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Xerox spreads Its Wings in India

When it comes to leaving its imprint in an industry, very few companies can afford to come close to Xerox, the global manufacturer of printers, multifunction systems and photo copiers. The company has scaled many new heights and explored uncharted territories, which vouchsafe for its long and eventful journey since 1906 when it was founded.

With decades of success under its belt, these days Xerox has come to the forefront of attention for reasons which are sure to make an impact on the future of the document management company.

With Anne M. Mulcahy at the helm of affairs at Xerox, the transition in Xerox is palpable. It was, indeed, a turnaround in the company’s fortunes that the company which struggled to remain profitable before the coming of Anne M. Mulcahy at the centre stage acquired full-year profitability by the end of 2002, along with decreasing debt, increasing cash, and continuing to invest in research and development.

Recently, Mulcahy referred to the persistent execution of its growth strategy coupled with strategic acquisitions made over the past year as key reasons why Xerox is on the way to progress.

With $15.9 billion in revenue, the company generated $1.6 billion in operating cash flow and ended the year with cash and short-term investments of $1.5 billion.

Xerox colour presses produce the highest volume of pages in the industry and in 2006 over 30 billion colour pages were printed on Xerox technology.

Since the beginning of 2007, Xerox has unveiled 19 new products, half of which are colour products, surpassing the 14 total product launches in 2006. The company plans to more than double its number of product launches this year. More than two-thirds of Xerox’s equipment sales come from products launched in the past two years.

The key acquisitions made by Xerox in the last year have also contributed to the growth of the company. The brand of Xerox is so strong that it has become synonymous with photocopy. As a matter of fact, the word “Xerox” entered the dictionary – meaning photocopying. Google is the latest instance. However, there is more to Xerox than just photocopying. The company has taken steps in projecting itself a document solutions company globally. India as a market is central to Xerox’s focus.’Xerox foray into India dates back to 1983 when it entered into a joint venture with the Modi Group.

Xerox India, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xerox, has made its presence felt vigorously in the Indian market. The company has come a long way since it became one of the few MNCs to come to India.

Apart from being synonymous with product innovation, Xerox offers a sprawling array of products in dozens of different markets. Xerox has a wide range of products and services. There are consumer-oriented areas and business-oriented ones.

Recently, Xerox India launched Xerox DocuShare 5.0 an electronic content management (ECM) software targeted at medium and large enterprises. The product was unveiled with a view to strengthening its consulting line of business. Xerox DocuShare 5.0 is part of Xerox Global Services (XGS) division that provides consulting and outsourcing services to enterprises of any size. In addition, the company shared its plans to tap the growing document management outsourcing opportunity in India.

Xerox DocuShare 5.0 software offers document management and image capture capabilities that increase personal productivity and improve operational efficiency of organizations. Xerox offers this software in two versions: Xerox DocuShare 5.0 (standard version) and Xerox DocuShare CPX 5.0 (advanced version that supports sophisticated collaboration, transactional workflows, and greater information access).

Outlining the document management outsourcing India opportunity, Ravi Venkatraman, Director, Xerox Global Services, Xerox India Limited, said, “Documents consume approximately 50 per cent of the IT budgets (IDC) and this represents an enormous opportunity for Xerox Global Services. With our comprehensive line of XGS offerings, namely, Business Process Services, Xerox Office Services, DOCS and FreeFlow Web Services, we aim to add value to our client businesses and enable them to focus on their core expertise by managing/outsourcing the entire document processes.”

Sharing XGS’s plans to tap the South Indian market, Venkatraman, added, “We will be tapping the ITeS and manufacturing verticals in Hyderabad and Chennai, respectively and will hire a team of six dedicated experts to grow the XGS business in these identified verticals. XGS will also double its employees headcount across India by the end of 2007. Alongside, we will roll out an educational outreach campaign to raise awareness of the benefits of document management outsourcing and engage with 40 Chief Financial Officers of large enterprises in South India by the end of 2007.”

Xerox is the only player in the industry today to offer a comprehensive end-to-end service, comprising of its four service lines on a pay per usage model. XGS boasts of over 70 large enterprises as its clients including global companies like Nokia, Microsoft, Boeing and HSBC, amongst others. XGS’ clients in South India include Sun Microsystems, EMC and Karnataka High Court.

“We are focussing on the Xerox WorkCentre 420CP, the A3 mono MFD, which comes with an excellent end-customer scheme of a free Network Card currently, enabling the product to be network ready. We have the biggest channel programme running on the same that gives the channel partners an opportunity to win ambitious products ranging from a mobile phone to a Mercedes Benz,” Jose Leon, Senior Marketing Manager, Xerox Office Group, Xerox India Limited.

