Business Analysis of 3M Corporation Company Background: Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Corporation (3M) was founded in 1902. It reported sales revenue of $16.7 billion during the year 2000. These revenues came from 3M's six business divisions: industrial; transport, graphics and security; healthcare; consumer and office; electronics and communications; and special materials. All company divisions were profitable in 2000. That same year, the company made more than 60,000 products and sales of approximately $5.6 billion came from products introduced in the previous four years and another $1.5 billion they came from products introduced during 2000. Each year, more than 75,000 employees worked to create more than 500 new products. The company has been recognized for its vertical organizational structure, with businesses driven by technologies and markets. It was one of the most admired companies in America and in 1995 was awarded the National Medal of Technology, the U.S. government's highest award for innovation. Corporate Strategy and Objectives: Each division of 3M Corporation is treated as a profit center with no interdivisional activity among the six divisions. The business unit's strategy is to "hold" as the company wants to maintain and increase profitability and market share. In terms of corporate strategy, 3M functions as a diversified and unrelated company with the main objective of innovating consistently, thus offering business units a... means of paper ......le to prepare strategic plans, budget and submit them to senior management for review and approval. This will benefit the company because in a diverse, unrelated company, business unit managers have greater influence in developing their strategies and budgets since it is they, and not the corporate office, who own most of the information on the respective product/market. To conclude, I would say that 3M Corporation's existing controls are very good and support their strategy. However, they should incorporate the missing controls mentioned above to ensure greater innovation power, profitability and competitive advantage. References Anthony, Robert N. and Govindarajan, Vijay. (2005) Management control systems. McGraw Hill Companies Inc., New York, NY (pp. 654-655)