3M Company - Innovation and Entrepreneurship Specialism - Essay Example

3M Company: Innovation and Entrepreneurship Specialism Institute Contents Introduction Niche Identification 2 2 Adjustment in Strategy 2 Secret Behind 3M’s Innovation 3 Entrepreneurship in its Infancy 3 Maverick Inventors and the Beginning of Entrepreneurship Era 4 Knowledge Sharing 5 Culture of Innovation 5 Struggle between Innovation and Efficiency 6 The Six Sigma Problem 7 Strategy for Promoting Innovative Thinking 9 Technology Driven vs. Market Driven 10 10 Mary Sonnack’s Contribution 11 Lead-User Method 12 Key Features of Lead User Research Method 13 Internal Entrepreneurship 14 Environmental Challenges 14 Conclusion 15 References 16 Appendix 18 Introduction The 3M Company, previously known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, is a multinational US-based corporate. 3Ms goal is to become the most innovative company in the world (Brand, 1998). The company has been known for decades as an entrepreneurial giant that follows growth through innovation. It generates about a quarter of its annual sales from products less than five years old. The company began as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company in 1902. The flexible sandpaper is considered its most popular product and is still sold as a regular item. But the company holds over 60,000 products ranging from adhesive tapes to office stationary. The company is built around the chemical technology of coating and bonding (Strebel, 1987). Other mentionable items include equipment for traffic and safety signs, medical supplies, magnetic tapes and CDs. Their strategy of applying adhesive coating technologies to products has remained lucrative throughout their corporate history (Grant, 1991). The company also manufactures electrical equipment. The reason behind this success in innovation is its effective knowledge management system (Cavusgil, Calantone and Zhao, 2003). In the beginning, the company pursued a policy where the top management informally encouraged innovation but during later years the company formalized its innovation policy. It has built a culture based around innovation. Impressive financial success allows the company to maintain its innovation policy. History Looking at 3Ms history it appears that their research and development culture is composed of elements that have not been modified in the companys 90 year history, but still the company is recognized for environmental leadership (Mitsch, 1992). 3M started its operations by selling sandpaper of inferior quality. It was quite an art to sell such a product. The company achieved this by getting closer to their clientele. They pursued a policy of relationship building with the customers. They demonstrated to the workmen how they could use this product. It was an example of relationship selling. This strategy taught the company a valuable lesson to get close with the customers and get to know their exact needs. Building such a relationship with the customers also gave the company an advantage where they could realize other market opportunities. The company apprehended early on that they could not simply compete based on price. Niche Identification The company identified certain niches that they could capitalize on. The first product they focused on was Three-M-Ite™ Abrasive (Burns, n.d.). It was an abrasive cloth with aluminium oxide promoted as an alternative for a natural abrasive. Waterproof sandpaper shortly followed. Interestingly this product was the idea of an inventor who later on started working for 3M. Wetordry™ was the companys next item (Burns, n.d.). It was a product designed for car industry for the bodywork finish. The launch of this product proved to be a trendsetter in the company strategy where they would discover niches that they could charge a premium on. They did not care about how big or small the niche was. This strategy proved profitable for the company till about the late 1980s. Adjustment in Strategy During the nineties, this strategy had to change because certain technologies became more sophisticated. It meant that the company needed heavy investments in order to develop new products. The required rate of return on investments gradually increased and the company had to sort out bigger markets (Burns, n.d.). The world turning into a global village proved beneficial for the company. During this time, the competition was intense, and the technology was aggressively changing. It meant that the company needed to quicken its effort to dominate a niche market. A prompt reaction to the market movements became imperative. By the 1990s, many markets that the company was making progress is turned out to be not that small, especially in the wake of rapid global trade (Burns, n.d.). The companys basic strategy of identifying a niche market remained the same while the reach and the market size expanded. Secret Behind 3M’s Innovation 3M is recognized for its strong innovation pedigree that dates back over a century. Their key to success is making and managing connections. Larry Wendling, the vice president for corporate research considers 3Ms secret weapon the formal and informal networking that links thousands of research and development R&D and market-facing people across organizations (Bessant and Tidd, 2007). They have given one of the most innovative items such as masking tape, Scotchgard, magnetic recording tape, scotch tape, post-its (Bessant and Tidd, 2007). The main driving force behind such a rich history of innovation is people making connections. 