Leveraging 3M capabilities to build businesses

Recently 3M’s Sr. Vice President of R&D APAC & China Region, Dr. Joe Liu, and 3M’s Vice President of R&D India, Dr. Raja Krishnamurthy visited Sri Lanka to meet with 3M’s local customers and analyse their needs. 3M currently develops solutions for the local market by drawing on their vast global network of subsidiaries and customer interactions. 3M Lanka’s Vice President Suren Rajanathan and the two visiting R&D heads discussed 3M and the significance of their visit

Q: What is the potential you see for 3M in the APAC region?

Dr. Liu: From a purely macro-economic perspective we are currently seeing enormous growth in the Asia Pacific region, the economies of many Asian countries are growing exponentially.

Because 3M is a diversified business that has a presence in many different markets across industries, the growth potential for 3M riding on the region’s growth is huge, and we have seen significant growth in the last few years.

Q: What are 3M Sri Lanka’s research and development plans?

Dr. Krishnamurthy: Currently 3M does not have a dedicated R&D unit in Sri Lanka, but the R&D department in India performs research and development for 3M Sri Lanka. We do work with some of our customers here in Sri Lanka as a solution provider; when they have a need we source or develop products and bring it into Sri Lanka to satisfy that need. Going forward however, we definitely see potential in working with these partners to conduct specialised R&D here in Sri Lanka.

Dr. Liu: The key factor you need to understand about the 3M culture is that we are a global company that works across geographies, without boundaries. 3M has a local team in Sri Lanka that looks to localise resources and product offerings, but at all times they have access to our wealth of research and development from across the globe.

The Sri Lankan contingent can draw from the bounty of over 60,000 products, developed in the 65 3M businesses located worldwide.

That’s the power 3M as a company, our ability to share across geographies through our network is the key to our success and I think it’s an attribute that very few other companies have.

Q: Dr. Krishnamurthy when you said that 3M was a solution provider, what exactly did you mean?

Dr. Krishnamurthy: What we mean is that when our customers are looking to innovate, but are missing a key element that would make innovation possible, we at 3M can draw from our global wealth of products and services to find the exact one to solve their problem, and provide that missing element so they can innovate.

Dr. Liu: I think the way to look at it is; the 3M business model is not to sell you a product and then leave you alone. We love to work with our customers,

Dr. Krishnamurthy and I have spent most of our time during this visit just meeting with customers and trying to get a good understanding of their needs.

What we do is really listen to our customers and analyse their problems, and then we go back to our wealth of technology and try to find the products that will solve them.

It may be one product, a product innovation or a combination of products, but we only know what will work by really listening and analysing.

Q: Looking to the future do you see a potential for Sri Lanka to have its own 3M R&D centre?

Dr. Liu: In Sri Lanka currently 3M has a strong technical contingent and personally I’m optimistic that in the future, some time down the line, we will see a dedicated research and development department.

However, even right now a lot of research and development to suit the needs of our (3M’s) Sri Lankan customers is being conducted outside of Sri Lanka through our global technical prowess.

What’s more is that, some of the solutions that we will be developing for the Sri Lankan market, and indeed some of the solutions to the problems the customers we met with today are facing, will be globally applicable. So we see the solutions developed to address needs in Sri Lanka, becoming a part of our global catalog, going on to be used to address customer needs worldwide.

Q: Suren, what significance does the visit of Dr. Liu and Dr. Krishnamurthy have to 3M Sri Lanka at this juncture?

A: In my opinion the visit of 3M’s Vice President of R&D in the APAC & China Region, Dr. Liu and 3M’s Vice President of R&D in India Dr. Krishnamurthy is a testament to how much 3M Sri Lanka has grown. Being one of the smaller 3M subsidiaries we have done big things, and there is a lot of potential to do more.

Right now, the key to unlocking our potential in the future is to understand the needs and opportunities in the market. To do this we need to meet with our customers, really get a feel for their business, and understand the ways in which they are looking to innovate in the future. We need to combine this knowledge with the knowledge of our product offerings, our R&D and our potential to be a solution provider to our clients. If we can bring all these elements together, we can poise ourselves for significant growth in the future.

Our vision ‘3M technology advancing every company, 3M products enhancing every home, 3M innovation improving every life’ defines the essence of the company — technology, products and innovation. It speaks of what we do for our customers: advance, enhance and improve. And it stretches us to reach every company, every home and every life — everywhere.

3M is an innovations-focused company, on the cutting edge of science and technology, with subsidiaries in over 65 countries including Sri Lanka.

The company works on 46 central technology platforms from which the majority of the products are developed.

3M drives much of its business in Sri Lanka through a network of over 30 channel partners.

3M’s solutions are available in a wide range of industries that include health care, occupational health and environmental safety, industrial and transportation business, electronics and telecommunication, consumer and office, and display and graphics.