3M Corporation was established in the year 1902 in the name of Minnesota mining.

However they found that the company was worthless and after a single order of 20$ the Venture winded up. They then started manufacturing sand paper and were the first one to introduce waterproof sandpapers and acquire the technology of making it. Richard Drew, a young lab assistant comes up with 2 new technology, Masking tapes and Scotch a brand of cellophane tapes. The company earned lots of respect for its innovation. It encouraged its employees to think of innovative products and allowed them to spend about 15% of their time on it. As a result of it they could invent Post-it, Thinsulate etc. Now it has about 30 key technologies under its name. In 1990s it operated with 4 key objectives being:1. 2. 3. 4. Producing 30% of sales from products that did not exist 4 years earlier Greater than 10%annual growth in earnings per share Greater than 27% return on capital employed 20-25% Return on equity

To achieve high rates of innovation 3M placed a heavy emphasis on R&D. In 1997, 3M companies operated in more than 60 countries, and overseas businesses generated half of the firms $15.07 billion in revenue and half of its 2.7$ billion in operating income. It also diversified into medical product division where it claimed over 10,000 Health related product ranging from surgical drapes to dental fillings to respirators to software and the health care sales topped $2 billion.