Word: xeroxers
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...many respects, Xerox has actually done a fair job of adapting to the changing environment: more than half its revenues now come from digital products, its color machines are wildly popular, and it is well positioned to be a leader in on-demand, custom publishing. But a slew of newly aggressive players, from Canon and Ricoh to Hewlett-Packard, have done better, steadily encroaching on its once exclusive, very lucrative turf. From 1997 to 1999, Xerox's estimated share of the $1.3 billion-a-year, high-end, black-and-white production copier market in the U.S., where the real money...
This week that rebellion will be crushed--along with thousands of jobs--as Xerox is expected to announce its latest massive restructuring. Last week the company was reportedly considering selling its debt-ridden financing operation, which lends money to prospective customers, to GE Capital. It has also discussed selling Xerox PARC, its research center in Silicon Valley, a source of great innovation--from the computer mouse to the graphical user interface and laser printer--but, thanks to the missteps of top brass, not a source of much income...
...bungled realignment of Xerox's vaunted sales organization--once the gold standard for corporate America--only worsened the firm's bad situation. Like most traditional sales forces, Xerox's was organized geographically, right down to the street level. But Xerox decided it needed the majority of its 15,000 U.S. direct-sales reps to focus on specific industries, such as banking, graphic arts or the public sector, rather than geographic regions...
...caused customer bills and orders to pile up, only added to the chaos. As Daniel Kunstler, senior analyst at JP Morgan, puts it, "If the person you want to date stops returning your calls, you might try to find someone else to date, or get very lonely." Some of Xerox's most talented reps, including field generals in the U.S. and Europe, have fled. At its worst, the turnover rate has reached 40%, and key positions are still vacant...
...botched reorganization derailed CEO Rick Thoman. An IBM and American Express executive and a Lou Gerstner protege, Thoman was brought in as CEO last year to turn Xerox into a high-tech dynamo. His sin was not his strategy but his sense of urgency. Thoman believed Xerox had to move fast, but the troops were not ready. "There's a fine touch between knowing what to do and when to do it," an insider says of Thoman's leadership. Thoman was replaced by former Xerox chief Paul Allaire...