xerox pushes print boundaries

7/27/2019 Xerox Pushes Print Boundaries

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Xerox Pushes Print BoundariesLouella Fernandes, Associate Director,

Print Services and Solutions

Quocirca Comment

Xerox Pushes Prin t Boundar ies http: //www.quocirca.com 2013 Quocir ca L td

As the business world embraces new ways

of working, Xerox is also evolving its

breadth and depth of services and shifting

legacy perceptions of its brand.

The print industry is challenged with remaining

relevant in todays era of mobility, the cloud and

Big Data. Vendors are clamouring for higher

ground, shifting from hardware to software and

services with the goal of steady revenue, higher

profits and deeper customer relationships.

Whilst many printer and copier vendors are

pursuing a services led model (an approach

successfully pioneered by IBM), the stakes have

probably been the highest for Xerox which has

been working hard to reinvent itself as a services

company.

Brand heritage

Xerox, founded in 1906, has a brand steeped in

heritage, transforming the office environment

with the first commercial copier machine in

1959. Xeroxs dominance of this market meant it

reached the peak of brand presence, its name

becoming a verb for photocopying. Today, the

Xerox brand is under significant transformation

as it shifts legacy perceptions, with hardware

now representing less than half of its business.

After acquiring Affiliated Computer Services in

2010, Xerox shifted from the document

company to one that now generates more than

half its revenue from business services, such as

managed print services (MPS), operating call

centres, processing insurance claims and

handling automated toll payments. This has

helped it expand its business process services

(BPS) and IT services (ITS) footprint whilst

reinforcing its leading presence in the MPS

market.

Beyond the printed page

In a declining market, Xerox is focusing beyond

the printed page. But the printed page is unlikely

to disappear and we cannot ignore the fact that

as a medium for communication paper has been

around for over 1,000 years. Paper is inherently

personal, portable, tangible and easy to

annotate. It remains a powerful and compelling

communications tool when many of us are

inundated with a barrage of online

communications. So, more realistic than the

paperless office is the less-paper office. What

businesses need is the technology to bridge both

worlds as relevant to their business eliminate

wasteful printing, for instance through effective

print management but also ensure printing

remains part of the mix as needed in todays

multichannel world.

In order to address these needs, a view of print-

related process across an enterprise is needed.


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This means having a single view beyond

desktop/office printing to the print room and

commercial print. Xerox is well positioned to

address this through a broad range of products

and services. What sets Xerox apart in

particular, is its legacy of innovation.

A focus on innovation

Xerox has a strong innovation history, although

not always with commercial success. Xeroxs

Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) is accredited

with inventing many of the technologies we now

rely on, not least developing in 1970 the first

personal computer with a mouse and icon-based

software at its Palo Alto Research Center, Xerox

PARC. Steve Jobs legendary visit to the centre,

where he saw the prototype of the experimental

Alto workstation, is claimed to have given him

the vision for the future of personal computing

which he built on at Apple. Other inventions

which had a large impact included a graphical

user interface, Ethernet and laser printing.

Xerox continues to invest heavily in innovation,

spread across areas that include analytics,

business processes, data transformation,

personalisation, and sustainability. When it

comes to integrating the paper and digitalworlds, this innovation will be critical to Xerox

differentiating itself. A few capabilities

particularly stand out:

Document workflow

Document workflow integration is particularly

becoming key to the value proposition of many

of its traditional competitors, such as Canon, HP,Lexmark and Ricoh. Quocirca was impressed

with some forthcoming Xerox solutions to be

announced in 2014, but probably one that will

enable Xerox to bring paper and digital workflow

optimisation to a wider audience is ConnectKey.

ConnectKey is a software ecosystem both

embedded in Xerox MFPs and middleware to be

used as secure document platforms. Documents

can be shared directly to SharePoint, ERP

systems, and the Cloud enabling paper

documents to be integrated into digital document

workflow. This approach to business process

automation is particularly cost-effective as it

enables businesses to leverage existing

investments in MFPs, whilst also better utilising

their sophisticated document processing

functionality, beyond print and copy. MFPs are

often not fully leveraged for their extended

capabilities, and Quocirca believes that these

devices will become a vital part of nextgeneration MPS engagements that look to drive

business process efficiency.

Xerox ECM

Xerox also has another string to its bow in this

space enterprise content management (ECM).

At an enterprise level this will be the real

opportunity of addressing the big data challenge,and turning the valuable information that resides

in paper into business insight. Xerox has a

mature offering through its DocuShare product,

and Quocirca believes it must now raise its

game, truly bringing this into its MPS fold.

Lexmark is also pushing its ECM capabilities

through Perceptive which it acquired in 2010. As

many MPS engagements progress to the next

phase, providers that can demonstrate and


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execute on a broader vision for print and ECM

will set themselves apart.

Multichannel communications

Personalised communications through its XMPie

product is probably one of Xeroxs best-kept

secrets, yet has the potential for Xerox to further

extend its traction beyond print. Xeroxs XMPie

enables the composition and production of

communications across diverse channels such as

print, mobile and online. If Xerox can truly

integrate its hardware, software and services

strategy in this space it has the potential to drive

further revenue opportunities in what is a very

fragmented market.

Quocirca view

Xerox is still a company in the midst of

transformation, competing now in a much widertechnology and services market space. Through

innovation and acquisition, it has developed the

breadth and depth of products and services to

develop a compelling proposition around

optimising business processes in a paper and

digital world.

It is worth pondering that October 2013 marks

the 75th anniversary of Xerography. Xerox is

derived from the word Xerography, which means

dry writing in Greek. This served to emphasise

the difference between a new technique and an

old one, which used liquid chemicals. Chester

Carlson, the patent attorney who invented the

first Xerox Model A photocopier, did so because

he wanted to make the laborious task of

manually copying from books easier - in many

senses, Xerox is now again looking to simplify

and automate, bridging the old paper and new

digital worlds. Xerox laid the foundation for the

transformation of the office workplace, and its

challenge is now to deliver more than the sum of

its parts and remain relevant in todays ever

changing workplace.


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About QuocircaQuocirca is a primary research and analysis company specialising in the business impact of information technology

and communications (ITC). With world-wide, native language reach, Quocirca provides in-depth insights into theviews of buyers and influencers in large, mid-sized and small organisations. Its analyst team is made up of real-world practitioners with first-hand experience of ITC delivery who continuously research and track the industry

and its real usage in the markets.

Through researching perceptions, Quocirca uncovers the real hurdles to technology adoption the personal andpolitical aspects of an organisations environment and the pressures of the need for demonstrable business value inany implementation. This capability to uncover and report back on the end-user perceptions in the market enables

Quocirca to advise on the realities of technology adoption, not the promises.

Quocirca research is always pragmatic, business orientated and conducted in the context of the bigger picture. ITC

has the ability to transform businesses and the processes that drive them, but often fails to do so. Quocircasmission is to help organisations improve their success rate in process enablement through better levels of

understanding and the adoption of the correct technologies at the correct time.

Quocirca has a pro-active primary research programme, regularly surveying users, purchasers and resellers of ITCproducts and services on emerging, evolving and maturing technologies. Over time, Quocirca has built a picture of

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