3m innovation case study

The strategy that makes 3M an innovation powerhouse

Innovation is not a one-time story, but it is a process and a strategy, and no other organization reflects this process better than 3M (company that manufactures scotch brite). It is about an organization that went from a small and unprofitable Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (where the three “M” come from) company in the early 1900s to becoming one of the most successful and revered product companies today.

3M bagged the US government’s highest award for innovation through its sheer and stellar innovative solutions, the National Medal of Technology. Its portfolio of nearly 60000 products includes Post-It notes, Scotch-Brite, ACE bandages, and many other innovative medical and industrial products.

Some stories of innovation strategy that show how 3M has time and again transformed failures into successes

Initially, 3M ventured to mine corundum, which they planned to use to make grinding wheels. Instead, what they found was a low-grade mineral called anorthosite. They did much experimentation, and the result was their first breakthrough product: Wetordry sandpaper. Discovering the poor-quality mineral could have caused an early end to any fledgling company, but it was 3M innovation strategy that transformed this failed venture into a success .

Another story is about Post-It Notes. Dr. Silver, an employee of 3M, had invented this new product, but he did not know what to do with it. He tried to promote his creation within 3M, but no one could think of using it. Art Fry, a Silver colleague at 3M, used to sing in his church choir. During one such program, he became frustrated when the bookmarks he used to mark his place in his hymnal kept falling out. He remembered Silver’s adhesive and tried some on his bookmarks. It worked wonderfully! The bookmarks stayed in place, and he could move and reattach them easily without harming any of the pages. The rest is history.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by 3M (@3m)

Scotchgard development is another success story of innovation. Patsy Sherman, a 3M researcher, was conducting experiments on fluorochemical polymer when one of the lab assistants accidentally spilled some of the mixtures on her shoes. She tried water, alcohol, soap but was unable to remove the spillage from her tennis shoes. From here, she got the idea that this substance could perhaps act as a stain protection barrier for other textiles.

This unparalleled success of 3M provokes us to ask: When several organizations struggle to even maintain and deliver values through a single product, how 3M has been successfully providing values through its more than 60000 odd products? The answer lies in understanding the innovation strategy of 3M.

Over time big organizations of the size of 3M siege to innovate. Organizations that pursue growth based on innovations are subject to an innovation paradox: do we manage today or tomorrow? 3M has been able to find the answer to this paradox. So, what are they doing, and how are they doing this?

Over the years, 3M has developed a robust and rich organizational culture and structure that promotes, encourages, and facilitates innovation. Let us have a walk-through of some of their approach to business growth and success.

Varied Platform to foster Innovation:

3M’s strategy is to provide a wide variety of Innovation centers and Technical forums to create a pool of practical, novel, and worthful ideas that are then nurtured into opportunities. Field visits by Scientists to observe customers to understand their pain points are very common at 3M.

Customers are also encouraged to visit Innovation Centers set up specifically to generate new ideas, explore possibilities, and solve problems. These platforms facilitate building a network among scientists, employees, and customers where they freely exchange their ideas and future projects.

Dedicated time for innovation:

In 1948, 3M launched its “15% rule” program, where 15 percent of employees’ time was dedicated to innovation. The Post-It note was invented during 15 percent time. Not only Post-It, many of the products from nearly 118,000 patented products of 3M result from this 15% rule program. Organizations such as Hewlett-Packard and Google have both replicated this approach. Gmail and Google Earth were originated during Google’s 20 percent time . 

Technology and innovation are at the heart of 3M – the company has been granted more than 118,000 patents, and each year, more than 4,000 new patents are issued to 3M worldwide. 3M

30/4 rule to increase innovation speed:

3M has set up this rule which states that 30 percent of the company’s profit should come from products introduced in the last four years. This rule has been developed to provide the speed at which innovation takes place in 3M.

These kinds of initiatives are not so simple as they sound. It requires actual work on the ground and a bird’s eye view of the inner and outer organization’s environment, and 3M has mastered it with time.

Virtuous cycle through Innovation:

Innovation powers the new product development at 3M, which increases market share through customer acquisition leading to improved profit, which again encourages new product development innovation.