3M’s innovation strategy has a direction. It should be noted that the innovation at 3M is not wild, it is customer driven, and the company has a strong commitment to creating products that are driven by marketplace (Conceição, Hamill, & Pinheiro, 2002). Their history of innovation has strategized their future endeavours. The company was able to diversify through their innovation process. In the early 1920s when the company entered into the tape market, it opened a whole world of business opportunities. They venture into the tape market was successful due to their expertise in coding and adhesive. The way their first product was launched is a perfect example of how an entrepreneurial architecture manifests itself in 3M operations. 3M is considered a financially successful company that has been actively engaged in corporate entrepreneurship (Zahra, 1991). It is a great example of how a corporate strategy can induce internal venture development among its employees (Dess and Lumpkin, 2005). The closeness to its customers gave the company the leverage to identify the customers’ problems that they could solve through their expertise. Entrepreneurship in its Infancy A company employee realized how difficult it was for car body finishers to produce the two-tone paintwork. The company solved this problem by developing the masking tape, Wetordry™ (Burns, n.d.). It was not a perfect fit at first but through modification it improved over the years. The noteworthy thing is the product was developed “out of hours” by an employee (Burns, n.d.). Later on the same technique was used in making Scotch trademark range of tapes. Hence, the company identified the potential of this strategy and made a business policy of identifying market opportunities by being close to the customers and then diversifying into related niches. In a nutshell, they would identify a niche and then tap into the related sub-niches. The company officially recognized in the 1990s that when it introduced innovative items into a niche market that it already had a good position in it made substantial profits. Maverick Inventors and the Beginning of Entrepreneurship Era 3M Company began to realize the value of maverick inventors in its company. It realized the potential that these geniuses had. No other force or management was needed to move these people towards their ideas that they already were passionate about. In the late 1920s, it developed a corporate policy of giving the researchers up to 15% of their working hours to spend on their innovative developments. The entrepreneurial structure at the 3M Company is set such that employees have the leverage of spending 15% of their work time on their own projects (Edge and Shore, 2013). Over the years, this policy has turned into the corporate culture. Their efforts are also driven by the hope that one day these products will become a part of the companys main operations. The company also gives these employees money and extra help to pursue their products. But first they need the approval of a member of the mainboard. Later a team of engineers, marketers and accountants helps to realize the idea from dream to reality. This style of innovation fused with entrepreneurship encourages and rewards innovative thinking but never punishes failure. 3M has its own version of Nobel Prize for rewarding innovative employees (Higgins, 1995). A contemporary example of the fruits of this strategy is the development of Post-it Notes. Art Frye, an employee at the company, was looking for ways to mark places in the hymn book. He was looking for paper markers that would not stick permanently. Due to coincidence the company had developed a new glue at the same time. The problem with this glue was that it would not dry, and this was seen as a drawback of this product. Art realized that this glue could be used for paper markers. Hence, he went to his boss to get his support for his new project. He came up with a product and distributed it to the company secretaries. Almost everyone at the 3M started using these notes. Suddenly he halted the supply insisting that he will not revive it if the company will not officially support his project. This product saw immense success that formed the companys fourth strategy thrust that they would seek innovation at every level in the organization. Knowledge Sharing 3M is well known for its knowledge sharing across organization and linking technologies to create products that can be marketed in various niches. Scotchlite Reflective Sheeting is a great example of this synergistic effort. The sheets are used for road signs and were developed in the 1940s. The way the company came up with this product was a failed attempt at making reflective road markings. A combined research from three different laboratories produced signs with a waterproof base. A covering of opaque light reflecting pigment was added on top of this base followed by microscopic beads. This was sealed with a thin coat of plastic for weather resistance. This was the companys fifth strategic thrust: to get different parts of an organization to communicate and work together and most importantly to share knowledge. Knowledge sharing became the official company policy in the 1950s. The company established Technical Forum to support and encourage knowledge sharing across the