern which  come up is that 3M has established a corporate goal of generating 30% of sales from products introduced within the previous four years. In striving to attain this goal, the company spends 7 cents of every sales dollar on R & D - more than twice the average of U.S. manufacturing companies.It could be seen as too much concentration of innovations even if they are not necessary  in the market. According to William Coyne, 2001 at 3M, in recognition that product life cycle are becoming shorter, the company has recently set up a new goal of 10 per cent of sales coming from product less than a year old. But as most business leader would acknowledge that developing genuianely new products is a high risk activity : industrial product have only a 50:50 chance of being succesfull, while consumer goods fare even worse , with a one ten chance of succeeding . In attempt  to meet the 30% or 10% rule, the employees strive to introduce new innovations on the products, even if those innovations do not add any value to the customers whilst the company is heavily spending on R&D.

The second  concern which was noted related to 3M innovation management. Gundling, E. (2000) argues that  3M  declared  victory too early .In fact 3M has a high publicity and reputation for innovation and this lead to over confidence resulting that every employee believe that they are all innovators .So there is noone to set the standards for innovation, against which innovation performance can  be assessed. The troubles that afflicted 3M is the environment that encourages people to work around and defy their superiors and a determination to let the company follow where its scientists and customers lead.However , it is important for 3M employee not to fall into the trap of happy self deception or to be content with just incremental products.In fact , according to William Coyne (2001),  the company top managers were very concerned that too much of the company’s growth was coming from incremental improvement to existing products.

The third drawbacks that 3M has is the fact that they produce overwhelming too many products than what overseas subsidiaries can manage to market .  Ernest Gundling (2000) argues that subsidiaries employees are trying to serve the needs of numerous 3m divisions simultaneously , some employees are kept so busy dealing with US or regional headquaters that they lack the time to focus on their customers. As a result 3M  is very big but acts small. Each of 3M's 45 product divisions constitute a business in itself with its specific customer base, with its own general manager, marketing director, technical director, human resources director, manufacturing director, and national sales manager (Coyne, 1997). 3M is a highly decentralized company, but care is taken to decentralize to units that are large enough to be self-standing and, therefore, capable of funding their own R&D. On the other hand, 3M attempts to prevent divisions from getting so large that individual innovations do not count. 3M's strong belief in divisional autonomy is countervailed by the corporate requirements of a high level of innovativeness and interdivisional knowledge-sharing (Goold et al.,1994, p.203).

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 Fourthly , according to Gundling, E. (2000),3M still unofficially practices lifetime employment. It is possible to get fired, but normally only for a serious ethical breach, gross imcompetence , lack of motivation, or negligence. When the company decided to reduce their workforce , the only concern they face is how to preserve the experience and sense of dedication that will ensure continued innovation in the company.In fact people laid off because of their performance or early retirement are well attracted by others firms to work and share the  knowledge they acquire through 3M experience.

Finally 3M face not only internal ...

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