3M invests more than USD 1 billion in R&D every year, which is around 6% of its revenue. This unprecedented expense on R&D is above the industry average and a cornerstone of 3M’s product development efforts.

Commitment to Science and Sustainability:

3M has been very serious about science, which is the foundation of its existence. But it is equally considerate towards climate change and sustainability. 3M has announced to make its entire operations carbon neutral by 2050.

Such early commitments to climate change allow organizations to prepare themselves for new technological adoption. It has planned to invest nearly 1 billion USD over the next 20 years on the ESG front. Following a path of resource efficiency would improve the bottom line of 3M and give it an edge over its competitors in the world, where resources are becoming scarce with the passing of days.

3M has consistently been regarded as an entrepreneurial organization both within scholarly and business communities. Undoubtedly, 3M’s core competency is its entrepreneurial corporate culture.

Over the years, 3M has transformed this philosophy into an organizational capital with tolerance for failure, regard for success, and encouragement for every idea, even if it looks like a foolish one. It has institutionalized knowledge from the learnings of past failures and collaborations of its employees and resources.

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I am pursuing MBA from IIM Lucknow and I passionately read and write about brands. I continuously learn, refine, and drive myself to be a better person and professional. I really enjoy listening to and sharing new perspectives.

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How The Pandemic Changed 3M’s Approach To Innovation

Barcroft Media via Getty Images

Complexity is the defining business and leadership challenge of our time. But it has never felt more urgent than this moment, with the coronavirus upending life and business as we know it. For the past few months, we’ve been talking to leaders about what it takes to lead through the most complex and confounding problems, including the pandemic. Today we talk with John Banovetz , 3M’s Senior Vice President of Innovation and Stewardship, and Chief Technology Officer. John is responsible for 3M’s R&D function, innovation processes and its Stewardship Group, which includes 3M’s Environmental, Health & Safety and product stewardship functions.

David Benjamin and David Komlos : How has the pandemic changed 3M’s approach to innovation?

John Banovetz : The biggest change has been to our collaboration model. We've done more external collaborations than ever. For example, we’ve had great collaborations with Ford Motor and Cummins Engines – with Ford on designing a powered air-purifying respirator, and Cummins to increase the production of high-efficiency filters for personal protective equipment. It has been great to learn from them, partner with them, and really collaborate with them.

The pandemic has changed how we think about innovation. We've gone from being somewhat insular to being very open to connecting with external companies; from a place where 3M has the technology, the capabilities, the ability to solve the problem on our own – to a model where there are partners who can teach us some things and help us move even faster.

Benjamin and Komlos : What did you do to transition R&D to a remote working environment, and what did you learn?

Banovetz : Mid-to-late March, we sent home all R&D personnel in our main Research Center. By June, we started bringing people back, with new safety protocols, new cleaning and sanitization methods, and new ways to work with physical distancing.

But the challenge that remains is how you connect remotely with people. As I said, a big part of our model is collaboration and a big part of that collaboration is the informal, serendipitous connections that you make at the watercooler, having a cup of coffee with someone, seeing someone in the hall. When you're not physically there, you lose that. I think a lot about how to continue those one-off random connections that happen as part of the collaboration and innovation process.

Benjamin and Komlos : Can you share examples of challenges that leaders faced through the pandemic so far?

Banovetz : The pandemic doesn't impact everyone, every place, every time in the same way. China and parts of Asia are in a very different place than the US. One of the bigger challenges has been to manage decision-making and autonomy between local and corporate.

Benjamin and Komlos : How has the pandemic affected 3M manufacturing and supply chains?

Banovetz : It’s incredibly dynamic. The pandemic has obviously slowed some markets – automotive, electronics, and for a while, elective surgeries and oral care. At the same time, we’ve doubled respirator production, and then doubled it again – trying to do that with our manufacturing and supply chains has been an incredible feat. Think about the supply chain itself, all the raw materials, and the fact that we have not changed the performance standards for our products. The N95s we produce today meet prior qualifications. There's been a lot of pressure on our supply chains and on our manufacturing capabilities in those areas.

One of our insights is that we were prepared for a pandemic. We had manufacturing surge capacity ready in different parts of the world because we had gone through SARS and H1N1. So we knew we had to be able to respond quickly to what we call ‘X Factor's’. Now, our production has gone well beyond that, and that reinforces the need to have strong manufacturing and supply chains, and strong relationships with suppliers so that they can ramp up when needed. It's reinforced how important it is to have strong working relationships with regulatory and government trade people.

Our supply chain design has always been somewhat region-for-region or area-for-area, so Asia-for-Asia, US-for-US, and that's played out exceedingly well for us in the pandemic.

The biggest challenge that we've had is just the pace at which we've had to go. If you told me at the start of the year that we’ll go from 20 million to 95 million respirators per month in the U.S. and produce 2 billion respirators globally this year, I would have said ‘no way, can’t do that.’ It’s a testament to our partners and our teams that we have done so. Today, we’re making more respirators than ever before.

Benjamin and Komlos : During the pandemic, how, if at all, has your role and behavior as a leader changed?

Banovetz : I've been much more thoughtful about authenticity and transparency. As a scientist, I've said “I don't know” and “I think” more than ever. I don't have all the answers and I have to reflect that to my teams. I spoke earlier about the back-and-forth between global and local. My leaders in Asia and Europe and Latin America have to make decisions relevant to their specific situation, and I have to trust that they can do it. A lot of it comes down to being authentic and building that trust with them. I’ve had more heart-to-heart conversations with my team than ever.

Benjamin and Komlos : What do you see ahead? What characterizes the new trajectory leaders will have to move their organizations to?

Banovetz : I think fundamentally, people will work differently, and as a leader, you have to change how you think about that. A significant portion of the population may work remotely two, three days a week permanently. Teams will become much more global. Leveraging global teams becomes more important. As a leader, you can create much more diverse teams and bring in many more diverse thoughts, which is awesome because I'm a firm believer that diversity begets differentiation.

For leaders, the question becomes how do I manage a remote team with all these different, diverse opinions?

Benjamin and Komlos : Any other advice you can offer? Parting words?

Banovetz: The pandemic has shined a light on science and the role that science plays in people’s lives. We did a ‘state of science’ survey and it showed skepticism of science on the increase. The pandemic turned that around – people have more trust in science. If the next generation has become inspired to be scientists, epidemiologists, doctors, biologists…I think that would be a tremendous outcome of this experience.

• INNOVATION FESTIVAL
• Capital One

02-01-2011 DESIGN

How 3M Gave Everyone Days Off and Created an Innovation Dynamo

Before Google and Hewlett-Packard, 3M was offering employees time off to explore their own projects — netting 3M’s most famous products to date.

BY  Kaomi Goetz 6 minute read

In 1974, 3M scientist Art Fry came up with a clever invention. He thought if he could apply an adhesive (dreamed up by colleague Spencer Silver several years earlier) to the back of a piece of paper, he could create the perfect bookmark, one that kept place in his church hymnal. He called it the Post-It Note.

What you might not know is that Fry came up with the now iconic product (he talks to the Smithsonian about it here ) during his “15 percent time,” a program at 3M that allows employees to use a portion of their paid time to chase rainbows and hatch their own ideas. It might seem like a squishy employee benefit. But the time has actually produced many of the company’s best-selling products and has set a precedent for some of the top technology companies of the day, like Google and Hewlett-Packard.

The 15 percent program seems squishy, is now key to 3M’s business strategy.

Today, 3M is a multinational powerhouse, with more than $20 billion in annual sales across a product line 50,000 deep, from adhesives to optical film. It boasts 22,800 patents, many derived from its 15 percent program. The program has been key to 3M’s business strategy and could be a model for other companies eager to innovate. Says Kurt Beinlich, a technical director for 3M: “It’s really shaped what and who 3M is.”

Founded in 1902 in a little town on the shores of Lake Superior, 3M started out in the mining business as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. The company thought it had found corundum, a mineral ideal for making sandpaper. But instead, it was low-grade anorthosite — of little value. With mining hopes dashed, the founders bought a sandpaper factory and struggled for years over how to run it. New investors had to pour in cash to keep it afloat. Eventually, one of them, Lucius Ordway, moved the company to St. Paul, where 3M hit upon some key inventions, among them: masking tape and cellophane tape.

