3m Strategic Positioning Analysis Paper

3M Strategic Positioning Analysis Paper

Minnesota, Mining, and Manufacturing, known to most as 3M, is a very successful company that has a variety of products ranging from scotch tape to video tapes. This brand is recognized and trusted around the world. They are a "diversified technology company with a worldwide presence in the following markets: consumer and office; display and graphics; electro and communications; health care; industrial and transportation; and safety, security and protection services. What makes us so diverse is our ability to apply our technologies – often in combination – to an endless array of customer needs." (3m.com)

There are many problems and issues affecting 3M. These issues and problems come from all four business environments. (Carpenter, 91) The environments are as follows: (Macroscopic) environment, industry, strategic, and organization. Perhaps the most important of these environments are the external factors.

External Factors:

One of these important external factors that affects 3M is in the strategic environment. The first we will discuss is competitors. In a market, such as the one that 3M is in, there is competition everywhere. There are a few major companies that compete with 3M, and they are Amphenol Corporation (APH), Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), Avery Dennison Corp. (AVY), and Bayer AG (BAY). When the number of employees is compared between the companies, 3M falls right in the middle, so they would have the average number of employees, with 69,315. Another comparison between the companies is with their revenue. Again, 3M falls right in the middle. These companies make up part of an industry of conglomerates which, as a whole, are not doing as well as the individual companies are financially.

Another external factor that affects 3M would be from the industrial environment. The main industrial factor effecting 3M would be commoditization. Commoditization is the trend for innovative new products to become commonplace as the technologies involved are shared and the products secrets disseminated. Once it has happened, sales depend less on uniqueness and more on price. It is easy to see this simply by walking into a hardware store and checking for 3M products. Invariable, a cheaper comparable product is sitting right next to it on the shelf. Its classic brands are known by nearly every consumer and some of its branding names, like Post-its, are household names across America. However, innovation only lasts so long. At 3M's annual meeting in May 2000, company CEO L.D. DeSimone noted that over a third of the company's sales in 1999 came from products new to the market in the past four years. (Byrne, 2000) 3M deals with this factor by encouraging its employees to innovate and be creative with at least 10% of the time they are at work.

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