This year marks the 75th anniversary of the first xerographic image, created by Chester Carlson. This humble invention eventually led to the formation of Xerox Corporation and the birth of an industry. Even today, this xerographic process is still at the heart of most office printers and copiers around the world. This single invention changed the way the world thinks about documentation today. It was about more than just making copies; it made it simple for people to share information which was also the company’s mission.

In many countries, including India — the word Xerox is synonymous with photocopying. This would be a marketing and branding coup for many product companies, but not for Xerox. Because, the startling fact is that Xerox no longer produces standalone photocopiers in India. Not since 2004. In fact, Xerox has transformed itself into the world’s leading provider of business process and document management. Its services business now makes up more than half of the company’s total revenue globally.

Today, one can find Xerox in a host of unexpected places. For example, globally the company handles more than 1.6 million customer interactions daily, in 30 languages, in 175 global customer-care centres. Further, Xerox serves nine million student loan borrowers, and provides human resource services to 11 million employees and retirees. Xerox employees also process three million credit card applications a month, 900 million healthcare claims each year, and 37 billion transport fares annually on buses, tramways and subways in 400 cities worldwide.

Xerox has moved rapidly ahead not only in printing technology but also in document services. The company has organically grown a services business where none existed. It’s a journey — and this requires capabilities that many companies don’t have and requires time that most don’t want to invest. With Xerox appearing in unexpected yet highly relevant places, it forces the discussion on the reinvention of the brand. It also provides an opportunity to connect the dots between how and why the company started — simplifying the most basic necessity of sharing information — to what it does today — taking very complex business processes and making them appear simple to those who need them. Thousands of global companies, including Procter and Gamble, Citibank, Marriot Group, and Dow, look to Xerox to help make them more efficient so they can focus on their real business.

The transformation, the change in many ways, has been ‘disruptive’. To be impactful, change and innovation cannot be incremental, but must be the start of a whole new curve. For Xerox, such transformational curves are not new. In the 1990s, the company underwent a major transformation to a digital printing company (from a photocopier company). In 2009, the acquisition of ACS brought about another major transformation to allow Xerox to focus on business process and IT outsourcing services.

All these transformations required seismic shifts in all parts of business while preserving the best of its core — brand, heritage and culture. It was a gargantuan effort. But it provided the company a host of new opportunities — to be nimbler, gain greater market share, offer better careers, beat competition. Today the company has in-house end-to-end capabilities to transform and simplify business process and document management.

However, this sort of corporate transformation is not unique. In fact, several well-known brands and companies have transformed themselves. IBM, of punch card tabulator, mainframe computer and calculator fame, transformed itself into software and IT services company. And what corporate transformation story can be complete without a mention of Apple? The erstwhile personal computer company is today famous for iPods, iPhones, iPads. The list goes on, with brands like Nokia, Monsanto, 3M, GE…

The evolution of printing has not ended of that we can be certain, and the next decade will see ever more innovations. Today there has also been a major shift towards adoption of managed print services for cutting down costs and for effective management of information. While experts say that printing will be an integral part of documentation, services will also tag along to ensure cost effective and mobile management of information be it on premise or on the cloud, in secured networks and enabling BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) scenarios.

(The author is Managing Director, Xerox India)

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