Xerox and IT Management :: essays research papers

photocopy is one of the largest companies in the document processing products and services industry. bolt out held a virtual monopoly in the plain-paper copier trade until the Federal Trade delegacy intervened. In 1975 bolt was forced to forfeit patent protection and had to authorise to competitors. Xeroxs markets share dipped from 80% in 1976 to 13% in 1982. In order to become more competitive, Xerox began to handling benchmarking, Leadership through Quality and employee involvement initiatives. These initiatives helped grow Xeroxs market share back to 18% in the low stop copier business and 35% in the mid-to-high end. Despite the improvements in market share the financial performance of the company declined. Therefore in 1992 a major re face was planned, Xerox would change from a geographic organization to a market segment organization.Xerox bodily training guidance (CIM) unit was established in the early 1970s. In 1987, CIM was moved to the planetary Services Division and was given the undertaking to Provide the overall information technology leadership to the company. The leader of the CIM group quickly realized the task was not possible without significant organizational change. After bringing in consultants to review the Information Management at Xerox, the director of CIM realized the Xerox IM foundation could not support the companys strategic direction. To language the IM problems, CIM started a refreshed initiative, IM 2000. The goal of IM 2000 was to move Xerox to a new information systems infrastructure. The problems found with Information Management at Xerox      senescent application portfolio built on proprietary technologies     Large toll associated with retentiveness legacy system running     Duplicate work caused by integrated culture autonomyThe IM 2000 design team recommended the following four strategies1.      debase/Redirect&61607      Reduce overall costs by reining in the expense of legacy system. Use savings to fund new applications and infrastructure.2.      foundation Management&61607     Move to a industry standard infrastructure that would be managed centrally a client server environment.3.     Leverage intercontinental IM resources&61607     Create library of shareable core modules.4.     Business process-driven solutions&61607     The sure legacy system was to be replaced by solutions supporting new Xerox business process.Xeroxs earlier quality initiatives had created a corporate culture used to having a partner relationship with suppliers. Because of this, management suggested IM should shade at outsourcing as an alternative. Typical Reasons for Outsourcing     Concerns about Cost and Qualityo     Vendors save mone y by&61607     Running much scarecrowish overhead structures than their customers&61607     More aggressive use of low cost labor pools (India)&61607     Staff must keep up to insure on newest IT practices&61607     Purchasing Power&61607     More cost-efficient use of capacity