B2B Marketing -3M Canada B2B

B2B Marketing -3M Canada

B2B Marketing - 3M Canada

In order to generate business sustainability in the immediate future, the Industrial Business Division at 3M Canada identified the option of changing the focus from serving original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to serving maintenance, repairs and overhauler consumers. This strategic decision would present the company with a series of opportunities, as well as challenges, some of the most notable ones being revealed below:

a) Opportunities

The generation of short-term stability in order to create a favorable context of large processes of organizational change

The possibility of increasing financial gains

The lack of necessity to develop new products or engage in new manufacturing processes

The decrease in the dependency on OEMs

The significant increase registered by the MPO market throughout the recent period

b) Challenges

The need to move out of the comfort zone and take new risks

The currently small share of MPO customers and the limited expertise in this sense

The need for additional investments in marketing processes and operations.

One marketing aspect which would suffer changes is the sales relationship with the buyers. At the level of the original equipment manufacturers, the relationship is personal and direct. The manufacturer and the buyer negotiate contracts and respect the product characteristics; the relationship is specialized. In terms of the relationship with the maintenance, repairs and overhauiler customers, this is rigid and distant. The intermediates and the national distributors play a major part and communications between the two parties are tedious. Additionally, the MRO seek for other criteria than those established in the relationship with the OEMs.

In order to ensure the desired increase in the volumes sold to the MROs, it is necessary to readdress the sales model in order to better reach national distributors. This would generically be achieved through the treatment of the distributors of organizational customers. They would be approached and an offer for product sale would be made. The company would generically strive to attract as many distributors as possible and it would even engage in promotional activities with this purpose. Examples in this sense include the promotion of the company within the specialized media, conventions and so on, but also the offering of advantages to the distributors, such as discount prices on high volume purchases.

Given the current context at 3M Canada, the adequate course of action to follow would be that of switching the focus from the OEM customers to the MRO customers. This segment is continually increasing and it reveals valuable growth opportunities for the firm. Not only that it supports the context from the greater organizational change, but it could also generate long-term and stable financial results.