Source :
3M: The Beloved Competitive 'Moat' Is Eroding https://seekingalpha.com/article/4451165-3m-stock-beloved-competitive-moat-eroding?
Few highlights from the article :-
Lackluster sub-sector CAGRs and the swelling competitive landscape are concerns for 3M's continued industrial leadership.
Currently, there is evidence of 4 out of 7 of 3M's competitive advantages eroding, with alarming results from Glassdoor in 2021 regarding employee feedback about the company.
From 2019 to 2020, 3M reported growth of 18.4% in EPS from $7.81 to the aforementioned $9.25 despite nearly equivalent YoY numbers for net sales: $32.1B in 2019 and $32.2B in 2020. In fact, revenue trends all the way back to 2016 do not inspire confidence
Why would you invest in a ~$32.1B revenue company able to achieve only a ~3.9% revenue growth and ~4.7% EPS growth on average during the last 10 years other than for the dividend yield?
Perhaps the most alarming and revealing aspect of my research involved reading Glassdoor reviews for 3M. I personally reviewed 280 out of 4,634 reviews (~6%), the majority of these from 2021. The reviews provide a bleak future if the employee concerns are not addressed
There are many concerns with promotions and career growth as well as purported examples of preferential treatment.
Despite management's awareness of the diversity issues, there seem to be blunders in execution with respect to hiring of qualified diverse candidates (as opposed to any candidate matching the diversity checkboxes), retaining of talented employees, and inclusion of said employees successfully within the organization.