“Apart from this, the Color Xerox WorKCentre 7132 MFD, Color Xerox WorKCentre 7228 MFD, Color Xerox Phaser 6110MFP, the Xerox Phaser 6110 Printer, Xerox WorkCentre PE220 (4-in-1 MFD) and Xerox Phaser 3119 (3-in-1 MFD) are our key products for the SMB segment.”

“Last but not the least, the Xerox Phaser 3117, our laser printer at a price of Rs.4,500 is our star product as it gives a great value for money and is targeted at the SOHO users,” adds Jose Leon.

Channel Initiatives Xerox India sells through a strong network of channel partners. The marketing strategy is to make Xerox the “smart alternate” for customers by offering them the broadest portfolio of products and enabling them to make the technology shift to laser mono & colour equipments from inkjet, thereby reducing their Total Cost of Ownership and at the same time increasing efficiency and quality too.

Xerox aims to reach out to both new and old customers, quickly and efficiently by making its channels “Delivery Ready” to offer all technology available to end-customers and add value to their respective businesses. The marketing strategy aims at making Xerox the preferred vendor for the customers and the channel partners and making any experience with Xerox for customers as well as partners an enjoyable one.

Xerox has two national distributors, namely Redington and eSys. It also works with two regional distributors, namely Ansatta and Micromax.

Xerox has a pan-India tie-up with Accel FrontLine Ltd. for service of channel products. The services for the high-end products are provided by our authorize d service providers (ASPs) and the Xerox Technical Team directly.

In an endeavour to strengthen its market position in the consumables segment, Xerox India outlined an aggressive “go-to-market” strategy focussed on a new branding exercise and market education for its channel partners and end-consumers.

As a part of this strategy, Xerox India outlined plans to set up 100 kiosks in top 25 cities by the end of 2007 to increase in-shop visibility of Xerox genuine consumables and paper. The cities include New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Dehradun, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Kolkata, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kochi, amongst others. Xerox also announced a channel expansion plan for its consumables business which includes adding 35 channel partners to its current channel base of 135 partners by Q3 2007 and increasing its active reseller base to 1,550 by December 2007. To further strengthen and support its consumables business, Xerox will announce five channel schemes for this business in Q3 2007 and the company will be appointing a new head for channel expansion and value-added products for consumables business by June 2007.

Sharing details of Xerox’s revamped consumables strategy, Ajay Khanna, Associate Director, Office Post Sales Group, Xerox India Limited, said, “Consumables are the lifeblood of every organization and continue to be a key growth driver for Xerox India. We will be closing 5 national consumable contracts by June this year and will make significant investments towards expanding this business and increasing the headcount to reach out to end-consumers and channel partners.”

Added Khanna, “We are also revamping our consumables brand by rolling out a national consumables campaign which includes a new supplies logo, new poster, stickers and glow signs to create awareness about the use of genuine Xerox consumables and paper. The first such glow signs can be seen at Richie Street in Chennai, Nehru Place in Delhi and Fort in Mumbai.”

Keeping pace with the channel engagement activities for 2007, Xerox rolled out “Momentum 2007””– a series of reseller engagement activities. These activities include appointing new partners, certification of all authorized partners and also conducting partner meets across 20 B- & C-class cities that include Amritsar, Aurangabad, Guwahati, Vijaywada, Dehradun and Varanasi over the next two months.

“Momentum 2007” has been designed to serve as an extended platform to engage new IT resellers and also to communicate Xerox’s value proposition and the benefits of partnering with Xerox which includes aggressive advertisement & promotion support, market development funding and customized collaterals and marketing events.

Commenting on the initiative, Andrew Horne, Managing Director, Xerox India Limited, said,

“Momentum in 2006 was a great success for Xerox through which we were able to engage with about 1,500-plus new resellers in the A and A+ cities. It was also a great platform for Xerox to showcase its channel products and demonstrate its value proposition.”

Added Jose, “Keeping up with the last year’s success, we have rolled out ‘Momentum 2007’’ to further strengthen our presence in the B- and C-class cities. Momentum 2007 will facilitate a better vendor-partner relationship by providing our resellers with opportunities to expand their customer base and increase their profitability. We are confident that’‘Momentum 2007’ will have a pan-India footprint and prove to be yet another success in 2007.”

The agenda of “Momentum 2007””includes an address to all new IT resellers and a series of training and informative programmes to educate the new resellers about Xerox’s gamut of channel products that include equipments, consumables and paper.

Channel partners are crucial to the success of Xerox. “Xerox can be the trusted partner for all the printing needs because of its specialization in the core business from providing document management services to the widest portfolio of 100+ office products,” says Jose Leon.

“Xerox has a network of partners and has always looked at ways to strengthen these relationships. Today, we enjoy a great relationship with our partners by providing them a strong value proposition and never-before opportunities to grow their business and add value to end-customers in turn,” adds Jose Leon.