3M launched the 15 percent program in 1948. If it seems radical now, think of how it played as post-war America was suiting up and going to the office, with rigid hierarchies and increasingly defined work and home roles. But it was also a logical next step. All those early years in the red taught 3M a key lesson: Innovate or die, an ethos the company has carried dutifully into the 21st century.

15 percent time is extended to everyone. Who knows who’ll create the next Post-It Note?

“It’s one of the things that sets 3M apart as an innovative company, by sticking to that culture of giving every one of our employees the ability to follow their instincts to take advantage of opportunities for the company,” says Beinlich, who tries to get most of his 70-person technical lab team to participate.

How is the program implemented? In Beinlich’s telling, workers often use 15 percent time to pursue something they discovered through the usual course of work but didn’t have time to follow up on. And even that depends on other factors — how closely managers keep tabs on projects, for one. What’s more, 15 percent time is extended to everyone, not just the scientists (you can hear the cheers in marketing), the idea being: Who knows where the next Post-It Note will come from?

There is failure. As a company culture, it’s accepted, if not entirely embraced. In Beinlich’s department, engineers designed a heat-repelling cover to protect car finishes from welding sparks. But there just wasn’t a market for it: Automotive workers didn’t want to shell out for another product when they could keep layering blankets to protect finishes like they always had. “When we found that out, we celebrated that we had found something that was innovative and had its place. But we said OK; let’s move on,?” Beinlich says.

The 15 percent program has clearly inspired copycats. Google’s 20 percent time famously gave birth to Gmail, Google Earth, and Gmail Labs. (Google would neither confirm nor deny that the idea for its program came from 3M, but it’s hard to imagine otherwise; after all, 3M’s program had been around 50 years before Google even filed incorporation papers.) Likewise, Hewlett-Packard Labs offers personal creative time.

Still, it’s a rare perk at most companies, technical or not. For starters, it’s expensive. 3M invests more than $1 billion in R&D alone; 15 percent of that starts to be a sizable outlay. Author Scott Berkun writes about business innovation. He says these policies only work when the outcomes are backed. “Many companies have tried to emulate the ?20 percent time idea” but failed because they remained conservative about supporting the new ideas,? he says. And experts agree that this kind of nudging probably works best at companies where there’s a high level of creative competitiveness; that is, where impressing peers is just as important as the innovation itself.

Some have tried to emulate 3M’s program but failed because they wouldn’t support the new ideas.

3M’s got that in spades. Once a year, about 200 employees from dozens of divisions make cardboard posters describing their 15 percent time project as if they were presenting volcano models at a middle school science fair. They stand up their poster, then hang out next to it, awaiting feedback, suggestions, and potential co-collaborators. Wayne Maurer is an R&D manager in 3M’s abrasives division and calls it a chance for people to unhinge their “inner geek.” He elaborates: “For technical people, it’s the most passionate and engaged event we have at 3M.”

Past projects have included making clear bandages, optical films that reflect light (seen above), and designing a way to make painter’s tape stick to wall edges (to protect against paint bleed). All these products are on the market now.

Sometimes ideas can languish for years. One worker had a hunch that if he reshaped particles on sandpaper, they wouldn’t dull so quickly. But that was 15 years ago, and the technology and feedback weren’t there to advance it beyond an interesting idea. Two years ago, the same worker started looking at the problem again during his 15 percent time. He made a poster. This time, he got different feedback with the help of new employees and new technology. They discovered they could retain a particle’s sharp, pyramid-like shape just by changing the mixing order (see image up top). Now 3M has a winner in the Cubitron II (above), a sandpaper that acts more like a cutting tool -? and one that still stumps copycats, despite that it’s been on the market since 2009. If not for the 15 percent time, this worker’s idea might’ve never taken off.

Another obvious benefit of this “think time” is in recruiting. Specialized workers are highly prized and fought for. Companies that offer roughly the same salary as another, can tip the scales with paid personal time. (The snow in Minnesota might be another issue.)

