Case Study 3m

Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company Case Study Table of contents Table of contents Page 1 Introduction to 3M Page 2 Market and products Page 2 Performance over the last 5 years Page 3 International Marketing Activities Page 4 Miscellaneous Topics Page 6 Appendix 1 Page 7 References Page 8 Introduction to 3M 3M Company, the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, was founded in 1902 by five businessmen. They wanted to make a profit out of minerals for grinding wheel abrasives, but this failed to really take off. Their real success lay in the encouragement towards innovative employees, which resulted in several exclusive products such as waterproof sandpaper and masking tape. The search for new products and innovations became their core business from then on. Despite several failures in the first years 3M continued growing and coming up with new innovative products such as the now famous Scotch tape. In 1929 3M went international as well as traded their first stock and in 1949 they became listed on the New York Stock Exchange [3M Timeline]. By the 1950s it had international sales amounting to $20 million. In 1960 and 1970 it kept growing and released a line of board games which was very successful. They also produced their only traffic signal around this time, one that is still being used today. In the late 1970s the company was involved in some of the first digital audio recordings and in the 1980s it invented the Post-it notes [Haeg 2002]. The company is still growing today and now has over 130 factories employing some 67.000 people. Its international sales increased tenfold since 1950, now amounting to a staggering $22 billion [3M Press Release 2006]. 3M is currently working on focusing on its core businesses and they intend to sell some of their product lines. Their current business model focuses on “the ability to not only develop unique products, but also to manufacture them efficiently and consistently around the

References: " K-12 Education Giving." 3M. 3M. 31 Mar 2008 http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/CommunityAffairs/CommunityGiving/US/K12/. "What 's in a Name?." This Issue (2007) 31 Mar 2008 http://www.wnim.com/archive/issue2504/WhatsNewInMarketing-3M.htm