company. Technical Counsel was the second step. This council had technical directors and personnel that frequently met to review research and identify problems. Similarly Manufacturing Counsel and Marketing Council were established for the same reasons. Researchers and technical directors would regularly move around in various divisions. Culture of Innovation 3M Company culture was named after its place of origin, Minnesota nice. This culture is non-political, egalitarian, low ego and non-hierarchical. Hard work and self-criticism are the highlights of this culture. In its earlier days, this culture had been described as paternalistic towards its workers. Research and innovations were rewarded through promotions. The team of a successful new product would be spun off into a new division. The leader of the team would become general manager of this division. This was a great motivator for the rest of the employees. Lesser achievements were also compensated. People who maintained high standards of originality and dedication in the research field were given an invitation to join the "Calton Society". Pathfinder and the Golden Step rewards were given to the creators of new products. All in all the company encouraged achievement through rewards. 3M considers innovation to be a numbers game (Gupta and Singhal, 1993). It means that the more product ideas there are, the more product trials they will have and the more chances to have a hit product. At 3M, it is considered that innovation comes through new perspective due to new knowledge (McAdam, 2000). To get more products that create their own markets the management need synergistic efforts to come with a truly novel item. The researchers at 3M Company are aware “that career advancement comes faster to those who contribute to advances in several business units” (Coyne, 2001). Struggle between Innovation and Efficiency At 3M, it is always a struggle between innovation and efficiency. Not too long ago General Electric was considered the hallmark of management (Hindo, 2007). Its former CEO Jack Welch was the head of the command and control, and the company executives were the recruits. One of these executives was James McNerney. When he lost the race in succeeding Welch, 3M hired him immediately. The board at 3M thought that it was a lucrative addition to their company. The company stock jumped about 20% in the days around December 5, 2000 when McNerney was announced as the CEO of the company (Hindo, 2007). Clearly 3M had many expectations from the new CEO. In the companys 100 year history, McNerney was the first outsider chief executive. As soon as he joined the company he announced that he is going to completely change the companys strategies. He fired 8000 workers (around 11%) of the companys workforce. He focused on performance review process and cut off any extra spending. He was trying to model 3M after the General Electric. Therefore, he imported the Six Sigma program. The Six Sigma program was a series of the management techniques device for identifying production defects and improving efficiency. Thousands of employees at the company started training for the Six Sigma approach. Apparently this plan worked, as the companys moribund stock revived (Hindo, 2007). McNerney also won critical praise for introducing discipline in a company that was becoming unpredictable. After four and a half years of working for the company, McNerney left 3M to join Boeing. After his departure, the successors were brainstorming that so much stress on the efficiency might have weakened the companys innovative potential (Hindo, 2007). This issue might not be crucial for other companies but for 3M it was a matter of colossal proportions. It was the companys legacy to come up with products such as Post-it note and Thinsulate. 3M’s methods were consecrated in the 1994 bestseller by Jerry I. Porras and Jim Collins in the Built to Last (Hindo, 2007). The problem is that those inventions were very successful, but they were a part of the past. It would have been disastrous for the company for only being recognized for old glories such as multi-layered optical films for coating liquid crystal display screens. The Six Sigma Problem This situation is not unique to 3M because the Six Sigma design is not meant for innovation. It identifies problems in the workflow and looks to diminish the variation and rectify the defects. Therefore, when such a culture starts to take hold in a company the creativity and the innovative trend can easily get subsided. The Six Sigma implementation at 3M Corporation occurred in three broad phases through changing degrees of fidelity and extensiveness (Canato, Ravasi, & Phillips, 2013). Six Sigma platform might work in one situation and one company, and might fail in another (Hindo, 2007). The very process of innovating something challenges the norms. To create something is the usually done through disorder. The current CEO George Buckley agrees that innovation is a messy process (Hindo, 2007). Scheduling employees for creativity is unnatural. A company cannot have a timetable where on Monday the employees are supposed to generate an innovative idea. The dilemma of discipline versus creativity is not only a menace at the 3M. The tussle between innovation and efficiency is haunting the CEOs almost everywhere. The lean and mean work processes have their benefits and certification such as iso-9000 and Total Quality Management have been