“What you’re offering is essentially freedom, and that is very attractive for the right person,” says Henry Chesbrough, a professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and the father of open innovation business practices.

Paid personal time is, of course, just one way to help a company innovate and, given the expense, it’s not best for everyone. Chesbrough says advances in technology can be achieved if companies generally soften boundaries between where ideas come from and how they take root. A company can limit risk by letting internal ideas spin off into external companies, which might be bought back. On the flip side, internal groups can pursue external ideas. Perhaps the real lesson is that the best ideas can come from anywhere. And an innovative company will find a way to champion them.

Apply to the Most Innovative Companies Awards and be recognized as an organization driving the world forward through innovation. Final deadline: Friday, October 4.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kaomi Goetz is a writer for Co Design. She also uses audio to tell stories about technology and social and economic trends for National Public Radio and others.   More

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Creating Breakthroughs at 3M

by Eric von Hippel , Stefan Thomke and Mary Sonnack

When senior managers think of product development, they all dream of the same thing: a steady stream of breakthrough products—the kind that will enable their companies to grow rapidly and maintain high margins. And managers set ambitious goals to that end, demanding, for example, that a high percentage of sales come from products that did not exist a few years ago. Unfortunately, the development groups at many companies don’t deliver the goods. Instead of breakthroughs, they produce mainly line extensions and incremental improvements to existing products and services. And as the pace of change accelerates in today’s markets, that’s a recipe for decline, not growth.

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ST. PAUL, Minn. , Dec. 3, 2020 / PRNewswire / -- As the global economy shifts in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, 3M (NYSE: MMM) is advancing its operating model, streamlining its business, and focusing on global trends where the company will apply science to life in new ways to drive sustainable growth.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has advanced the pace of change and disrupted end markets around the world, increasing the need for companies to adapt faster," said Mike Roman , 3M chairman and chief executive officer. "At the same time, we are seeing significant opportunities from our new operating model which we launched at the start of the year. As a result, we are taking further actions to streamline our operations, positioning us to deliver greater growth and productivity as global markets emerge from the pandemic."

In January 2020 , 3M launched a new global operating model – a significant step in the company's transformation – which has evolved the way 3M works, enabling the company to be more customer focused and responsive, helping 3M to lead during the pandemic.

With the actions 3M is announcing today, the company will further enhance its operations and marketing capabilities. In operations, 3M will eliminate redundancies and better use analytics to drive additional efficiencies. In marketing, 3M will build on its success in utilizing data insights, accelerating global marketing programs, and activating digital engagements with customers.

3M will be better positioned to take advantage of global market trends in e-commerce, personal safety, health care, automotive electrification, and home improvement. At the same time, the company plans to de-prioritize investments in end markets where growth is slower.

Restructuring and Expected Annual Savings

3M is planning to initiate restructuring actions that will impact all business groups, functions and geographies. As a result, the company expects to take a total pre-tax charge of $250 to $300 million , with $120 to $150 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. The remainder of the pre-tax charge is currently anticipated to be incurred primarily in the second half of 2021. 3M anticipates annual pre-tax savings of $200 to $250 million from these actions, with $75 to $100 million of pre-tax savings in 2021.

The restructuring is expected to impact approximately 2,900 positions globally.

Upcoming Event

3M will participate in the Credit Suisse 8th Annual Virtual Industrials Conference today, Dec. 3, 2020 . Mike Roman , chairman and chief executive officer, and Monish Patolawala, senior vice president and chief financial officer, will speak at 8:10 a.m. EST .

Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking information about 3M's financial results and estimates and business prospects that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. You can identify these statements by the use of words such as "anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "aim," "project," "intend," "plan," "believe," "will," "should," "could," "target," "forecast" and other words and terms of similar meaning in connection with any discussion of future operating or financial performance or business plans or prospects. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are the following: (1) worldwide economic, political, regulatory, international trade and other external conditions and other factors beyond the Company's control, including natural and other disasters or climate change affecting the operations of the Company or its customers and suppliers; (2) risks related to public health crises such as the global pandemic associated with the coronavirus (COVID-19); (3) foreign currency exchange rates and fluctuations in those rates; (4) liabilities related to certain fluorochemicals, including lawsuits concerning various PFAS-related products and chemistries, and claims and governmental regulatory proceedings and inquiries related to PFAS in a variety of jurisdictions; (5) legal and regulatory proceedings and legal compliance risks involving the Company and/or third parties, including significant developments that could occur in the legal and regulatory proceedings described in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 2019 , and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q (the "Reports"); (6) competitive conditions and customer preferences; (7) the timing and market acceptance of new product offerings; (8) materials vulnerability and the availability and cost of purchased components, compounds, raw materials and energy (including oil and natural gas and their derivatives) due to shortages, increased demand or supply interruptions, manufacturing site disruptions (including those caused by natural and other disasters and other events); (9) problems or delays with the phased implementation of a global enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, or security breaches and other disruptions to the Company's information technology infrastructure; (10) the impact of acquisitions, strategic alliances, divestitures and other unusual events resulting from portfolio management actions and other evolving business strategies, and possible organizational restructuring; (11) operational execution, including scenarios where the Company generates fewer productivity improvements than estimated; (12) financial market risks that may affect the Company's funding obligations under defined benefit pension and postretirement plans; and (13) the Company's credit ratings and its cost of capital. Changes in such assumptions or factors could produce significantly different results. A further description of these factors is located in the Reports under "Cautionary Note Concerning Factors That May Affect Future Results" and "Risk Factors" in Part I, Items 1 and 1A (Annual Report) and in Part I, Item 2 and Part II, Item 1A (Quarterly Reports), as updated by applicable Current Reports on Form 8-K. The information contained in this news release is as of the date indicated. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this news release as a result of new information or future events or developments.

About 3M   At 3M , we apply science in collaborative ways to improve lives daily as our employees connect with customers all around the world. Learn more about 3M's creative solutions to global challenges at www.3M.com or on Twitter @3M or @3MNews.

Investor Contacts: Bruce Jermeland , 651-733-1807 Or Tony Riter , 651-733-1141

Media Contact: Stephen Sanchez , 651-737-5967

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You’re never more than three meters away from  3M  Science. Whether it’s the Post-it® Note on your desk or the Filtrete™ air filter in your office, 3M has brought some of the world’s most iconic products to market. And we’re not done. 

Our innovation has always started with our customers’ real-world challenges. In the 1920s, 3M employee Richard Drew visited a local car body shop and saw workers laboriously covering the body parts with adhesives and newspaper before they started to paint. Drew spent the next two years developing a more efficient solution, an adhesive tape that bonds well but is still easy to remove: Scotch® masking tape.

There are thousands of other stories just like this one and my role is to help us create even more by finding disruptive companies for 3M to partner with, as well as to create businesses inside the company. As the VP of 3M Ventures , my group’s key focus is to align our partnerships with 3M’s immediate and long-term vision in our strategic focus areas such as: advanced materials and process technologies, healthcare and life sciences technologies, and digital solutions.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of entities are working in these spaces, but not every startup aligns with our business units and priorities. To find the startups in each space that do fit our narrow strategic focus, we start with one platform for in-depth private company data and expert market analysis:  CB Insights . Investing in startups doesn’t have to feel like gazing into a crystal ball. It’s all about having the right tools to process all the information that goes into making sound business decisions.

Backing Winners Aligned with Our Goals

CB Insights is a tech intelligence platform that provides companies with the data, expert research and collaboration tools they need to drive growth and improve operations using technology. It stands out from the competition in one mission-critical way: it provides in-depth, verified data on startups and their funding history, and is often our first point of contact with potential outside partners. I truly value the data we get from CB Insights.

When somebody references or recommends a company that may be a good fit for 3M, our first instinct is to validate their intel in CB Insights—because it works.

Recently, we used CB Insights to research and invest in  Moxe Health , a cloud-based clinical data clearinghouse solution, and  Metalenz , which makes smartphone camera lenses out of silicon nanostructures instead of plastic.

That investment process starts by taking a good look at 3M’s business units, understanding what their strategic goals are, what their gaps are and which gaps an external company could potentially fill. Then we put together a core team, including members of 3M’s technical community, the specific business unit and my team, to canvass the landscape. 

