3M is a global products company known for innovation. We worked with the SVP Head of R&D for North America on a market survey of the competition to understand what areas and product categories they were investing in and the size of those investments, as well as summarizing current best practices in innovation
Creating A Research Case Study for 3M Innovation
- Consumer Packaged Goods, Materials
- , Enterprise
- , Research, Strategy
The Challenge
The client needed to know what the market was doing in terms of innovation and wanted to incorporate an external point of view on competitor activity and investment targets.The Solution
We performed a high-level survey of the industry, looking at competitors in the same class, and reviewing annual reports to determine what their R&D budgets were, what they were spending on, and what new products or technologies they were bringing to market. Alongside this, we performed an in-depth review of current literature, research, and thinking around innovation, interviewing specialists and analyzing best practices. We focused on fostering a culture of innovation within organizations and making innovation an embedded, repetitive skill.The Outcome
The key deliverable was a two-part report. The first part focused on the industry survey, showing a brief synopsis of each company we investigated, and some broad trends we had uncovered. The second part highlighted some of the cutting-edge best practices in innovation, incorporating recommendations on further avenues of exploration for possible adoption by 3M Innovation. The report was well received, with the Head of R&D commenting, “Alex was proactive in thinking about ways to maximize the value of his work, doing a thorough, timely job in the process. I would be happy to engage his service again.”“Alex was new to the cc industry and quickly got up to speed. He worked onsite and had direct client interaction. Alex has a professional attitude and asked appropriate and challenging questions about the work streams he is involved with. He is able to take input from different stake holders and use that to adapt the project plan to make the end product more robust, adaptable and usable as well as complete the project on time. “
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