The opportunity to blog on Xerox’s Leaders position in the Gartner 2008 Managed Print Services (MPS) Magic Quadrant Worldwide report is such a great honor. Most of us who have been in the I.T. space for any length of time have become familiar with the Gartner Magic Quadrant concept and approach. It's a very powerful, succinct and effective way to measure a specific market segment, offer area or set of services. So, it is truly an accomplishment to be placed in the Leaders Quadrant – the top, far-right hand corner of a grid that has a lot of impact in the business world.
It goes without saying we didn’t get placed in the Leaders Quadrant by chance. We earned it! For example, we were not surprised that Xerox was placed as the leader in the Ability to Execute category. We were the first to market with a detailed and defined global MPS program and we continue to invest heavily in the development of core and new elements to enrich our program. At the same time, we leverage our skills and wealth of expertise - providing a very direct focus on our clients to deliver results that make a difference in their daily operations. We are proud of this recognition and know that it comes from the hard work and dedication of our employees, their ingenuity, and in collaboration with our clients to structure programs to meet their needs - and to leverage their thoughts and ideas to continue program enrichment. If we were to select the area where we would be most proud to be considered the global leader, it would be in our ability to execute and to deliver results for our clients.
And when it comes to Completeness of Vision, which Gartner describes as each MPS provider's prospects for success by analyzing its view of the market, its service operating model, and its strategic plans for growth and service improvements -- Xerox was chosen as a primary market leader in this category as well. That, combined with our ability to execute, placed Xerox as the overall market leader in managed print.
Our thanks to Gartner for the exhaustive research, all their calls to global clients, their push for details and data, and for the focus on one of the most significant growth areas in the market.
And, I also want to extend my sincere thanks to:
-Our clients who participated in the research and provided the details necessary to make this effort a complete evaluation
-Our researchers and development teams who continue to lead the market in developing tools and technique that deliver fantastic results for our clients
-Our global partners in their efforts to provide seamless support and implementation on a worldwide basis.
-The people of Team Xerox for their continued focus, commitment, new ideas and dedication to excellence.
There is nothing better than being recognized by your customers for the great work you do - and to have that recognition come from exhaustive research by a leading market firm who spent months evaluating excruciating detail. At Xerox, we take a lot of pride in our ever-evolving managed print strategy. In collaboration with many of our most significant clients, we have been leveraging co-innovation strategies that promise to yield significant advancements in the way people work on a daily basis.
Jim Joyce
Senior Vice President
Xerox Office Services
When it comes to outsourcing, common thoughts such as – Can I trust my partner? Will they deliver? Am I picking the right vendor? – come to mind. However, there is really so much more to consider.
Outsourcing can have profound effects on a company and can truly transform the way we work. But with this transformation comes the responsibility of how to address this change on all levels – financial, technological and with the actual workforce. Change management is all about how these changes are handled, with special attention required for the human element because it is so often underappreciated. It remains absolutely critical to the ultimate success of any outsourcing scenario.
How early do these changes need to be addressed? Don’t waste any time – change management processes should be developed right along with the outsourcing solution. This allows for a thorough understanding of the technical and service solutions of a project, as well as the people aspect, including a company’s leadership style, management process, the way they communicate, and the culture’s overall willingness to invite change.
It is vital that a vision for the new outsourcing arrangement be communicated to all stakeholders, so that it is clear that things will not just be different, but better. Couple this articulation of change with transparency of the objectives and companies will be able to build a level of confidence and trust among their organizations. As I like to say, you’ve got to get everyone on board before the ship sails.
To hear more about my perspectives on change management, please visit my new Thought Leadership website by clicking here.
Louise Fisher, director, European HR, Xerox Global Services
As I look around it becomes very clear to me that gone are the days when large companies could manage all of their operations internally. Most businesses by now have determined that to effectively compete in a global marketplace you must have solid outsourcing relationships.
One key component of the outsourcing puzzle goes beyond just the management of information technology systems to address the actual end-to-end business process itself. A key component of the business process requires communication and interaction with customers, business partners and other areas of the business. When only looking at IT systems, organizations often miss opportunities to optimize these communication touch points and the overall business process. Why is this the case? The irony is that so many business processes are supported by documents, yet many don’t even release how document-driven these processes really are.
Today I am launching my new perspective in this space. Please visit my site, I’d welcome any feedback or thoughts on business process outsourcing.
-- Rich Baily, vice president, Business Process Service, Xerox Global Services
Going green is no longer just a trend – sustainability goals are becoming a significant focus, particularly in the public sector. In fact, organizations of all types are finding that reducing their carbon footprint makes good business sense. An easy to use electronic content management system can support corporate-wide environmental initiatives, while providing true business benefits, efficiencies, and savings. Here are some of the ways an electronic content management can help you make a positive impact on the environment – while reducing expenses and enhancing how work gets done:
• Through a Web-based interface, colleagues across the hallway or across the globe can share business critical information inside the company as well as with partners, vendors and clients. The need for hardcopy documents is eliminated, so paper use is dramatically decreased. This also reduces the energy, chemicals and costs associated with manufacturing, shipping and delivering paper-based documentation. Users can work faster and smarter by automating business processes, reducing the time it takes from weeks to minutes.
• Electronic content management systems support telecommuting and reduce travel for employees located around the world, creating a virtual office that allows workers to connect with each other and minimize waste.
