Xerox: Adapting to the Turbulent Marketing Environment
Q1 & Q2.) What microenvironmental/macroenvironmental factors have affected Xerox’s performance since the late 1990s?

For many decades after its inception Xerox as a company faithfully understood its own identity, and was highly successful in the photocopying industry that it created. Around the late 1990’s a shift in the industry began to occur, as business transitioned away from the need for exclusively physical copies of documents, moving many of these files into digital databases. The internal culture of Xerox did not entirely comprehend the implications of these changes as they began to occur and subsequently did not adapt to meet their clients new needs fast enough. The …show more content…

Despite the ongoing need to sustain a high level of product quality and innovate new technologies in the rapidly evolving landscape that is business services, Xerox’s decision to focus on this approach is very sound from a business perspective.

Q4.) What alternative Strategy might Xerox have followed in responding to declining revenues and profits?

Unquestionably the business strategy of Xerox had to change for the company to continue to be successful, however transferring the focus to business services, whilst it has proven to be an effective approach, is not the only strategy Xerox could have utilized. Given the companies pre-existing expertise in manufacturing hardware, an alternate business strategy could have involved exploring and further developing upon this core competency. The company may have considered expanding their manufacturing to include additional business devices such as personal computers, or business-centric phones which will remain ubiquitous for some time to come. If this approach were to be adopted it may have involved a partnership with a business which already had expertise in the respective area including knowledge of distribution channels. Alternatively Xerox could have gone in the opposite direction and