Real Business at Xerox

By Chris Gilligan, Commercial Services, Xerox

When I was a kid, summer camp usually meant a week with the Boy Scouts or 4-H – literally camping – or a sports camp. These days, they have a camp for everything – including some that help start kids on the path to a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) career. Kids don’t know it – they’re too busy having fun building and programming Lego robots and battling them in sumo wrestling-style competitions.

Last year through a partnership with IEEE, an engineering group that is the world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology, Xerox bought every elementary school in Lexington, KY three Lego Robots to use in class to teach STEM skills.

This summer, IEEE and Xerox are putting on camps in Lexington where kids build robots, program them, and compete in sumo wrestling competitions. It’s cool. Check out these photos and videos. Keep in mind these are fourth graders.

With 3,200 employees in Lexington, Xerox is the largest private employer in town and needs to invest where we work. But we need to invest in these kids now so they can become the next generation of engineers and scientists to lead Xerox and our country to even greater success.

A recent report by Brookings says there are 26 million STEM jobs in the US – that’s 20% of all jobs in the country. And those figures are growing.

Where are we going to find people to fill all those jobs and invent the future? Maybe at robotics camps in Lexington, Kentucky. It’s certainly a great place to start.

Chris Gilligan works in communications for Xerox commercial services. He’s more than a little jealous they didn’t have these camps when he was a kid and that he’s too old to attend one now. 

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By Christine Hall, freelance writer

This post originally appeared on Forbes.com as content sponsored by Xerox.

Between the appeal of technology and lack of organization, employees can lose productivity and cost businesses time and money.

However, in just five easy steps, companies can simplify their work processes and get things back in order.

Turn off technology

The typical U.S. worker is interrupted by communications technology every 10 minutes, according to the International Association of Business Organizing.

Workers need to create a consistent way to get through emails and manage commitments. Making lists and keeping a calendar are good methods, said Michael Dolan, a San Francisco-based executive coach with Truly Productive Leadership.

“You need to close the loop on everything as you go so there aren’t hundreds of loops open in your psyche,” he added. “We can’t expect to have the same creativity every day if we are overloading ourselves.”

Take advantage of your website

FAQs and product reviews are commonplace on company websites, and customers expect to have choices to find what they need, said Judy Muller, a productivity specialist and founder of True Fruit LLC, based in Tucker, Ga.

Person-to-person customer service interaction is vital for resolving issues, Muller added, but creating a dedicated question-and-answer section on the website could limit general inquiry calls that customer service representatives take on a daily basis.

Cut down on meetings

Workers who sit in meetings the majority of their time can’t be as productive, Muller said. She suggests executives be a “meeting guru” and create best practices, like making an agenda and being on time, that will set an example for others.

Muller also recommends using email blasts for information sharing rather than lengthy staff meetings. For quick decisions on a busy workday, hold a quick 5- to 10-minute stand-up meeting with just the right people.

“When people know the meeting will be short, they will more likely show up on time and focus on the matter at hand,” she added.

Learn to say “no”

One of the most powerful ways to simplify business is to encourage a mindset of strategically saying “no,” Dolan said. For leaders, there can be a correlation between the practice of saying “no” and success as long as executives also learn to say “yes” to things that are the most essential, he added.

“You have to focus resources on things that matter the most,” Dolan said. “Technology has created an epidemic of busyness and partial attention, because there is more and more stuff to deal with. That’s why it’s so important to take responsibility for not accidentally over-committing.”

Automate business processes

Get rid of all that paperwork by automating processes that will eliminate or reduce log jams — such as needing too many approvals — that can be accomplished with templates or shared files, Muller said. But make sure it is easy for employees and customers to get things done by testing processes before implementing, she added.

Muller cautions against automating bad processes or those not working as they should be. Instead, take the time to analyze and improve the process before automating it.

Adopting these basic techniques can restore productivity and help workers focus on business growth.

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By James O’Brien, freelance writer

This post originally appeared on Forbes.com as content sponsored by Xerox.

The days of horrible hold music may not be entirely gone, but they are on life-support if you ask customer support experts.

