3M India looks at double digit growth, e-commerce contribution to triple

3M India expects e-commerce would account for 10 per cent of its sales, tripling its contribution, as it looks at double-digit growth in the country with locally designed products for industrial, consumers, health care and safety products.
 

The company that makes products such as Post-it, scotch-bite, will step up designing products for local consumers, which it says are value conscious, while working with auto manufacturers and industrial units to improve their products.

Some of them include surgical dressing designed for Indian skin and can be used non-air conditioned environments to help wounds heal faster; raised pavement markers for Indian roads and a vibration test facility that help automakers improve the insulation of cars.

"India is not a very brand focused country, it is not like China where everybody wants a Louis Vuitton India is a value focused but at the same time, functional products do very well. We try to put in the best of both worlds," Debabrati Sen, Managing Director at 3M India said in an interview. "Within the 3M world, we are the fastest growing subsidiary. We are growing double digits."

The firm, which reported revenue of Rs 2,457 crore last financial year says that it has products across segments when consumer moves to the middle class, helping it tap opportunities as the economy grows. 3M, which has a base in India for over three decades, has a research team of around 110 people, working on local products. It spends around 5 per cent of its revenue on R& D in the country. The bulk of its new investments would be in hiring people for research, building products and market them to customers.

It is also exploring newer avenues to increase the reach of its products to consumers as well as businesses through online channels. The Bengaluru-based 3M earns around 3 per cent of its sales from e-commerce channels and expects online marketplaces for business users in each of the category it operates to help increase e-commerce contribution to 10 per cent.

"The e-marketplaces for b2b segments for industrial supplies, dental products etc.. we see that platforms becoming meaningful for us and that would grow faster," said Sen.

The firm has a large-scale acoustic lab to help auto firms to insulate cars better and an analytics team that looks at customer behaviour and feedback to constantly improvise the products and solutions.