QUESTION REVIEWS

1) What microenvironmental factors have affected Xerox’s performance since the late 1990s?

The microenvironmental factors are: a) Xerox as a company had financial problems. There was huge churn in stocks & revenue decrease due to rapid change towards digital environment.

b) Being dominant in the photocopying industry, Xerox has been focusing on perfecting their copier machines and failed to adapt change in market demand which has started to move towards digital technology. Unfortunate for Xerox, their competitors like Sharp, Canon and Ricoh have managed to meet customer demand with digital document management systems & solution, by then it was too late for Xerox.

c) Customers are more interested in creating digital documents and sharing documents electronically and no longer relies on Xerox stand-alone copiers.

2) What macroenvironmental factors have affected Xerox’s performance during that same period?

The macroenvironmental factors are: a) Demographic – Better education and skill, increasing the need of innovation and sophisticated solution. Expending business of customers required with more reliable fast document management solutions.

b) Technological – Most dramatic force for shaping future, rapid changes, less costly choice, turning markets and opportunities for more sophisticated solutions.

c) Economy – Great recession affect the consumer purchasing power and spending pattern.

d) Cultural – Post and fax replaced by email and document sharing which contribute to faster business process.

3)
By focusing on the business services industry, has Xerox pursued the best strategy? Why or why not?
Business Service industry can be defined as primarily earn revenue through providing intangible product and services.

Yes, the Xerox is pursued to the best strategy to overcome the problem. Before they had developing the new product, they had held seemingly endless customer focus group. Then by implement the new strategy, Xerox’s revenue, profits and stock priced begin to show sign of recovery. Besides that, we can see the development of the company by introducing more than 130 innovative new product and straightly has a good relationship with new customer and new competitors.

Regarding on the business service industry, the Xerox is being developed successfully by concentrating on customer demand which is they wanted to easier, faster, and less costly ways to share document and information. This demand made the company to do some innovation by stopped making standalone copier and begin billing itself as the world leading document management technology and service. Instead of selling copier to equipment to purchase manager, this company also selling document management system to high level information technology (IT) manager.

The company pursue to be well-known as the iconic of “copier company” become with new identity as a document management company with more service are offered such as management consulting and outsourcing service, operate in house print shops or mailrooms, analyze how employees can most efficiently share document and knowledge, and build internet based processes for person alizing direct mail, invoices and brochures. These new product have allowed to supply solution to clients, not just concentrate on hardware only.

4) What alternative strategy might Xerox have followed in responding to the first signs of declining revenues and profits?

An alternative strategy might Xerox have followed in responding to the first signs of declining revenues and profit, outsource- An often criticized and unpopular move, outsourcing was critical to Xerox’s cost-saving efforts. Burns oversaw the process in a way that preserved quality while achieving the desired cost benefits. With the restricting of manufacturing, Xerox’s workforce dropped from 100,000 employees to 55,000 in just four years. And she did so with the blessing of Xerox’s employee union after convincing the union that it was either lose some jobs or have no jobs at all. This and other efforts returned Xerox to profitability within a few years. Xerox renewed its focus on the customer.

Xerox had renewed its focus on the customer. Xerox had always focused on copier hardware. Before developing new products, Xerox researchers held seemingly endless customer focus groups. Xerox was discovering that understanding customers is just as important as understanding technology. What Xerox learned is that customers didn’t want just copier; they want easier, faster, and less costly ways to share documents and information. The company had to rethink, redefine, and reinvent itself. Xerox created new customer relationships, as well as new competitors

5) Given Xerox’s current situation, what recommendations would you make to Burn’s for the future of Xerox?

Our recommendation for future of work a) Avoid marketing myopia. * The strategies of successful green products shows that their marketers have avoided "green marketing myopia" by following three important principles that can be called "The Three Cs": 1. Consumer value positioning * Design environmental products to perform as well as (or better than) alternatives. * Promote and deliver the consumer-desired value of environmental products and target relevant consumer market segments (e.g., target money savings benefits to cost-conscious consumers). * Broaden mainstream appeal by bundling (or adding) consumer-desired value into environmental products (such as fixed pricing for subscribers of renewable energy). 2. Calibration of consumer knowledge * Educate consumers with marketing messages that connect environmental product attributes with desired consumer value (for example, "pesticide-free produce is healthier," "energy-efficiency saves money," or "solar power is convenient") * Frame environmental product attributes as "solutions" for consumer needs, for example, "rechargeable batteries offer longer performance." With indoor air quality a growing concern and fumes from paints, carpets, and furniture now linked to headaches, eye, nose, and throat irritation, dizziness, and fatigue, Sherwin Williams offers "Harmony," a line of interior paints that is low-odor, zero-VOC, and silica-free. * Create engaging and educational Web sites about environmental products' desired value: e.g., Tide Coldwater's interactive Web site allows visitors to calculate their likely annual money savings based on their laundry habits, utility source (gas or electricity), and ZIP code location.

