Manager, B2B Customer Insights

3M • Maplewood, MN

2d • Onsite

About The Position

The Manager, B2B Customer Insights sits within 3M’s B2B Customer Insights Center of Excellence and owns and leads research that shapes how 3M understands its business customers, including their needs and journeys, brand, pricing, and customer experience. The role designs and delivers research, translates findings into commercial recommendations, and presents those recommendations to senior stakeholders. It also partners with business groups and Marketing Sciences colleagues, manages end-to-end study delivery, and builds research capability and standards across the Center of Excellence.

The role is multinational. Candidates based in Maplewood, Minnesota, USA, or Sumaré, São Paulo, Brazil, will be considered. On-site presence of at least four days per week is expected; alternative arrangements will depend on location and local guidelines. Travel may include up to 5% domestic or international travel. Relocation may be authorized. The employee must be legally authorized to work in the country of employment without employment-visa sponsorship, as applicable.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in marketing research, business, or a social science such as anthropology, sociology, or psychology, completed and verified before starting.
• Seven years of experience in market research, customer insights, voice of customer, or customer experience in a private, public, government, or military environment.
• Seven years of demonstrated experience designing complex quantitative surveys for industrial, technical, or other specialized or low-incidence audiences, including instrument design, field diagnosis, and coaching others on questionnaire craft.
• Seven years of proven ability to lead qualitative research with buyers, specifiers, or technical decision-makers, including program design, moderation of complex interviews, and development of qualitative storylines that inform commercial decisions.
• Legally authorized to work in the country of employment without sponsorship for employment visa status, as applicable.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in marketing research, business, social science (such as anthropology, sociology, or psychology), or a related field from an accredited institution.
• Working knowledge of customer-experience and feedback platforms such as Qualtrics, Medallia, or Sprinklr, and experience with survey programming tools.
• Experience owning domain studies end-to-end in customer segmentation, brand, customer experience or voice of customer, pricing research, journey mapping, or innovation research, and linking results to commercial action.
• Experience structuring ambiguous or complex research requests, choosing appropriate approaches, defining tradeoffs, and turning loosely defined business questions into well-scoped studies.
• Track record of presenting research recommendations to senior stakeholders, handling constructive feedback, and facilitating discussion toward a decision.
• Experience developing junior research professionals through structured feedback, coaching on research craft, and building team capability.
• Proven ability to lead qualitative research with B2B buyers, specifiers, or technical decision-makers, including designing programs, moderating complex interviews, and building qualitative storylines that inform commercial decisions.

Responsibilities

• Design and own complex quantitative surveys end-to-end for B2B audiences, including questionnaire development, programming quality assurance, field-quality oversight, diagnosis of failed fieldwork or low-incidence challenges, and coaching others on research design.
• Lead qualitative research with B2B buyers, specifiers, and decision-makers by designing interview guides, moderating complex interviews, and developing themes into qualitative storylines with commercial implications.
• Design sampling and field strategies suited to business decisions, selecting among customer lists, panels, and specialist recruiting; assess bias and feasibility for hard-to-reach B2B audiences; and document reachable populations, non-response, and interpretation implications.
• Translate complex business questions into executive-ready recommendations by developing narratives from surveys, interviews, customer-experience data, and secondary inputs, creating standalone recommendation materials, and presenting to senior stakeholders.
• Own end-to-end project delivery, including scope, budgets, timelines, vendor relationships, and study quality gates; uphold research quality when stakeholders seek speed or a predetermined answer; and maintain reusable documentation in the Center of Excellence insight repository.
• Partner with internal stakeholders across business groups to refine briefs, connect research outputs to business KPIs, and follow insights through to agreed next actions with commercial teams.
• Build the Center of Excellence’s research capability by creating reusable kits for surveys, qualitative research, and customer-experience reporting; providing structured feedback and developing analysts; and establishing team quality standards.
• Partner with Marketing Sciences colleagues to translate research objectives into analysis plans, align on weighting, significance testing, segmentation, and driver-analysis choices, and ensure analytical outputs are correctly interpreted in recommendations.

Benefits

• 3M offers programs intended to support employees’ physical and financial well-being.
• 3M benchmarks pay and benefits against companies comparable in size and scope.
• Relocation may be authorized.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager