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 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? 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. 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. The Post-It note was invented during 15 percent time.

Organizations such as Hewlett-Packard and Google have both replicated this approach. Technology and innovation are at the heart of 3M — the company has been granted more than , patents, and each year, more than 4, new patents are issued to 3M worldwide.

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. 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.

But it is equally considerate towards climate change and sustainability. Such early commitments to climate change allow organizations to prepare themselves for new technological adoption. 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.

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.

Why did Michelin, a tire company, decide to rate restaurants? The medical imaging team began by finding expert medical radiologists, who referred them to specialists in semiconductor imaging and pattern recognition.

Some information is transferred in the course of telephone interviews or through on-site visits. More information is transferred when the team hosts a workshop that includes several lead users who have a range of expertise, as well as a number of people from within the company—product developers, marketing specialists, and manufacturing people.

A lead user workshop typically lasts two or three days. In the medical-imaging example, lead users with a variety of experiences were brought together: people on the leading edge of medical imaging, people who were ahead of the trend with ultra-high-resolution images, and experts on pattern recognition. Together they created a solution that best suited the needs of the medical-imaging market and represented a breakthrough for the company.

Executives at 3M charted a similar course. Traditional market research was providing abundant data but could not point developers toward a breakthrough. Shor called Mary Sonnack at 3M. We need to identify new customer needs.

Surgeons cut directly through these films during an operation. But the unit in charge of the draping business had not had a breakthrough product in almost a decade. Technological excellence was not the issue. In the early s, the division had spent three years developing technologically advanced disposable surgical gowns.

The gowns would safeguard surgeons and their patients from dangerous viruses such as HIV—and keep them more comfortable—by allowing water vapor but not viruses to pass through microscopic pinholes in the fabric.

This technological and manufacturing feat, however, came to the market just as managed health care was taking hold in the United States. Under those circumstances, Shor convinced senior management to try the lead user process. They all agreed to commit half their time to the project until it was completed. Experts and lead users are never shy about suggesting better ideas, and the evolutionary improvement of goals is an expected and desirable part of the lead user process.

The group spent the first month and a half of the project learning more about the cause and prevention of infections by researching the literature and by interviewing experts in the field. The group then held a workshop with management in which they discussed all that they had learned and set parameters for acceptable types of breakthrough products.

The lead user process gets under way when a cross-disciplinary team is formed. Teams typically are composed of four to six people from marketing and technical departments; one member serves as project leader. Team members usually will spend 12 to 15 hours per week on the project for its duration. Lead user projects proceed through four phases.

The length of each phase can vary quite a bit; the 3M team spent six months alone on phase 3, when it researched surgical conditions in developing countries through on-site visits. For planning purposes, a team should figure on four to six weeks for each phase and four to six months for the entire project. During this initial period, the team identifies the markets it wants to target and the type and level of innovations desired by key stakeholders within the company.

But what is the trend? To find out, the team must talk to experts in the field they are exploring—people who have a broad view of emerging technologies and leading-edge applications in the area being studied.

The team now begins a networking process to identify and learn from users at the leading edge of the target market and related markets. Based on what they learn, teams also begin to shape preliminary product ideas and to assess the business potential of these concepts and how they fit with company interests. The goal is to move the preliminary concepts toward completion. The team begins this phase by hosting a workshop with several lead users, a half-dozen in-house marketing and technical people, and the lead user team itself.

Such workshops may last two or three days. After the workshop, the project team further hones the concepts, determines whether they fit the needs of target-market users, and eventually presents its recommendations to senior managers. By that point, its proposals will be supported by solid evidence that explains why customers would be willing to pay for the new products. Although the project team may now disband, at least one member should stay involved with any concepts that are chosen for commercialization.

In that way, the rich body of knowledge that was collected during the process remains useful as the product or service families are developed and marketed. For the next six weeks or so, team members focused on getting a better understanding of important trends in infection control. One cannot specify what the leading edge of a target market might be without first understanding the major trends in the heart of that market.

The team broke up into pairs and traveled to hospitals in Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, and India. They learned how people in less than ideal environments attempt to keep infections from spreading in the operating room.

They especially noted how some surgeons combat infection by using cheap antibiotics as a substitute for disposable drapes and other, more expensive measures. As a result of their field observations, the team concluded that a crisis was germinating in the surgical wards of developing countries. The team also realized that even if 3M could radically cut the cost of surgical drapes, most hospitals in developing countries simply would not be able to afford them.

Those insights led the team to redefine its goal: find a much cheaper and much more effective way to prevent infections from starting or spreading that does not depend on antibiotics—or even on surgical drapes.

The team members then networked their way into contact with innovators at the leading edge of the trend toward much cheaper, more effective infection control. As is usually the case, some of the most valuable lead users turned up in surprising places.

For example, the team learned that specialists at some leading veterinary hospitals were able to keep infection rates very low despite facing difficult conditions and cost constraints. Those attributes are very important to the design of infection control materials that will be applied to the skin. As a final step in the project, the team invited several lead users to a two-and-a-half-day workshop. Some groups floundered for a while before pulling ideas together toward the end of their sessions.

In others, extroverted people at first dominated the discussion; later, the introverts warmed up and began contributing. All the groups faced the challenge of navigating a sea of facts and trying to unite creative ideas with technical constraints. Lead user innovations generate some kind of competitive advantage.

Yet, most lead users are quite willing to give detailed information to manufacturers, and are usually willing to do so for free. There are two basic reasons:. Those lead users are generally happy to share their knowledge.

Second, lead users develop innovations because they need to—not as a source of competitive advantage. In those cases, they may want to transfer their ideas to a willing supplier. For example, in a lead user study devoted to improving credit-reporting services, a team found that at least two major users of such services had developed advanced, online credit-reporting processes.

I Accept Show Purposes. Your Money. Personal Finance. Your Practice. Popular Courses. Business Company Profiles. Key Takeaways 3M manufactures and distributes a broad range of products, from building materials and adhesives to medical and home cleaning supplies. The company's Safety and Industrial segment generates the most sales and profits. Article Sources. Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts.

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