The Competitive Situation Xerox

Introduction

Table of Contents

Xerox Corporation is a document management company that deals with the manufacturing of and sale of a wide range of color as well as black and white printers, multifunction systems, photocopiers, digital production printing presses and other related consulting services and supplies. It also offers software under the strategy of the free flow of the brand. The FreeFlow impact of products of Xerox on the graphic arts market and industry of printing in general has grown exponentially since 2006; this is due to presence of Xerox at Ipex 2006. Xerox also sells scanners.

The corporation sells both color as well as black and white printers under the Phaser brand of Xerox and the model of color consumer starts at $299 and the most expensive model of color costing US$6,799. Fax machines are also produced, professional printers, copiers for both black and white and a variety of other products.

In addition to the stated products Xerox produces variety of printing and office supplies like paper, in many forms; and markets software such as Xerox MarketPort, Xerox Docushare and FlowPort. It offers consulting services like the digital repository services and outsourcing of printing. (Ellis, et al p23)

SWOT Analysis of Xerox

Strengths

Xerox is a technology and services corporation and it has a corporation brand that is strong and its is synonymous with its products that is the printers, copiers, fax machines where it provides a range of document equipment, solutions to software and the services. In addition Xerox provides paper services and gives its clients papers that are fully recycled.

They develop working solutions that are efficient for companies across the globe, both by provision of technical support and initiatives of the environment and help companies in meeting their targets on environment.

Xerox has a focus on environment that is strong and it has developed internally into a strategy of operations which focus on initiatives of environment hence saving a lot of money.

Xerox invests on research and development heavily to so as to keep up with the requirements of market and always developing products that feature on both benefits and features of environment and technology.

The organization possesses a reputation for innovation and management that is of high quality.

Xerox has developed internal policy for recycle of copies as well as other equipment like toner, paper etc. This offers the benefits of solution to the environment to its clients.

Weaknesses

The company operates in market that is ever changing, fast paced which has put an increasing pressure on product development which focus on feature design that is innovative

As a group they invest only 1-2% of research and development budget on developments relating to environment on their line of products, and chose to focus more on the main market driver which is advancement of feature

Opportunities

Competitive gap could be gain the market place through focusing more on research and development which is centered on the product features on environment hence meeting higher product grade un relation environment

Xerox as a group offers support for companies to meet their commitments on environment. These could be added as a benefit package for companies for management of their environmental ploy.

Threats

There is pressure growing on companies to become carbon neutral and have efficient and tangible strategies in environment in the impact of all supply levels and chain of demand in every business. This may in turn lead to Xerox having to invest more in the research and development of products that focus on environment and components which may determine and provide them with more competitive advantage in attraction of future clients.

Due to the conditions of economy that are being experienced in all the sectors of business at the present and also in future, companies are looking for ways to reassess, realign and streamline their operations and to reduce the cost of operation of their practices and as a result reduce the budget across the board, which impact on purchase of solutions of office, equipment of office and technical support.

Constraints in finance due to sales that are reducing and new business may put more pressure on and restrict innovation budget as well as design and development of new products features and research and development on environmental issues, features that are becoming more essential to the corporate and retail consumer as the emphasis on all products which go the market.

Top competitors

There is variety of competitors for Xerox in relation to the product that is offered. Some of the there include Hewlett Packard, Canon Inc., RICOY.OB.

Hewlett Packard SWOT analysis

Strengths

Strong market position – its stock is up by 62% in the past year which is better than the entire market. It has also surpassed the market leader Dell by as much as 17%. It has a 30% of the global server market. In printer supply it has a 40% share world wide.

Prominent brand name recognition – it has been making adjustments in increasing its presence in the consumer market. This has resulted to many current consumers products being business models stripped of features that are costly.

Successful strategic acquisitions – it has merged with Compaq computer corporations, mercury interactive, Electronic Data Systems Corporation, 3Com

Weaknesses

Weak market segment integration – it is addressing its lack of presence in some obvious market segments. The portfolio of the company in offerings lack significant software product or manage or manage consulting services when compared to major competitors like IBM, EMC and Accenture

Opportunities

Expanding presence in cloud computing market – Cloud computing describes a new delivery model for services of IT. HP in collaboration with Intel Corporation and Yahoo! Created a global multi-data center, open source test bed for cloud computing research and education aiming at promoting collaboration among industry, academy and governments by eliminating the barriers in finance and logistics.Expansion of portfolio of imaging and printing solutions

Threats

Projected IT markets decrease – the IT product demand worldwide is predicted to decline due to the economic slowdown

Hyper-competitive environment – Dell has being giving HP headache in terms of competition in terms of price, quality, brand, technology, reputation, distribution and product range. Other competitors are Toshiba, Lenova group and Aver

Canon Inc SWOT analysis

Strengths	Weaknesses
Brand image that is strong Strong performance in finance Stout capabilities in Research and development	Issues of litigation High dependence on Hewlett Packard Slow grow in sales of office imaging products
Opportunities	Threats
Opportunities in medical-related fields and digital commercial printing Growing market for digital photography and products of LCD	Extreme competition Emerging trends International operations risks

(Datamonitor, 25)

RICOY.OB SWOT analysis

Strengths	Weaknesses
Brand Technology Knowledge, relationships Sales competition	Marketing Inventory for distribution Culture Costs
Opportunities	Threats
Services International Use imaging expertise Use imaging expertise Growing demand New invention	Dell has cheap, high quality and no inventory Patents rip off System of manufacturing

Three “cross-implication matrices” of the SWOT analyses

Strengths	Weaknesses
Reputable brand Advanced technology used Competition in sales	Marketing Inadequate research and development High dependency on other companies products
Opportunities	Threats
Increase in demand Provision of services internationally	Cheap and high quality products from other companies Risk of operating internationally

Future potential of Xerox

Xerox wishes to become more like an IT-services firm and develop more offering through which it will be able to help its clients streamline their operation at the back office and make their professional workers to become more efficient.

The future of Xerox is centered in part on how well the company can move beyond printing hardware and other related services and into more tenuous but potentially lucrative office automation, management of content and consulting services in business.

Really Xerox would like to be the vendor that big companies turn to when seeking for assistance in managing and making sense of the large quantities of digital information that flow through their corporate networks

Xerox feels that it has the potential to work on the whole documents in different capacities and means. In the aim of supporting the effort Xerox is stocking up on consulting talent. It wants to initiate the labor of specialized skills and wide experience in vertical industries.

Xerox is making an introduction of new products to support the strategy. For example a software designed to help the public companies better meet regulatory requirements by improvement of their archiving and retrieval of document capabilities has been unveiled. This software will help people to manage content which range from E-mail to pages of HTML

(Mulcahy, 2009)

Datamonitor (2007) Canon Inc. USA

GlobalData (2011) Canon USA Inc. – Strategic SWOT Analysis, p15

Mulcahy, (2009) We are moving beyond documents

Adams (2010) HP-Hewlett Packard SWOT Analysis

Ellis, C.D. et al (2006) Joe Wilson and the creation of Xerox: USA: Wiley

William, M.B. (2009) Xerox launches solid color printer: Wall Street Journal

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