• The costs involved with paper-based file cabinet storage such as the space itself, the energy to heat or cool it and the building’s upkeep can be significantly reduced through the use of an electronic content management system for archiving needs.
With an easy, flexible content management system in place, putting an end to the paper trail isn’t as daunting as it may seem. To learn more, check out a recent Webcast featuring Gartner’s Vice President and Research Director, Mark Gilbert and Patty Calkins, VP of Environment, Health and Safety at Xerox, by clicking here.
Melinda Stoker
Director, Marketing Communications
Xerox DocuShare Business Unit
Recently, I participated in the Office 2.0 conference and really had a blast. Besides the sheer “collaborative” experiment, what I saw here is the next wave of Documents – available online or offline, social and collaboratively edited, evergreen “mash-ups” of content coming from various documents… Could that be “Document as a Service?” Beyond Google, watch out for technologies like SlideRocket, Zoho Docs, myBooo or others, to be disruptive in the next few years! I’ll be monitoring those.
I also moderated a great panel discussion on Document 2.0, or the role of Documents in an Office / Entreprise 2.0. Although standards and openness will play a big role, the panel agreed that even more important are on-ramps and off-ramps to and from traditional, legacy formats. Where it got even more interesting was the discussion on long-term preservation and records management, and how to make sure your document will still be available and readable decades from now. It became clear that quite a few members of the audience wanted to see cloud computing mature before they could trust their company’s lifeblood such as contract to the cloud – not to mention potential privacy and security issues. The video of the panel will be available shortly on the Future of Documents blog, along with more on a few of these Document 2.0 technologies.
Ironically, the discussion came back multiple times to paper as being a universal medium, yet to be replaced - interesting twist- in a paperless conference!
Francois Ragnet
Manager, Smarter Document Platforms and Components
XGS / GTOD / SDI / BPS
http://www.xerox.com/thoughtleadership/
http://futureofdocuments.blogs.xerox.com/
The race to success in today’s business world starts and ends on a budget. For companies of all sizes, the goal is to remain competitive while spending less. This challenge is especially great for small and mid-sized businesses that need to invest in order to grow.
It can be a struggle for SMBs to find the technology they need to succeed, without breaking the bank. However, companies such as Xerox recognize the unique business requirements of SMBs and have developed an extensive portfolio of technology that gives these businesses an array of options to enhance the ways they work.
For example, Xerox’s latest version of DocuShare, it's enterprise content management platform, is specifically tailored to the SMB crowd. DocuShare Express is affordably priced for smaller businesses and comes equipped with an easy, quick install process suited to business users – dispelling any notion that extensive IT knowledge is needed to get a content management solution up and running. To allow more direct integration with the multifunction display panel than ever before, Xerox has also made a DocuShare EIP Connector available at no cost.
It is important to realize that content management is no longer a necessity for only the largest of companies. It needs to be top of mind for smaller companies too. A key reason many SMBs fail within their first few years is that they’re unable to manage company information and processes, especially when the company begins to grow. Many smaller business owners are just focused on trying to get their businesses off the ground - instead of thinking about how vital keeping, storing and maintaining information, records and documents will be to the success of their business.
In an age of information overload, being able to obtain useful information and collaborate effectively is critical for organizations of any size, so it is important that smaller businesses have access to advanced, affordable content management solutions.
Jay Ganesh
Director, Channel Marketing and Launch
Xerox DocuShare Business Unit
I had a chance last week to moderate a lively and informative panel on enterprise content management at the CIO Forum and Executive IT Summit in Cleveland. The one key message that panelists drove home was that effective enterprise content management has to be about more than just installing software on a server and putting together a technology workflow.
There has to be organizational change and a commitment to optimizing the productivity of the assets of the enterprise in order to accomplish key objectives such as speeding time to revenue and rapidly managing costly corporate issues such as litigation risk. Effective ECM solutions start with understanding the needs of the business and how ECM technologies can enable or improve critical business processes. EMC solutions can help health insurance providers improve membership enrollment, can help financial institutions process and fund mortgages more quickly, can help companies manage and adhere to employment laws, or can help global manufacturing companies bring products to market more quickly. Today’s collaborative business environments are also requiring ECM solutions to extend out beyond our own firewalls to include our customers, suppliers and business or trading partners.
For example, one Xerox customer was able to change its culture from relying on snail mail to using Xerox Distributed Capture Service to submit account-related documents. Now more than 90 percent of its volume it submitted through devices with XDCS, improving time to revenue by taking a 3-5 day process down to just a couple of hours. The solution also significantly reduced expenses related to overnight shipping and long-term archival storage costs.
A second discussed example was how a large, global manufacturing company leverages document and content management technologies to better enable and support their legal discovery and litigation management requirements. This solution has created a more efficient process for their legal staff and outside counsel and has significantly reduced their costs.
So when your organization starts to think about ECM, think beyond a single hardware and software decision, and think about starting the journey with a single business application that has high-payback rather than trying to change the entire infrastructure, which for most companies is very difficult to do. Today’s solutions often include multiple technologies and integrate with the line-of-business applications. The key messages from the session were that successful solutions involve joint ownership and leadership from a business and I/T perspectives and that engaging outside partners can bring some of the best practices from the industry.
For open commentary and industry perspectives, visit http://www.xerox.com/blogs, http://www.xerox.com/podcasts or http://www.consulting.xerox.com/flash/thoughtleaders/index.html.
Rich Baily
Vice President, Business Process Services, Xerox Global Services
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