Transforming B2B Customer

Engagement at 3M

Aruna Naik

Case Overview

3Ms Electronics and Energy business: serves electrical,

electronics and communications industries

The business problem: Challenge in Material science business is,

how to help customers appreciate the new end used products

Lee Fain, a design strategist and Bert Haldin, a business

development manager at 3M constantly struggling
To make their products cost effective
To mange their supply chain more efficiently, and
To make meaningful technical developments

Solution: Design thinking and tools

Design for growth (D4G) process

and tools

Myth about design thinking

B2B Space
(Customer co-creation)

Design Thinking

Consumer Products
Companies (only)

Design tools for customers

engagement process
Reimagining the sales process
Selling design in the B2B space
Design provocation
The really big show
Finding the right partners and opportunities
Demonstrating designs value

Reimagining the sales process

Salesperson is a primary
stakeholder who needed help
creating a different kind of sales
process

Using mobile handled devices

would seem less forced, more
natural

Customized approach to
interact with customers

Portable device helps activating

vision

Selling design in B2B space

What role design could play in a material science company and how
it could improve customer relationships is the major challenge
Framework: DOES
Desires: Do what you want to do
Obstacles: What is preventing you from achieving your desires
Effects: what are the side effects of those obstacles
Solution: What could the answers look like from your perspective
Storytelling
Gaylon White (Director of Eastern Chemical Companys design
industry program) coached Lee on using storytelling to
communicate message

Contd

Ethonography
Research methodology brought from
the field of anthropology
Focuses on studying people in their
natural environment
Uses both observation and in depth
interviewing
Assumption testing: An effective
engagement strategy required creating
deliverables appealed to all profiles
Business professionals: technology
Sales professionals: numbers and
timings
Technical experts: capabilities of
innovation
Designers: enabling aspect of
technology
Five appealing deliverables to all profiles

Inspirational
video

Appearance
model

Marketing

Designers

Educational
material
sample

Technical
demonstrator

Sales

lab folks

Educational
video
Technical experts
and sales

Design Provocation
If customers wanted to do X with
their product and we had Y we
our technology, what might our
customers do ???
Ability to cerate something
visual to react to such as
stories, videos or physical mock
ups
Make the future feel real
Much more engaging
conversation with customers
and
wider audience

Finding the right partners and

opportunities

Forward thinking: futuristic yet

grounded in todays technology

Science fiction: Projecting

something which is not been
tested in lab

Investment should be
proportional and weighted based
on the opportunity

Choosing the right partners is

equally important
Propose new ideas and new
solutions

Demonstrating designs value

The design approach doesnt compete with data It complements it

Designs value started with uncovering gaps, identifying what was

missing, and then finding opportunities to fill those gaps

If you can see an opportunity and take it!

Creating a new future requires us first to envision in minds eye

Quantitative approach by scientists + qualitative approach by

designers = technology more humanistic

What Lee didnt do

He didnt preach the gospel of design thinking instead, he helps

people solve problems

He avoided getting cut in wars between functions, which is

especially important in a diversified organization

He refused to waste his time in the wrong culture. Instead, he finds

a home in an organization open to experimentation

Great advice from great design

thinker!

Observer

Protagonist vs. antagonist

complexity/noise

Context

Frameworks