“Technology is taking us further away from the phone,” said Christina Morris, a managing director for Xerox. “I think that self-service is where people want to get to. Customer service —  we can’t just say it’s what happens in a call center. It has to happen at every touchpoint.”

Minimal Intervention, Maximum Customer Satisfaction

In the past, you bought a product, took it out of a box, plugged it in and used it. Then came the onslaught of increasingly complex user experiences. With that, said Morris, customer-support call centers veered into expensive territory. Representatives had to be trained at higher levels. All the while, customer expectations remained the same: quick and effective responses to their questions.

Some key tools that Morris suggests will drive the future of customer support can be distilled to a shortlist:

—App-Based Customer Support: One wave of the future is app development. In the same way consumers can snap a photo of a check to securely deposit money in the bank, Morris suggested businesses can now rely on apps.

“Say I’m a small-business owner and I buy this application,” she said. “I can use it to communicate securely and in real-time with customers and partners.”

The future is about access, tapping into customer support from any location, via the ubiquitous mobile device.

—Interactive Voice Response: The phone won’t vanish from customer support completely. It should, however, become more automated and sophisticated. Interactive voice response (IVR) has already been around for a long time, but not always to great effect.

“The failure in the past is that it hasn’t always been robust enough and it’s led to a lot of frustration,” said Morris of the typical automated menu-driven support call. “It really kind of comes back to it has to be simple and it has to work. The options have to be very clear … if you’re going to do voice recognition, it has to be with a high degree of accuracy.”

That is, nobody wants to say “yes” seven times on the phone. But IVR is evolving, and Morris expects that what we learn from the best examples of it, now and in the future, will actually inform best practices on every platform. Reps won’t go away altogether, she said, but the human on the phone will become a professional trained to take on only the most intricate and nuanced of problems, with online and automated support absorbing all of the lower-tier tasks beneath those.

—Virtual Device Interventions: Device-specific diagnosis websites, similar to what customers might experience on a site such as WebMD are the next generation of online customer support that will replace old-school FAQs.

Laptop problems? Imagine if you could network with a virtual device that actually diagnosed and pushed solutions through to your machine. That’s the next step in online customer support that Morris predicts will gain in strength and popularity.

Perhaps most exciting is what Morris said these new approaches can do to the bottom line. Innovation is driving the cost of traditional live agent customer support down, to the tune of some 80 percent in savings through use of advanced tools and technologies. That’s the kind of future businesses can bank on.

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By Paul Wolf, director, Retail Services, IT Outsourcing, Xerox

When F. W. Woolworth opened the doors of his new-fangled retail store in 1878 in Utica, N.Y., he is said to have created an American business phenomenon. He simplified the retail experience for shoppers that continued as a mainstay for almost a century.  In 1962, something called a big-box retailer opened its doors for the first time. It was a big Woolworth’s named Woolco. Shortly afterward, a newcomer named Walmart arrived on the scene.

These days, retail continues to change, adapt and cater to what shoppers want, but the pace is faster and the issues are complicated. There are numerous stores, store types and formats, distribution centers, suppliers, store employees and, yes, technologies upon technologies. Creating the “right” experience—garnering maximum impact–is the goal. Store-level performance is the key. When Cathy Hotka, a retail industry veteran, talked to executives of store-level operations, they lamented these issues. Within months, she came up with an idea and formed the Store Operations Council.

“Too often, we forget what is right in front of our faces. We take the store for granted,” said Hotka. “The council builds on the value and vitality of store-level operations—and what it means for long-term success” Since forming in 2012, approximately 76 senior-level store executives have gathered in small groups to listen, learn and build rapport.

Ultimately, says Hotka, the council is about the end-game: Making sure retailers succeed, long term, beginning at the store. She offers these four tips for retailers pursuing excellence.