trendsetters in international businesses. But now the U.S. manufacturers need to rise above this disciplined platform because the market demands growth and innovation. The economy is hungry for design and new ideas. Perfecting the process requires accuracy, stability and discipline while innovation requires distinction, coincidence and failure (Hindo, 2007), something that was the culture of 3M. The same factors that make Six Sigma operative in one context make it detrimental to another. Fundamentally it uses statistical analysis to produce an ambiguous data for better quality, lower cost and better productivity (Hindo, 2007). All of these factors are great when a company wants more stringent controls over outcomes. But in a situation when the data is insufficient, or the nature of the problem is undefined it is not a suitable option. MITSloan School of Management Prof. Erich von Hipell says that “new things look very bad on this scale" (Hindo, 2007). He worked with 3M on many projects and said that once the Six Sigma was introduced the innovation process subsided (Hindo, 2007). When a company is grated against total quality management the more it will choke its innovation. Dartmouths Tuck school of business Prof. Vijay Govindarajan says that the mind-set required for the innovative process is fundamentally different from the Six Sigma culture (Hindo, 2007). This was a difficult situation for the CEO at 3M because the company might be stable (stock performance) but mediocre with the Six Sigma in effect. In the long run, they kill the very foundation that 3M stands on – promoting innovation through small scale entrepreneurship. Strategy for Promoting Innovative Thinking The 3M Company takes pride in telling and retelling stories of ordinary employees contributing in breakthrough innovative products (Mascitelli, 2000). The company has over 50,000 products and has an innovation and entrepreneurial culture which can be described as "it is better to seek forgiveness than to ask for permission" (Robert and Sheldon, 2006, 144). What it implies is it is far better to take risks not be afraid of failures than not trying at all. The company harbours a culture of innovation. It encourages its employees to take chances to generate ideas and develop products in the company laboratory in an informal fashion. Even though the company is R&D oriented, however, innovation is not the sole responsibility of the research department. The innovative process generates its strength from various departments such as marketing, manufacturing and sales (Robert and Sheldon, 2006). It makes the best use of different skill sets within the company. Other factors that support the process of innovation are setting stretch goals for innovative product developers. 3M is justified in taking pride for dominating the innovation in manufacturing and technology. Their track record speaks for itself. After hundred years of successful innovation and analysis reveals that there were certain departments that the top management wanted improvement in. Considering only the fundamental technology driven innovation the company did extremely well for over 100 years (Hippel & Sonnack, 1999). It has the technological expertise and a company culture that supports and promotes this pool of experts. The innovative process was not just about creating a strikingly new product that would capture the market. The tiny development of sister products or incremental improvements in the current products was also a hallmark of the company (Hippel & Sonnack, 1999). An insight into how the company identifies the problem of innovation would review the entrepreneurial skills and the fusion with innovation that turn 3M’s products into marketing success. The top management identified that the area of innovation triggered unarticulated marketing needs was in need of improvement. The term ‘unarticulated needs’ is used in the company for those needs that the customers have butt they have not yet found a way to express it (Hippel & Sonnack, 1999). These needs might not be defined yet but if the company provides solutions to these needs the customers will be extremely happy. Technology Driven vs. Market Driven This might not come as a surprise because the analysts that study the business trend at 3M recognize that the company takes pride by projecting itself as technology driven instead of market-driven. The close relationship with the customers does give them an insight and honest feedback, but a truly market-driven driven company would go beyond that. Hence, the primary focus has always been on the research and development instead of marketing research (Hippel & Sonnack, 1999). The top management realized that it was missing a huge opportunity of putting a foothold in untapped markets. The strategy of the company has remained such that it does not follow the trend of jumping into the market by providing similar products and getting into the competition to acquire more market share. Overcoming this hurdle was not as simple because the 3Ms market insights were mainly driven from working closely with the customers. This strategy is good for coming up with sister products but not effective to venture into unchartered marketing territory (Hippel & Sonnack, 1999). Conventional marketing research methods at 3M were not helpful. The reason is that such strategies address quantifying needs. Just like the Six Sigma strategy this market research identifies