Essay on challenges faced by xerox and ursula burns

Organization

Challenges Faced By Xerox and the New CEO Ursula Burns
In the past six decades, Xerox is a name which has become synonymous with the printing and copying processes. It is unarguably the largest and the world’s leading documenting and printing services providing organization in the world. But, all was not well inside the organization. The former CEO Anne M. Mulcahy had saved the giant from falling into bankruptcy and restored some profitability yet the new CEO Ursula Burns has much to do. The new CEO is faced with the never ending challenge of cutting-costs, boosting morale and survive stiff competition from organizations that had a much steadier balance sheet. Ursula Burns, the first African American women to become the CEO of an US organization, has a tough war ahead to fight. Let us now discuss what are the challenges faced by the dynamic leader.

The Growing Competition

Although Xerox had become a verb, a name given to the whole process of copying and printing, people were swiftly moving on to other companies that provided better and high-end solutions for printing and packaging. The companies like HP, were thinking out of box and providing more compact solutions to the consumers. These companies had a robust balance sheet to back up all their research and development along with a far sighted and dynamic marketing model, which enhanced awareness and popularity about these products.
On the other hand, Xerox faced an acute lack of funds which made it difficult to invent and innovate newer products and hence relied on its flagship products for sales. The company’s technology had not advanced with the need of the time and hence faced a huge drop in sales and popularity.

Increasing Awareness towards Eco-Friendly Livi

Xerox primarily provided printing and documentary services to the professional organizations rather than for the personal use at home. With the increasing awareness towards using eco-friendly measures in business, most managers and organization leaders have adopted policies of using lesser paper for documentation and have resorted to using online communication methods such as e-mails.
This has critically harmed the sales volume of Xerox, because it has not expanded its portfolio to include any other services. With the decline in the use of paper for printing and documenting service the company has suffered great setback in monetary terms. Thus, the biggest challenge that the new CEO face is to expand the service portfolio offered by the company, so that the revenue can be generated from other sources also.

The Work-Force Cut Down and Low Morale

In lieu of the aggressive price and cost reduction measures adopted by Xerox to save it from bankruptcy, the work-force was cut down and many employees found themselves jobless suddenly. This led to a huge demoralization amongst the existing employees who lost faith in the organization they served. Thus, another critical challenge that the new CEO face is to bring back the vigour and passion amongst the employees to achieve the tough targets she had set up for the organization.