The 4 D’s that Drive Retail Excellence

1. Differentiation. For retailers, this means knowing how you—the retailer—are different from everyone else. Culture? Store design? Pricing strategy? Communications? Branding?
2. Distinction. Show the differentiation. Drive the distinction to all your stakeholders, from executives to employees, to customers and community efforts.
3. Deference. WIFFM rules. The “What’s In It For Me?” requires us to step back from our GroupThink and inquire—to defer our assumptions—among our constituents. What do employees perceive? What do the most loyal customers want and think vs. “walk throughs” store traffic? More research.
4. Delivery. Act on what you now know, and avoid half measures. Be confident that your data proves your direction. Engage, commit, then evaluate.

Beginning on June 18, store operations experts will again meet and collaborate at the latest council meeting. Why? Simply put: “I can fish with a pole, or I can fish with a net, but a net takes more than one person. By working together, the catch is always bigger and better.”

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By Rick Dastin, president, Office and Solutions Business Group, Xerox

Any device connected to the Internet – an iPad, a computer, even an MRI machine – has the potential for a security vulnerability. That’s because these devices all have operating systems and hackers can possibly get inside and cause damage to the device or the surrounding network environment. Businesses are well aware of this with PCs, servers and computer networks, but not necessarily with devices with embedded firmware such as printers and mobile technologies. Yet, as all of us use more mobile technology, information access points and the resultant vulnerability may increase.

Some business leaders acknowledge this challenge and deal with it appropriately. It worries me though, after talking with CIOs across the country, how some are not fully aware of the vulnerabilities and view some mobile security elements as optional. They think it’s going to be difficult or expensive and seem to worry more about the difficulties than about the cost of a security breach. How can they feel that way when information is the most sacred thing in business?

Maybe it’s because in the past, companies had separate network and security management systems and organizations that manage them. It was swivel-chair management, turning from one console to the next, or worse, one organization to the next because the integrated tools were not available to manage both the network and security together. Security doesn’t get more inefficient or painful than that.

For CIOs to embrace mobile and embedded device security to the level that is required, I agree that solutions have to be convenient and integrated. We have to provide device safeguards and keep information secure as it moves between systems. This next-generation thinking is what drove partnerships with McAfee and Cisco on a new platform we call ConnectKey.  This video explains more about how it works:

Read more from Rick Dastin in the latest edition of Chief Optimist Magazine – Security by clicking here.

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By Tom Simas, managing director, Midas+, A Xerox Company

While there is a glut of news about the pains and problems faced by American healthcare providers, we’ve found significant bright spots that show the resolve and results of hospitals doing it right. In the case of the 1,700 hospitals that work with Midas+, the challenges are no less difficult or real than what others face. Yet, they have proven that patient care and business success are compatible, even assured.

Simply put, we know these hospitals are extraordinary. There are 24 of them that have been recognized. This puts them at the top 1.6 percent of all hospitals served by Midas+. Each hospital recently received a Midas+ Platinum Award, a recognition that reveals industry leadership and hospital excellence. We’re proud to say that Platinum Awards aren’t typical awards fare. We’re not just creating “feel goods.” The awards are based on achievement. Proven excellence. Data-driven performance.

See all the award winners - 24 hospitals of all sizes, located virtually everywhere, from Encinitas, Calif., to Columbia, Tenn.; Utah to Texas – by clicking here.

We award Platinum honors to hospitals that provide exceptional healthcare delivery. We focus on each hospital’s data on utilization efficiency and outcomes. Data on length of stay (LOS), mortality, average daily census, re-admissions and more are compiled and analyzed. We use the data within our national comparative database to discover who’s doing what and how. The findings are like pearls in the Pacific. They are rewards and remnants that reflect much work, diligence and effort.

The Platinum award is a mere sliver of a much more significant “gift” shared by participating hospitals. The gold is in the richness of the data analysis. A hospital gains a clear picture of reality vs. perception. Numbers don’t lie. Perhaps even more valuable is how one hospital can compare its performance against other hospitals. It provides a roadmap to improvement – or to furthered excellence.

Time and time again, we hear from our clients that seeing comparative hospital performance is the single most “a-ha” they gain every year.