the needs for efficient monetization. It does not identify the new undescribed needs of the customers. Idea generation methods were also not helpful because it is not clear how to gauge those ideas and meet the marketing demands. Despite these drawbacks, quality ideas are essential for innovation because without those ideas there will be insignificant output. To rectify this situation the 3M management tried to use the ‘bottoms up’ innovation process. Different need identification strategies were exercised by few divisions. A handful of employees also tried developing new methods from scratch. Initially, they could not find a winner. Eventually, Mary Sonnack, the division scientist in the Commercial Office Supplies Division, took an interest in the problem. She was the company chemist and did not have a marketing background. She had previously contributed in processes such as QFD (Hippel & Sonnack, 1999). She had a feeling that she could identify the unarticulated customer needs that would become the process of the mainstream operations at the company. She was looking for the successful method. Mary Sonnack’s Contribution Sonnack took a different approach than the others; instead of scanning the marketing literature she studied the management of technological innovation. She came across the articles by von Hippel of MIT. Hippel had spent years studying the sources of innovation for novel products. These products later became commercial successes. He also discovered that this strategy was especially successful for functioning novel products than simply providing solutions to the known problems. This finding struck a chord within Sonnack. She thought that Hippel had identified how to solve this problem at 3M. She thought that this process would give the company an edge to venture into new markets. In a nutshell, Hippels research suggest that if a company wants to identify the unarticulated needs of the customer in an understandable form then perhaps the best way to achieve that is through user-developed product (Hippel & Sonnack, 1999). This strategy translated into identifying the lead users that was a little less challenging than finding unarticulated needs. Sonnack visited von Hippel at MIT and communicated her intentions. This discussion proved fruitful as they discussed many real-world examples where Hippel had helped different firms regarding product innovation. In theory, all of this sounded very exciting but a well-documented plan of what the company had to do was missing. Only identifying the idea does not solve the problem because she had to communicate it in such a way that was applicable in the companys operations. Von Hippel agreed on developing the documentation on the condition that 3M would fund this project. As a result of their efforts, Lead User Method was born. Sonnack asked the support of Chuck Harstad, the Commercial Office Products Division and Bill Coyne, 3Ms Corporate Vice President for Research and Development (Hippel & Sonnack, 1999). Sonnack went back to MIT in 1995 as a visiting scholar. She worked with the psychologist Dr. Joan Churchill was a specialist in the development of training materials. In 1996 and initial lead user, project was experimented at 3M and its documentation began taking shape. In 1997 to projects saw completion using the draft documentation. In 1998, this was followed by eight more projects and another how to do it book, as well as coaching material on lead. The top management at 3M was very excited about the new outcome of this investment. Bill Coyne stated that that practice at 3M was the one they were looking forward to identify and capitalize on the unarticulated needs. This method has continued to serve the company well this have open new horizons for the new strategic directions for various divisions in the company. Corporate management is enthusiastic about this process and various divisions at 3M are eager to learn Sonnacks method. Lead-User Method To understand Lead-User Method in more detail, one factor needs to be understood that not all users have the same potential in developing commercially important innovation. Research suggests that almost all user-developed products have seen general commercial interest. The lead users are those that expect to get high benefit from an innovation, and they have a considerable stake in giving their time and effort to. These are the people that are ahead of the target market regarding certain crucial trends. An example can explain that Glenn Urban and von Hippel identified that innovations in software design come up with complex printed circuit boards. One crucial trend in this regard was gradually decreasing the size of the printed circuits. Later that lead user method was copied by various US companies that ran research projects between 1997 and 2002, Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) Kellogg, Nestlé, Philips, Pitney Bowes, Cabot and Gillette are among these companies (Eisenberg, 2011) (Table 2 in Appendix describes this in detail). A study published the results of comparing the success of lead user research method at 3M with the traditional idea generation methods such as brainstorming (Lilien et al. 2002). This research also looked at estimated sales forecasts for five years for the products that resulted from this novel idea processes. Interestingly the average lead user project at 3M projected to be hundred and $46 million after five years which