We first build a  Market Map , a birds’ eye view of an industry ripe for disruption and the startups behind it. It breaks down information into a highly-visual, easily-digestible chart that identifies each company’s strengths and shows the competition. 

Take a field like home automation — what is it really? How does it fit with your plan as a company? And who else is competing in that space? We customize the maps to our business requirements and preferences, and then share it with colleagues inside and outside our team. It’s the perfect kick-off point for deeper discussions and further research. 

The next step is to get another view of potential market fit with CB Insights’  industry data visualization tools  for up-to-date intel by geographic location or industry. Staying with the home automation example, if we’re looking for home automation startups in the US or internationally, I can see how many startups are working in those countries, how much venture capital they’ve raised, and what percentage of global VC investment flows into those two markets. This information is often readily available for public companies, but it’s difficult to obtain for small, private companies. CB Insights is one of the few platforms that has that breadth of private market data.

Selling Internally with Exclusive Data and Reports

What will the market look like in five years? In 10 years? 

CB Insights helps us understand the answers to those questions. With the market overviews and visualizations of global VC activity, we can see the areas where it makes sense to place our money now and in the coming years–in just a few clicks. We can map where deals are globally, as well as investment activity, such as the number of deals and their value.

Armed with that knowledge, I can go to our board and put a dollar value on the potential of a geographic region or market sector and lay down how we can maximize our current investments, as well as where we can put resources in the future.

With access to CB Insights data, you can move faster than your competitors.

Once we start to map out our long-term vision, we use CB Insights research reports and analyses to get valuable insight into these spaces. The reports weave together anecdotal information, current news and hard data into a comprehensive big picture of the trends and challenges in the spaces we care about. 

We are all big fans of the CB Insights Intelligence Analysts. Not only is their commentary entertaining in the newsletter, but CB Insights analysts know tech and what’s next for corporate venture capital. In a world where buzzwords and jargon are common, analysts tell it like it is.

Investing with Trust

At 3M, innovation is who we are. And with CB Insights, we’ve been able to push that even further by giving us more visibility into the startup ecosystem aligned to our strategic priorities.

One great example of this is  Eko Health , an innovative company that operates a digital platform for heart health. We partnered with Eko Health to launch the Littmann® Core Digital Stethoscope. Now, a 200+ year old technology is getting a makeover, enabling doctors to use AI to more precisely diagnose heart conditions. This type of partnership couldn’t have happened without using CB Insights to map the market and identify the right potential partners. The valuable insights and visibility into the startup space from CB Insights has taken the guesswork out of investing in innovation, allowing us to take on bold new businesses without having to roll the dice. 

Ben is the leader of 3M’s Corporate Venture Capital group focused on creating disruptive businesses that help 3M bring science applied to life. He has served in a variety of roles within 3M, giving him a broad range of expertise including Corporate Venture Capital, Business Building, Mergers and Acquisitions, Strategy and Strategic Planning, Marketing and P&L Management; and New Product Development, Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma.

Outside of 3M, Ben served as Vice President, Marketing and Sales for Appareo Systems, LLC. As Vice President, Ben was responsible for leading Appareo’s Marketing and Sales functions as well as driving the company’s revenue growth. Under Ben’s leadership, Appareo Systems experienced significant revenue growth, which resulted in the company being named to the Inc. Magazine 500 – a compilation of the 500 fastest growing private companies in the country. Ben also spent nearly eight years in the Army as an Aviation Officer and helicopter pilot. During his time in the Army, Ben gained extensive leadership experience, including leading troops in combat.

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3M: Innovation, ideas and solutions for a modern world - What is innovation?

Case study pages:.

• 3M: Innovation, ideas and solutions for a modern world
• Introduction
• What is innovation
• Developing a culture of innovation
• Creating innovative applications

What is innovation?

3M prides itself on being a customer-focused organisation. “We understand our customers’ expectations and make sure that we exceed their expectations…Loyal customers stay with you, are more receptive to new products and recommend you to others.”

