Business strategy

INNOVATION - Business Strategy

Implementating 15% innovation time a week: 4.5 work week which allow employees to think of problems or ideas that they have came across and would otherwise not have the time to explore it further. Hence it allow time for innovation to happen or take place.
Internal and external interactions in a global innovation culture: leaders play an important role in connecting different employees and facilitating (the communication) with other members (external to the community) to capture ideas. Past ideas are also "open"to review and test for feasbility.
Using disruptive technolgies for innovation: focus on product and services offering to create incremental (N95 mask) and radical (electrical sethoscope) products. Hence the stragety here is to use existing technology to innovate rather than going for technological breakthrough.

Adopting time-pacing as a strategy: to launch products to ensure substainability, remain competitive and be a forward-thinking yet a creative manufacturing and technology company. This stragety also help 3M to stay relevant to different consumers over the years or target new customers needs while establishing an image for its brand.
Using 6 sigma techniques to control production standard (to ensure quality standard or reduce variabilities) and remove waste (production material, time and effort) in order to acheive operational efficiency. 6 sigma thus helps to conrol the manufacturing process on large volume of production and its resource or equipment utilization.