QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Quality Management at XEROX



Table of Contents

Abstract3

Quality Management at Xerox3

History of Fall4

Beginning of the Change5

Implementation of Changes6

Customer Centric Innovations7

Principles of Quality Management8

Conclusion9

References10

Quality Management at XEROX

Abstract

To survive and succeed in the changing global business environments of 1980's, many US organizations had to execute change management processes. The changes were made for all business processes. Xerox is one of such companies that had to implement radical changes in its organizational culture and the business processes. Xerox was the world leading document Management Company earlier, but due to tough competitors, its position was declined in the market. The main change was in its customer focused innovation strategies. This paper discusses how the executives at Xerox implement changes to bring all the fame and market position back to the company.

Quality Management at Xerox

In the period of 1980's, much of American business was engaged in the process of quality management improvement, for getting the better market position in comparison of Japan. The main issues of concern included time inventory, total quality management and quality circles.

For the period of 1982 to 1990, Kearns was the CEO of Xerox Corporation. This was the period during which the company had to face competition from American competitors IBM and Kodak as well as from the Japanese. In order to handle these competitions effectively, the company undertook a rigorous quality program. This quality program brought the radical changes to the ways in which company did business. By the early 1990's, transformation of quality management process was complete , and the company had regained a dominant position in the market.

History of Fall

Xerox had been the number one document management company in the world. The company first got fame, when it launched the document duplicator machine Xerox 914 copier in 1960. It was considered more than just office machinery, but the products of Xerox successfully revolutionized the office culture of those days (Repossibility, 2010). The company was known as “technological innovators of the century”.

By the end of this decade, however, the Xerox began to lose all its fame and business. The main reason of this fall was the company had diverted its focus from being the innovative and customers focused company. In the period of 1980's, company was mainly involved in acquisitions, alliances and financial services. The executives of the company were consuming more time and efforts in developing alliances and insurances rather than the core business processes.

As Xerox had got success for offering consumers the photocopying machines, the competitors of Xerox had started deploying more innovative technologies for photocopiers. The competitors capitalized in the field and very soon they became able to develop and launch the better and improved versions of the Xerox photocopiers. For example, Japanese companies such as Richo and Cannon, came out with their photocopier models. These two companies were the stiffest competitors of Xerox as they developed much smaller and reliable models as compared to the Xerox photocopiers.

Xerox entered into the period of development ...