3M Business Analysis III
Steve Phelps
MGT/521
April 23, 2012

3M Business Analysis III

To answer the question of how current economic trends are affecting 3M and what

strategies 3M is using to adapt to the those economic trends, it is necessary to understand what

the current state of the United States economy is, then define what economic trends exist.

The Economy

The best ways to understand what encompasses the economy in the United States is to

first look the Gross Domestic Product. This statistic measures the country’s total output.

According to the Gross Domestic Product, the United States economy is everything produced by

every company and person in the United States. This year the Gross Domestic Product was

totaled just over $15 trillion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The Gross Domestic Product is made of four primary components: Personal

Consumption Expenditures, which measures consumer spending; Business Investments, which is

basically purchases that companies make to produce consumer goods; Government Spending;

and Net Exports of Goods and Services, which measures what is added and subtracted to the

Gross Domestic Product with exports and imports, respectively. Of these four components,

it is the Personal Consumption Expenditures that is probably the most important of the Gross

Domestic Product, as it accounts for a large part of the United States economy. Over 60% of

what the United States produces is for personal consumption according to the Bureau of Labor

and Statistics.

The Current State of the Economy

While the United States has experienced some economic highs and lows, overall the

United States economy was the model of a healthy robust economy. However, for close to ten

years the United States economy has experienced a