1. Transforming B2B Customer Engagement at 3M
Transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer
Aruna Naik

2. Case Overview
3M’s 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
Lee said we have great technology but it can difficult to articulate that and develop key messaging that’s meaningful to different people for different uses
Lee Fein embraced design thinking, which empowers sales staff in new ways to engage customers in a deeper and more compelling dialogue about new product possibilities

3. Design for growth (D4G) process and tools

4. Myth about design thinking
B2B Space
(Customer co-creation)
B2B Space
(Customer co-creation)
B2B Space
(Customer co-creation)
B2B Space
(Customer co-creation)
B2B Space
(Customer co-creation)
Design Thinking
Consumer Products
Companies (only)

5. 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 design’s value

6. 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
Having videos on your mobile device, in your back pocket, promotes spontaneous collaborations with customers. If I’m in a meeting, I pull out my phone and start showing them3M’s innovation concept designs in videos . This would be very different from opening a laptop, waiting for it to start, and finding the right file.
Lee envisioned the enhanced tools would instead foster deeper dialogue about new product possibilities the customer envisioned
Each sales person needed to be able to customize the approach to each customer in real time, but some consistency was also essential
Lee said I make the experience for sales people elegant and comfortable. If they are uncomfortable presenting, it’s going to show. I don’t want them to be worried about how they are going to present than what they are presenting
The tools have to be portable. They need to both elevate and simplify the dialogue. It’s about activating vision

7. 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 Company’s design industry program) coached Lee on using storytelling to communicate message
Lee used simple frameworks that allowed him to cut through the conversation and highlight the points where design could contribute. Lee had developed his own framework for doing this, which he calls DOES
He said before engaging in any project I ask those four questions to understand how I can use design to help articulate a path forward. From every angle you try to understand where the team finds the most important solution and how you can design that into your deliverable
White visited 3M to tell some stories of his own and case examples which was a tipping point for Lee’s team

8. Technical experts and sales
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
Designers
In customers meeting Lee played the role of anthropologist, sitting in the corner and observing how his colleagues engaged.
He reads people’s body language: if customers were not excited what was missing?? If designers seemed bored during a meeting what was the reason
An appearance model, a technical demonstrator, an educational video, an educational material sampl and future use case video (inspirational video)
Business professional wanted a sense of where the technology was headed sales professionals were concerned with the numbers and timings. Technical experts wanted to understand the capabilities of innovation and designers cared about the enabling aspects of technology itself
He identitied five deliverables that would appeal to various profiles
Technical experts and sales

9. 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
3M’s decision to debut a new product “Patterned Transparent Conductor” at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), one of the largest trade shows in the world was a great success in terms if customers engagement.
As Lee recalled, “I had people internally coming to me and saying, “Wow, I never knew we could do something like that or they would say, “now I can finally show my children what I do, besides saying I work on Patterned Transparent Conductors.”
3M today announces a new portfolio of 3M Transparent Conductors used in consumer mobile devices for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding and touch sensor applications. The portfolio provides designers and engineers a range of solutions to address the increasingly demanding construction of electronic devices by alleviating EMI interface issues and improving touch sensor performance, ultimately bringing products to the market faster.

10. Finding the right partners and opportunities
Forward thinking: futuristic yet grounded in today’s 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
I am a big fan of asking, “what’s the business opportunity”??

11. Demonstrating design’s value
The design approach doesn’t compete with data – It complements it
Design’s 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 mind’s eye
Quantitative approach by scientists + qualitative approach by designers = technology more humanistic
At the end of the day customers have to see how we are going to meet their specs and what the actual numbers show
Lee believed that design’s 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! Even if it’s outside of your job description

12. What Lee didn’t do…
He didn’t 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

13. Great advice from great design thinker!
Observer
Protagonist vs. antagonist
Context
Take yourself out of situation. Be an observer- don’t take it personally
Identify who is protagonist or an antagonist and align yourself with like minded individuals
Keep in mind that context enhances meaning for design and innovation
Reduce complexity, remove the noise, and focus on what’s meaningful
Develop frameworks that help articulate opportunities and vision
complexity/noise
Frameworks