The customer-focused organisation is an important part of continuous improvement and Total Quality Management (TQM). A TQM organisation consists of a number of interdependent internal stakeholders or customers. These individuals, groups, departments and units supply to, and rely on, another individual, group, department or unit within that same organisation. These internal customers combine to improve quality throughout all processes and create better quality output for the end-users; the external customers. This philosophy of 3M applies equally to internal customers, demonstrated through the interdependence of its 45 technology platforms and diverse global operations; as well as to external customers.

Each of the three broad categories of innovation applies to 3M.

1. Innovation in goods and services occurs when new and improved goods and services are developed or where new uses are found for existing goods or services. 2. Innovation in operational processes occurs when organisations implement significant positive change in their methods of production of goods and/or services. 3M describes the four fundamental reasons driving innovation as; personal satisfaction, competitiveness, growth and survival. New products are the lifeblood of 3M and the company builds innovation into all of its operations. 3M’s innovation is the deliberate product, “…of a complex set of principles and practices which support and encourage the coupling of technology and creativity to satisfy customer needs.” It is also no accident that 3M, a company driven by cuttingedge technological innovation, believes that successful innovation is in reality accomplished by its people. 3M’s senior management empowers employees to work with determination and imagination to create innovative solutions. Customers are consulted so that they can provide input and feedback to the process of innovation and product development. This commitment to inclusive leadership resulted in 3M ranking No. 1 on Chief Executive magazine’s 2008’s Best Companies for Leaders list. A further strength of 3M’s organisational structure is that 3,000 of their 10,000+ technical employees are located outside the USA. These technical employees work in research-based laboratories in 34 countries or in Customer Technology Centres in 30 countries. The result is a highly-skilled global workforce uniquely positioned to create proactive solutions in response to specific customer needs. This localisation of innovation is demonstrated through 3M’s diverse research and development centres; optical manufacture and testing in Poland, electronics in Japan, water filtration in India and dental products in the UK and other markets. 3M provide locally-based product development resulting in customised solutions that subsequently result in global replication through the entire company.

To support innovation, 3M allocates 6-7 percent of its entire sales revenue ($1.4b in 2008) to research and development. This heavy investment also means that staff can devote 15 percent of their work time to self-directed projects. It is no surprise that the company was ranked World’s 4th Best R&D Company in 2007.

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Case Study- Innovation at 3M

Related Papers

Paul Benjamin Lowry

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) typically face resource and capability constraints that inhibit their innovation activities. One way SMEs can overcome these constraints is by complementing internal resources and capabilities with external knowledge, referred to as open innovation. With the proliferation of the Internet, SMEs have added social media to their traditional marketing activities. However, they rarely embrace the analytical capabilities of social media for innovation. Hence, we propose the semantic learning-based innovation framework (SLBIF) to guide SMEs in using the analytical capabilities of social media to innovate their products or services. Our framework includes three consecutive stages innovators should follow —idea selection, idea refinement, and idea diffusion—and which explain how to analyze customer preferences through semantic analysis of customer posts and identify lead users and opinion leaders using user-directed social network analysis.

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pedro conceicao

Large, successful firms, even with a history of innovation, may create organizational mechanisms that hamper innovation and customer response. This paper will describe how 3M purposefully fights this tendency by attempting to foster innovation within the company through the development of efficient strategies to commercialize technology in rapidly changing environments. The paper will describe 3M’s general policies and its entrepreneurial culture, which are largely well publicized in the popular literature. But the focus will be on on-going strategies to accelerate the commercialization of technology in its electronic business. Specifically, the case of the Electronic Markets Center (EMC), a 3M Electronic and Communications Group unit created in 1997 to leverage the broad range of 3M’s electronic products and technologies will be described and analyzed. Fifteen business units were organized around one single entity to more effectively ensure an overall coordinated strategy for 3M in the electronics market that could change the growth rate of 3M’s sales to the electronic industry from 9% per year to 24% per year. The paper will focus on two critical components of the EMC: (1) what were the strategies behind the design of EMC; (2) how did EMC developed processes to manage the interdependence of the technical and business understanding of industry segments and the relations with key accounts. The paper concludes with lessons learned from the 3M experience thus far, and with recommendations on how to fight some of the barriers to innovation and technology commercialization in large firms.

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