The Xerox company & Declining Profits

Rank Xerox is part of the multinational parent company, Xerox Corp., and both faced a decline in profits after having been the market leader in plain paper copiers. The company was not prepared for the influx of competition from Japan. Xerox decided on a survival strategy involving quality improvement both as a marketing goal and as a process for internal change, and this approach has helped revitalize Xerox's approach to marketing, human resource management, and operations around the world. The method undertaken is called leadership through quality, and it corresponds to a management approach known as total quality management (TQM). In this regard, Xerox has succeeded against an increase in competition from Japan by borrowing certain management ideas from Japan and turning them to new use.

In the Xerox case, it took some time for the company to recognize the problem and to develop a strate

. . .
from customers' to the company. Sears then asks its employees to use what they absorb from the learning maps to come up with a list of three or four highly practical actions that can be taken immediately at the store level to correct deficiencies and improve customer service. Sears uses this approach to develop a total quality orientation: "Sears anchors the proficiency side of this discipline with training to improve its interface with customers, then adds performance measures that focus attention on individual and team performance with respect to customer satisfaction. Together, these initiatives enable employees to perform to high standards and to understand how they each contribute to Sears's success" (Pascale & Milleman, 1997, 126). TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT Companies today are seeking new ways of coping with issues of human resource management, just as did Xerox. Innovation can be encouraged by sheer need -- major corporations tend to be more innovative when faced with disaster simply because the company has no choice but to innovate or die. Innovation can be encouraged by the use of incentives, the creation of teams charged with finding specific innovations or with developing innovative strategies, the introductio
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Xerox Innovation, Awarded ISO, Japan Xerox, Quality Life, Leadership Quality, Larkin Larkin, Sears American, Mueller Becker, Mueller Chemical, HR Development-based, total quality, leadership quality, tqm program, quality management, total quality management, 1997 april, larkin larkin, larkin 1996, quality circle, quality assurance, using tqm, harvard business review, iso 9001 certification, telecom solutions inc, awarded iso 9001,
Approximate Word count = 4031
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)

More Essays on The Xerox company & Declining Profits