Sure, awards and recognition are always welcomed, but providing a clear picture of the roads well-traveled – and the roads to come – is the reason for the annual Midas+ symposium. We see it every year. Shared knowledge and peer participation yield greater understanding and results.

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By Irene Hickey, United States Client Operations, Xerox

Irene Hickey is one of five Xerox employees granted a fully-paid leave of absence this year through the Xerox Social Service Leave program. Irene is working at the Rotary Club University Area Foundation in Houston where she is focused on providing low cost, fully furnished housing to firefighters undergoing treatment for on-the-job injuries or medical conditions.

As Charles Dickens wrote in his famous novel A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom… it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light …,” such describes my feelings as I embark on a rare new adventure.

One of our Rotary Club members, a retired fire captain with broad shoulders and a great smile shared his dream to have a place for firefighters to stay while undergoing cancer treatment at the Texas Medical Center here in Houston.

These heroes risk their lives to help others… and part of that risk, a very big part, is the fact that that many will get cancer as a result of fighting fires. Retired Captain Homero Ponce Lopez vocalized his dream and our club immediately went for it.

The only problem is that such an undertaking takes a tremendous amount of time and effort and we are a club of volunteers.   However, through the Social Service Leave Xerox generously granted, my feet are set on a brand new exciting path which is to have the luxury of time to devote to the project, to help make Homero’s dream a reality. A north-side gal, in her sixties given a unique opportunity to make a difference; how cool is that?!

The “worst of times” kicked in as well because I have learned so much more about cancer.  I’ve learned in excruciating detail about the way cancer ravages the body and the mind.  Although the new knowledge I acquire pulls me down like an anchor; the excitement of this project lifts me up like a giant helium filled balloon.

My grandfather taught me a phrase when I was five:  “They said it couldn’t be done, but she with a smile replied, that maybe it couldn’t, but she wouldn’t be one, to say so until she had tried!”

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By Guy Amato, managing director, TMS Health, A Xerox Company

The answers are closer than you think.

Healthcare, like the rest of the world, is changing rapidly. The confluence of technological improvement, pending regulatory requirements, innovation, and the dissemination of timely, accurate information are bringing about the most exciting and tumultuous era of modern medicine, its delivery, and consumption.

Whether it’s the use of electronic medical records to store, share, and transport information amongst healthcare providers in an effort to treat patients, building insurance exchanges to bring cost effective health insurance to more people, or using video over the Internet to educate physicians on the latest advancements in pharmaceuticals – healthcare delivery and the information that supports it has changed forever. And many argue for the better.

Xerox, through its healthcare services companies, is becoming an emerging and meaningful player in helping organize and disseminate important healthcare information to the right stakeholders at the right time… in an impactful and accurate manner. We process Medicaid claims for a majority of states, collect clinical hospital data and predict patient outcomes. Through our pharmaceutical services line of business, we reach and educate healthcare professionals and consumers about pharmaceutical treatments and health conditions to improve patients’ lives. All in an effort to improve how healthcare is delivered and utilized.

We have pioneered the cost effective use of industry-trained, college-educated pharmaceutical reps over the phone and online video to deliver timely, accurate information about pharmaceutical products and their appropriate use to physician offices and pharmacies across the U.S.

Now, through the recent addition of LearnSomething’s capabilities to our suite of services, we can deliver digitally-based educational courses and information on pharmaceutical products and disease treatment for pharmacists at point of care in the retail pharmacy, for a patient on her smart phone when she is about to take her medicine, and to a physician on his iPad right before he treats his patient.

LearnSomething’s capability to develop engaging courseware, display important healthcare information in an easily digestible form, and provide it digitally to almost any device, is truly part of the Xerox effort to improve the delivery and use of important information in our healthcare system…. with the primary goal of improving patients lives.

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By Tom Simas, managing director, Midas+, A Xerox Company

No it cannot.

Unstructured information alone won’t—and can’t–improve patient care. Alone, it’s nothing more than unrelated bits and bytes. When pulled together—pooled together—data become a flowing life force that builds the vigor and strength of a healthcare organization.