3. Credibility of product claims * Make sure that environmental product and consumer claims are specific, meaningful, and qualified. Compare with comparable alternatives or likely usage scenarios. Recognizing the ambiguity of the term green, "Drive Green, breathe Blue" in favor of "Less gas in. Less gasses out." * Underscore credibility with product endorsements or eco-certifications from trustworthy third parties, and educate consumers about the meaning behind those endorsements and eco-certifications. Over 40 product categories can now bear the Energy Star seal.

* Encourage positive word of mouth via consumers' social and internet communication networks with compelling, interesting, or entertaining information about environmental products. Increasingly, consumers have grown skeptical of commercial messages, and they're turning to friends and peers for advice.

b) Hire for the Future, Not the Past :-

* Recreating the existing labor force prior to the recession isn't going to be enough. * Cultivate the new skills—business management, financial management, strategic planning, IT, marketing, consultative selling, etc.—our new industry requires * Cross-train to develop the flexible, adaptable work force that can be assign at the right time, at the right place and to make labor more of a variable cost than a fixed cost. * Replace the workers with no results in help to advance the company. * Alert with the significant change in the company where situation of workers to thinkers is changing dramatically.

TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION CHANGING NEEDS
The Future of Work - companies doing and more importantly what they HAVE TO DO in order to succeed and thrive in a new business landscape.

Teams * Shifting from large structured centrally located teams to smaller more globally distributed teams which are held together by technology. As long as team members can access to the internet it doesn’t matter where they are located.
Workforce
* Work is absolutely about breaking down barriers between teams and geographies. Sales should be speaking with product development, marketing should be speaking with customer service and support, and engineering should be speaking solution delivery teams. The traditional model saw only people in the same team or physical location share and collaborate; no more. The organization of the future is a connected organization where information, collaboration and communication happens without boundaries.
Operational Model * Larger organizations are at a high risk for being disrupted, which means they need to learn how to operate like smaller companies. However, a paradox exists. As organizations grow so does their complexity which results in more sluggishness. However, these same organizations also want more profits which means they have to grow, thus, they are stuck with trying to find a way to grow while becoming less complex
Organizational Focus * Organizations around the world have been making a various dangerous assumption; assuming that employees would work there because they needed to. Years ago this was definitely the case as there was really only one way to make a living. However as Dan Pink rightly commented, “today talented people need organizations less than organizations need talented people.” This means that organizations have to shift their focus from creating a place where they assume people NEED to work there to creating an environment where people WANT to work there.
Adaptation
* Going forward “late adopter” means “out of business.” Years ago organizations had the luxury of seeing what their competitors were doing and then quickly following on their heels. Today that is no longer true. Organizations must adapt quicker and more aggressively if they wish to thrive in this new rapidly changing business world.

Cloud vs. on-premise * One of the keys that will enable organizations to evolve from a technology perspective is their shift from on-premise to cloud. In fact it’s hard to imagine this shift not becoming the standard over the next few years. Shifting to the cloud allows for benefits such as faster upgrade time, improved flexibility, reduced costs, and increased accessibility and adoption of the technology platforms.
Women in management * Today there are approximately 15% of women in executive officer positions in the Malaysia which is a shockingly low number. One of the things we can expect to see is an increase in this number. Have more women in management sees dramatic positive impacts on organizations such as higher return on equity, sales, and on invested capital.
Change in organizational structure * Organizations are trying to “flatten” their structure to improve communication and collaboration. This means that the traditional strict pyramid hierarchy no longer makes sense for the modern organization and we will be evolving to flatter more nimble structures.
Story-telling
* To creating a desirable employee experience and one where employees can relate to the company they are working at and align their values; nothing is more powerful than story-telling. Employees must understand WHY the organization exists and then they can help figure out HOW to make the organization successful.
Democratized learning * In most organizations around the world today if you want to learn how to do something you usually have to take a class that the company may or may not offer. Oftentimes you travel to another location, listen to a guest speaker, watch some videos, read through a training manual, and maybe do some hands-on excuses. In other words, the entire education and learning is dependent on the organization. By the evolved, among the employee can educate or learn from any other employee. This is largely possible through technology such as internal collaboration platforms and social networks.
Loyalty 2.0 * Life-time and long-term loyalty are completely dead as is the notion of job security and pension plans. The average employee tenure today is under 5 years and for millennial it’s under 3 years. Loyalty is becoming more geared towards projects, managers, or co-workers as opposed to the organization as a whole. Companies must switch from a long-term career mentality to a shorter term project term mentality.

From profits to prosperity * Profit is just the financial gain that an organization generates and has always been the primary measure of success. When it comes to the future of work money will no longer be the primary success factor that organizations are measured by. Instead factors such as health and wellness, community involvement, employee happiness, sustainability, world-impact, and the like, will be the new measures of success.