Xerox Business Systems

Xerox is known all over the world as being the # 1 photocopier manufacturer. The Xerox Corporation is a company that has definitely proved thought its practice that the “right management” and the ability to be flexible can lead to a great success no matter how stiff the competition is. The history of its outstanding management starts in the 1980’s, when the company changed its market strategy and introduced a new kind of management that lately transformed into their fantastic quality management practice.

Their program “Leadership through quality” against the Japanese competitors set new quality standards for the market and opened their way to success. The program established the manage-for-results as the primary goal for all of the operations within the company. The expected results were improved productivity and increased revenue growth achieved through the quality-oriented strategy. After experiencing difficulties on market before the company opened a new era in management and created a model that will lately be followed by almost every single one company.

The quality philosophy of the company- the customer-demands orientation- is one of the most remarkable traits that makes Xerox an upstart company. The customer-based orientation was the first one at that time, due to the major orientation of the companies on the quantity, not quality of manufacturing. This philosophy is completely based on the quality of every aspect of the company’s activity, including the final product. It starts with the employee’s management and ends up in the final result of their work – Xerox products. This final result started being evaluated from the objective point of view of a customer. The three factors that are taken into account the most are: the customer, the process and the people. The goal of the company was, is and will be “Total customer satisfaction”.

Basically saying the customer was to become the “quality controlling team” of the company. This philosophy is reflected in their introduction of Total Quality Management (TQM). The main change that this management philosophy brought to the Xerox Corporation was moving from a production-based over to a customer-based company. The Total Quality Management of the Xerox Corporation includes principles that are used by the company’s employees and directors: strong customer focus, entrepreneurial spirit of the employees, integrations through market focus and quality control. Nowadays, owing to this philosophy the company is eager and able to meet all the requirements that the customer has. The satisfaction of the customers became the criterion of evaluation of the company’s work.