3M Forms New Graphics Market Center

3M has announced the formation of its Graphics Market Center, combining many of the products, capabilities, and resources of the company's Commercial Graphics and Industrial Adhesives and Tapes divisions.

The newly formed organization “will provide the full range of 3M products and capabilities to targeted customer segments, while improving customer satisfaction through increased flexibility, service, and responsiveness,” says Jon Lindekugel, Graphics Market Center business director.

“We decided to take the customer-facing organizations that are calling on the graphics industry and pull them all into one group,” says Lindekugel. “Mostly, this involves organizations within Commercial Graphics and within the Industrial Adhesives and Tapes divisions — specifically, sales, marketing, and customer service, as well as some of the other marketing functions within these groups.”
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Behind the Graphics Market Center, the two divisions will still exist, will still be involved in the markets they serve, and they'll continue their product focus. The Market Center will pull the products into the field. Why the change? “We recognized the opportunity to improve the way we're serving the graphics industry,” says Lindekugel. “The Graphics Market Center will allows us to do three things:
— One, drive us to be a much easier supplier to do business with “? instead of three different divisions, we'll have one set of policies and processes for the graphics industry.
— Two, we'll be able to bring all of 3M to the marketplace, no matter which product solution customers need.
— Three, we'll be able to do things like redirect some of our resources into the field as needed, directing them at the part of the marketplace that requires them.”

The Graphics Market Center will become fully functional by January 1, 2006. It will make its debut at the upcoming SGIA Digital Expo in Phoenix, and be present at the major graphic-arts tradeshows in 2006; in addition, says Lindekugel, it will have a presence at “end-user segment” shows, such as those for the finance industry. On the Internet, the Center will initially be accessible via 3M's primary website, then will have a URL of its own in the future, says Lindekugel.

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