I decided to start a list of things making Xerox fail.
I know you have others.
A clarification on ACS - they were not really successful. ACS was a house of cards & the collapse started before the ink was dry. The lawsuits started shortly after & were the result of failed implementations that predated the Xerox purchase. Xerox, was left holding the bag. Of course, I’m not defending management. It was their responsibility to do their due diligence. They should have known what they were buying but instead they got s—ered.
And a vomit teceptacle
Tuesday's call should be fun. Bring a shovel and sense of humor.
I’d like to respectfully raise issue with what has been fed to and swallowed by Wall Street vs what we all know to be smokescreen. Luckily for hapless XRX investors, some analysts have started to choke up the “strategy” and are brave enough to question the veracity of what are supposed to be legitimate business plans.
I’ll add the giant disconnect between the public persona and the internal realities. How many of us have groaned when we saw “one the the top ethical companies” communicated to us. Or when we took s-xual harassment training (looking at you SB). “Best places to work” ranking is laughable in light of the toxic workplace culture, what has happened to benefits, 401k match, and so on.
ACS acquisition was a great plan to save the company from print demise. The execution of that plan was dismal, and throwing essentially all money to ACS in an attempt to change their successful (but so non-Xerox) culture was an abject failure. We all saw it. The sale was an admission they couldn’t fix it, and a retreat from the myriad lawsuits stemming from the med/health business deals gone wrong.
Some of that money should have flowed to the tech / print business, since print demise is a slow moving train which won’t reach its destination for years. Decisions made prior to the Icahn takeover and installation of HP washouts, whose cost cutting exercises have resulted in many of us going to this board to vent, whether we are laid off or soon to be.
Funny that Shanker has a ‘no a–hole’ policy and all he’s done is build a leadership team of a–holes.
Burns' diversion of core product technology devel. to support her numbskull acquisition of ACS.
They blew up Global Imaging the most profitable part of the company
The outsource of quality, long-term employees to HCL is the one that comes to mind for me. You took American jobs - people with tenure and industry knowledge - and replaced them with people who can barely tread water with their job responsibilities.
Marketing advertises things the presses cannot do.
For example the XXL sheet for igen was sold with a .5mm registration.
Well engineering never developed the XXL kit with that spec.
2nd BTR life on versant. There are videos saying it can run silk or any media you want. It can't.
Sh–ty DOA reman parts
Sh–ty DOA consumables
So many cost downs on products. Metal bearings turned to plastic on production boxes lol.
No stress testing of products before they hit the market (Baltoro), Versalink, Altalink, everything.
No charging customers for abuse.
No feedback from the field on anything.
Complicated buggy and or broken processes that don't work.
BS funny math metrics that don't mean anything.
Hasn't had a leadership product since Docutech. What followed were me too or irrelevant products by the time they were released.
Instead of keeping, paying and investing in the great employees who could turn it around they sold us down the river for cheap labor
They hired HP fired id–ts to run the company
They never planned for the ever changing future
They concentrate on lining their own pockets
Xerox is siloed. The development group will cut 5 cents to save on product cost. Then the field will spend thousands in extra visits and parts to fix.