was eight times more than the forecast of average traditional products (A detailed comparison is shown in Table 2 of Appendix). In addition, the launch of such products was projected to create new product lines for three M division. The result was the divisions that funded the laser uses projects projected the highest rate of product generation in the past 50 years. The lead user research method is still popular in Europe, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom and especially in Denmark (Eisenberg, 2011). The Copenhagen business school based Danish user-centred innovation lab has been focusing on lead user methods and collaboration with businesses for innovative products. At the moment, there are 13 academic research groups worldwide focusing on lead user research. Key Features of Lead User Research Method The four key differences between lead user research projects and conventional marketing research are as follows (Eisenberg, 2011); • It focuses on the needs of leading-edge users and not the mainstream users • It looks at not only the needs data but innovations which translate into user-developed solutions • It focuses on the solutions and needs adjusting markets and less known analogous market including the target market • It employs a cross-disciplinary team that gathers the perspective of various divisions and groups The success of a lead user research project mainly depends on the team effort. Individual members should have exceptional interviewing skills, and the team has to a balance of deep expertise in all relevant domains and the operations need to be driven by genuine curiosity and creativity. Internal Entrepreneurship Hewlett-Packard and 3M Company are the two large corporates that promote internal entrepreneurship strategy. An internal entrepreneurship is a department within a large corporate that develops new products that differ from the corporations mainstream operations (Balkin and Logan, 1988). Intrapreneurship means entrepreneurship within a corporation. Among the best known intrapreneurial brand ventures is the founding of Post-it Notes at the 3M Company (van Rensburg, 2012). 3M promotes entrepreneurship structure that is similar to the one applied in companies such as Johnson & Johnson, AT&T, Kodak, Hewlett-Packard and General Electric (Sathe, 1989). The circumstances have shaped the company culture such that the difficulties that 3M Company faced in becoming a major player of the industry it appears that traditional approach to entrepreneurship worked less well in areas that required radical rather than incremental innovation (Burgelman, 1983). Their internal entrepreneurship programs formed the foundations of their innovation. Environmental Challenges 3M Corporation is a chemical conglomerate. It is only natural that they faced many environmental challenges to run their operations. Despite these odds, the company persisted with their carbon reduction and energy efficient operations. The 3M Company estimates that its "Pollution Prevention Pays" program saved them about $482 million (Porter, 1996). These efforts helped in keeping a friendly face for the public. This strategy was helpful in building trust among customers. Conclusion Today 3M Company deals with many challenges. The greatest challenge is to keep up its reputation of innovation. Today the company is huge and extremely complex. It is involved in several markets, products and technologies. Developing so many different products and serving many niches has made the company realize that different managerial styles might be necessary to serve different markets. The high-risk approach to research and development might not be suitable for certain sectors. The companys original 25% rule, the proportion of the new product sales, might not be achievable by all divisions of the company. The company is also facing severe competition which means that cost economies are becoming imperative to sustain profitability. As a result, the 15% slack time, where the workers would pursue their pet projects, is under severe stress. However, 3M Corporation has successfully implemented and promoted corporate entrepreneurship for over a century. It has struggled with efficiency vs. innovation debate but it is good that the company is going back to its roots through programs such as lead user research. References 1. Balkin, D. B., & Logan, J. W. (1988). Reward policies that support entrepreneurship. Compensation & Benefits Review, 20(1), 18-25. 2. Bessant, J., & Tidd, J. (2007). Innovation and entrepreneurship. John Wiley & Sons. 3. Brand, A. (1998). Knowledge management and innovation at 3M. Journal of knowledge management, 2(1), 17-22. 4. Burgelman, R. A. 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Tacit knowledge transfer and firm innovation capability. Journal of business & industrial marketing, 18(1), 6-21. 25. van Rensburg, D. J. (2012). Strategic brand venturing: the corporation as entrepreneur. Journal of Business Strategy, 33(3), 4-12. 26. Von Hippel, E., & Sonnack, M. (1999). Breakthroughs to order at 3M via lead user innovation. Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 27. Zahra, S. A. (1991). Predictors and financial outcomes of corporate entrepreneurship: An exploratory study. Journal of business venturing, 6(4), 259-285. Appendix Corporate Culture of Innovation at 3M1 Lead-use Projects and Outcomes2 Funded Ideas: Lead User Origin vs. Non-Lead-User Origin3 Read More