As I was driving to work the
other day, I heard an interview on NPR that tied directly to the assigned
reading for this week. On Morning Edition, Renee Montaigne interviewed Ursula
Burns, the CEO of Xerox (Burns, 2012).
In the interview, Burns discussed
the transformation underway at Xerox, a business built on and well-known for
paper copiers, has had to transform itself to succeed in a digital environment
(Burns, 2012). As Burns noted, “We
became so good at this one business process that we didn’t think like all the
rest of them…” (Burns, 2012).
While the interview didn’t delve
into the organizational structure that allowed or enabled the transformation,
the story she told echoed some of the key themes from this week’s readings,
particularly, the forces that shape organizations (Galbraith, 2002). As Galbraith notes, today’s companies are
operating in a world of temporary advantage where companies must change frequently
and where companies must increasingly add knowledge to products (Galbraith,
2002).
These realities, coupled with a
market where the reliance on paper copying was shrinking, led to strategic
directional change at Xerox (Burns, 2012).
The new direction for Xerox is back office systems and infrastructure,
expanding the definition of automation that made Xerox so successful in the
past (Burns, 2012). And aligned with
Galbraith (2002), the Xerox strategic focus came about from customer requests;
customers who had relied on Xerox for automation needs asked that the company
extend the scope of its offering (Burns, 2012).
Rather than innovating in a new industry or line of products, Xerox
moved into an adjacent area, as Burns (2012) said, “…it was in our
neighborhood.”
It would be interesting to look
closer at the organizational structure that helped or hindered this
transformation. As Burns notes, “…you would be under-using
your assets if you don't figure out a way to become more relevant as the world
transforms and evolves. And that's what - a big piece of what a CEO does.”
(Burns, 2012)
References
Burns, U. &
Montaigne, R. Transcript from Morning
Edition: Xerox CEO: if you don’t
transition you’re stuck (5/23/12). Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2012/05/23/153302563/xerox-ceo-if-you-don-t-transform-you-re-stuck.
(Original work broadcast May 23, 2012).
Galbraith, J. R.
(2002). Designing Organizations. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons,
Inc.
Cynthia, Xerox sounds like an interesting case study. In Chapter 6 of Galbraith (2002), the author mentions that the Star Model is flawed and that any advantage an organization has will be quickly copied by its competitors. Do you think this will be the case for Xerox? We should be on the lookout for articles that detail how, exactly, Xerox reconfigured their business.
ReplyDeleteYes, we'll definitely have to watch Xerox. I can't claim any detailed knowledge of Xerox, but it seems that Xerox is playing catch up to its competitors in different fields now. That they'd become so engrained as the "copier company" that to build their advantage they had to branch out in to adjacencies. Look to companies like HP and Kodak (also in copier/printer business) also struggling to find a competitive advantage as the markets they once "owned" have transformed.
DeleteIt is interesting to see how companies like Xerox remain relevant by redefining the organizational mission. The idea of taking automation to back office systems and infrastructure seems intuitive but I am sure it was a gestalt shift for the organization and orchestrating it was no small feat!
ReplyDeleteBack in the day, it was a team of Xerox researchers who developed the first graphical user interface, which we today know as Windows. Somehow they failed to capitalize on it. I'd be curious to know if that failure had something to do with an organizational model that was out of touch with its external environment. Anyway, very interesting to see that they're still trying to remain relevant in the changing technological world. This was interesting.
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ReplyDeleteGalbraith (2002) said that "companies need to maintain a string of short-term competitive advantages;" Xerox did the opposite. It seems almost impossible that something like this could happen at such a large, profitable company that MUST have been able to attract top executives capable of leading it into the future. Wouldn't anyone capable of becoming an executive at Xerox see this coming from a mile away?
ReplyDeleteWere the rewards at the time enough to make leadership dismiss the future? Maybe there was a level of arrogance within the company. Maybe there were other issues at play: shareholders, profit sharing, etc.