Co-innovation with customers: how 3M drives tangible results

How can co-innovation with customers be turned into tangible results in technology companies?
At 3M, they apply science in collaborative ways to improve lives daily, creating solutions that empower modern life and advance human progress. R&D is the heartbeat of 3M, and the company invests around 6% of its sales back into the technology and innovation that make 3M strong.

3M’s 15% Culture: empowering innovation from within

For more than 80 years, the 15% Culture has empowered 3Mers to spend some of their time on a project or idea that excites them. They are encouraged to use 3M resources, build a team, and challenge the status quo. This generates an incredible amount of ideas, which often turn into successful products.

Talking about products, what does 3M actually sell today? When you walk across their offices, you can often hear, with a gentle tone of pride, how their employees put it:

You are never more than 3 meters away from a 3M product!

This phrase expresses the complexity and importance of their work: an almost infinite set of high-end quality technologies that enable many products and services most people on earth interact with. To grasp the dimensions, consider that 3M acquired its first patent in 1924 and today it has more than 133,000 patents for its products, technologies, and processes.

Understanding 3M’s extensive product and technology portfolio

Managing a portfolio of enormous size and continuing to innovate to address customer needs is not trivial, especially if you aim to stay ahead of the competition. With this idea in mind, 3M established its Customer Innovation Centers (CIC) and Customer Technical Centers (CTCs) in 2015 on a global scale: the first with the aim of explaining the innovation paradigm they use, the second with the aim of developing new solutions.

Mixing and migrating technologies for new products

The Customer Innovation Center (CIC) clarifies 3M’s range of products and activities by showcasing the 49 technologies they excel in, categorized into Materials, Processes, Digital, Capabilities, and Applications. The concept is straightforward: new products are created by combining two or more technologies (Mixing) or by adapting a technology to a new application (Migrating). Examples include:

• combining the right adhesive with the right stone results in abrasive paper;
• using a technology from old projectors to focus light, then micro-replicating it to make road signs that reflect light correctly.

Establishing a CIC and crafting compelling narratives around it helps align employees, partners, and customers with the company’s innovation strategy, fostering business growth.

Customer innovation centers and customer technical centers

Leveraging this momentum allows for immersive, hands-on experiences with 3M’s products, enabling deep dives into each of the 49 technologies. Customers can interact with, modify, and even integrate their own products into these spaces, enhancing collaborative innovation and co-creation outcomes.

Hands-on immersive experiences

These centers are designed to give customers a direct, tangible understanding of how 3M’s technologies can solve real problems, turning abstract innovation into tangible results.

The role of 3M’s sales force in co-innovation

The final crucial element of 3M’s customer co-innovation strategy is their sales force, which consists of technical experts who visit customer sites to understand their needs, including unexpressed ones, and propose tailored solutions.

This human, expert-driven layer ensures that co-innovation is both practical and impactful.

A real-world example of an effective talent strategy

While not every company is 3M, they can certainly draw inspiration from 3M’s practices. What pillars do you use to co-innovate with customers, and what do you believe is the key to achieving success in this area?