Xerox and It Management

Xerox is one of the largest companies in the document processing products and services industry. Xerox held a virtual monopoly in the plain-paper copier market until the Federal Trade Commission intervened. In 1975 Xerox was forced to forfeit patent protection and had to license to competitors. Xerox’s markets share dipped from 80% in 1976 to 13% in 1982. In order to become more competitive, Xerox began to use benchmarking, Leadership through Quality and employee involvement initiatives. These initiatives helped grow Xerox’s market share back to 18% in the low end copier business and 35% in the mid-to-high end. Despite the improvements in market share the financial performance of the company declined. Therefore in 1992 a major reorganization was planned, Xerox would change from a geographic organization to a market segment organization.

Xerox corporate information management (CIM) unit was established in the early 1970s. In 1987, CIM was moved to the General Services Division and was given the task to “Provide the overall information technology leadership to the company.” The leader of the CIM group quickly realized the