Answers
This company has moved from a humble beginning during their initial days to a fortune 500 organization today. In order to enter any new product category a company must see some competitive advantage or some sort of similarity with its existing product line because this would be required to get economies of scale and effective utilization of current resources without investing in all together new resources for new product. For example, 3M is well known brand for any car owner as it makes many products with are related to car maintenance therefore any similar product which can be used in car maintenance and good upkeep can be the future product range extension or else 3M can have a product which are made while keeping the car users as target.
Similarly 3M can think of entering any new business which can leverage the current manufacturing facility or vendor relations and these products can be sold in same segment where 3M is a well known brand.
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