Plant managers are being advised to prepare for 10-25% volume drops across all divisions and to have plans in place to trim production employees at the end of 1st quarter. Corona virus is the scapegoat but this was in play before the outbreak. SAP rollout has been an epic failure, 30-40% of 3M customers are fuming because of late orders, discontinued items, receiving wrong products or inflated minimum order quantities. Corporate culture is so arrogant that they believe the customers will continue placing orders regardless of bad business practices. Customer service reps and supply chain folks are seen crying at their cubicles trying to resolve the relentless onslaught of turmoil. Poor leadership, poor planning and lack of flexibility have become the standard operating procedure for the foreseeable future.
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Most production facilities are seeing a 25%-70% drop in orders, exceeding the original contingency estimate plans. 3M has the financial resources to withstand the storm but upper management puts shareholders expectations above all others. The Federal COVID relief programs are buying some time, but its delaying the inevitable. Expect layoffs, plant consolidations, reductions in employee and retiree benefits and the divestment of under performing business units. 3M was in trouble before this crisis, it will survive, but its glory days are long gone.
In a strange twist of fate, it seems like COVID-19 situation may have at least delayed or prevented some of the planned layoffs. Many of the employees have taken leave or started working from home, this has left a diminished amount of people in the plants to actually perform the work needed.
Not to worry...management and some production employees are being forced to use 1/2 of their vacation by the end of the 2nd quarter to get it off the books and help the quarterly report numbers.
SAP implementation in Canada earlier this month is still a mess. Maybe after 20 or 30 more attempts they will get it right. I have worked with couple of the corporate stooges in charge, I can't believe they still have jobs. They are losing customers that will never come back.
It's sad to see the 3M SAP roll out a total failure. Previous CEO has touting SAP as an advantage and stock price rocketed to $260, Now he is happily retired.
Looks like share price is going to be halved soon with the failure to deliver its SAP promise.