That vigor translates to improved patient care. That’s our message at Midas+—and at our upcoming annual symposium. This week, we host nearly 400 of our clients and partners.

As the nation’s largest quality outcomes software, we provide workflow analytics to over 1,500 hospitals transforming their unstructured data into relevant and useful information. So what does that mean? We help hospitals combine lots of different data on things like demographics, lab test results, prescription usage, medication administration, patient vital signs to make sure that caregivers use the best procedures for a particular diagnosis. We also have comparative data that allows a hospital to compare its results to other hospitals in its region or nationally.  All this information helps hospitals deliver the best care for the patient and the lowest cost.

It’s a gathering of minds and hearts that are hungry for best practices and in-depth knowledge. We talk outcomes, performance indicators, how to succeed as a patient-care provider. We delve into the growing regulatory impact on all our jobs. And most importantly, clients come together, exchange ideas and learn. This week’s gathering fulfills the mission to breed the best of America’s hospitals equipped for today and tomorrow.

Let’s talk reimbursement changes. Gone are the days of getting paid for a procedure. Now outcomes and performance drive income. That income drives sustainability. So at Midas+, we make sure data silos are scrapped. The data become like neighbors, talking and gathering together while pursuing community excellence. The data are analyzed, hospital performance is measured. Your data are compared with one-third of America’s hospitals where Midas+ is used —and their performance. We dig into length of stay, mortality, likelihood that a patient will need to be readmitted in the future for further care and more than 3,000 additional, key performance metrics. Now you can prove excellence, which yields improved revenue and quality care.

Our symposium is a reflection of the Midas+ community. We think, share, talk and pursue what’s best. With analytics. With clients. Yet, that’s not the point.

The point is to improve America’s healthcare system–to make sure healthcare organizations thrive. It’s about ensuring that your child, your parents—your community—receive care that’s timely, cost effective and top-notch quality.

That’s what you care about. Us too.

To learn more about what our clients think about Midas, watch this video:

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By, Cecile Thirion, Marketing Director, Transportation Central and Local Government, Xerox Services

Here’s a toast to an anniversary that you probably don’t celebrate too often. Congratulations next month to the 78^th anniversary of the world’s first installed parking meter. While you may not be popping the champagne to honor the milestone, it does offer some pause as to how that simple meter changed the way we park our car.

The parking meter wasn’t exactly the center of attention recently at the 2013 IPI Conference & Expo, the world’s largest educational event for parking and transportation held this year in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but it made me think about a high-tech event, something more common in the Silicon Valley.

I saw lots of new parking players exhibiting this year at the show, from pay-by-phone, street-level sensors to all sorts of parking apps for your smartphone to make your parking experience less of a pain. I realized that many of these new offerings didn’t even exist a few years ago.

As a global parking solution provider, Xerox is playing a key role in this disruption. MIT Tech Review chose Xerox among the top 50 disruptive companies 2013 for creating innovations such as our algorithm-driven pricing model that sets parking prices on supply and demand for the city of Los Angeles.

We joined many others at the show to demonstrate how times have changed since the first parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City in 1935. Our highlights included:

• Live demo at our booth of the solution implemented for the LA Express Park Project  directly by our Parking CTO
• Educational session on LA Express Park™ : design, implementation and initial results co-presented by our client Daniel Mitchell, City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation and Onno Zoeter, Ph.D. and scientist from our Xerox Research Center Europe.
• Parking solution infographic: they sound sophisticated, for LA drivers parking is made simple
• Regular news direct from the show we shared on Twitter via @XeroxTransport using #IPIConf

All these advancements give you time back in your day. Think about it: less circling the block, waiting for others to pull out of a parking space, using your smartphone to find a parking spot, pay for it and monitor the time left on it. Beyond helping you save time and park smarter, we’re really working hard behind the scenes to make your life easier (excellent and fun podcast by Kenny Malone, NPR reporter @RadioMalone).

Follow us @XeroxTransport to get more insights on the Transportation Industry.

When Cecile (@CecileSF) isn’t attending an event, you might see her @PARCinc collaborating with researchers.

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