Real Business at Xerox

By Al Leary, senior vice president, MPS Acceleration, Xerox

According to some business leaders at a Xerox “Focus Forward” event this week in Minneapolis, MPS (better known as Managed Print Services), could easily stand for “More Productivity Success.”

Judging by the size of the crowd, it’s a topic that’s top of mind for all kinds of enterprises.  After all, who isn’t looking for the next big source of savings and efficiency these days? MPS helps free a company’s workforce from the labors of managing print-related IT tasks (toner, paper, printer troubleshooting) and get control of associated costs. It also clears clutter by reducing the number of printers, copiers and fax machines; by two-thirds in some cases.   Not to mention the sustainability and security advantages.  The folks who were with us yesterday were moved by the message of industry analyst Angele Boyd of IDC who suggests what kinds businesses might benefit most from MPS:

 
Here’s what other business leaders had to say about implementing MPS:

Grant Logan from Allina Hospitals and Clinics says their partnership with Xerox has helped give his team more freedom to focus on the task at hand: 

During a break-out sessions, Boyd stressed that for long-term success, businesses need to emphasize boosting revenue ahead of cutting back.  That’s the productivity plan behind Xerox MPS, helping put companies in the driver’s seat of their own futures.

By Bob Wagner
Director, Worldwide Industry Analyst Relations
Xerox Corporation

Do you believe in magic?  In 1965, John Sebastian and the Lovin’ Spoonful asked that whimsical question.  Well, it’s 46 years later and I’m a believer. (By the way, that’s a 1966 classic by The Monkees, and a catchy way some day to get into another blog, perhaps.)

What’s made me a believer is the pretty “magical” hot-streak we’re on.  In a span of about 10 days, we announced that Gartner, Inc. has positioned Xerox as a “leader” or a “visionary” in four of its industry renowned “Magic Quadrant” reports – covering our two core businesses: services and document technology.

1.  ACS, A Xerox Company, Placed by Gartner in Leaders Quadrant of 2011 Comprehensive Finance and Accounting Business Process Outsourcing Magic Quadrant Report
2.  Xerox Placed by Gartner in Leaders Quadrant of 2011 Managed Print Services (MPS) Magic Quadrant Report
3.  Xerox Placed by Gartner in Leaders Quadrant of 2011 Multifunction Printer (MFP) and Printers Magic Quadrant Report
4.  Xerox Placed by Gartner in Visionaries Quadrant in 2011 Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Magic Quadrant Report

The Gartner Magic Quadrant is a proprietary research tool developed by Gartner that offers a visual snapshot of a market’s direction, maturity and participants.  Select companies are positioned on Gartner Magic Quadrants based on the evaluation criteria of ability to execute and completeness of vision.

Inclusion in respected industry analyst reports is a rigorous process, one where doing well means doing right by your global customers.  But the benefits loom large, and we believe this serves as proof-positive that Xerox successfully has transformed into a “services-led, technology-driven” company – clearly demonstrating that we are the world’s leading enterprise for business process and document management.  And, as our Chairman and CEO Ursula Burns says, wins like these are hard-earned and we feel they reflect our determined Xerox spirit, the power of innovation, and giving our customers more freedom to focus on what they do best: their real business.

Now, do you believe in magic?

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Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

By Kent Schnacker, group president, ACS Financial Services

As part of Xerox and ACS’ growth strategy, we’re rounding out our financial services offering with the acquisition of Symcor US – one of North America’s largest providers of financial processing services. Building on our breadth of existing services, the acquisition perfectly accents our current financial services suite.

By incorporating Symcor US’ check and payment processing services into our current suite of services, this acquisition allows us to help financial institutions adjust to the changing payment landscape and ease the transition from checks to their digital counterparts. Quite simply, it puts ACS in a position to help our customers run their businesses more efficiently and cost-effectively.

But you may be asking yourself: “Why are we making this investment at a time when people are writing fewer checks?”

It’s quite timely, in fact. According to the Federal Reserve Payment Study 2010, about 24.5 billion checks were processed in 2009. While transactions are definitely trending towards the electronic variety, there are still tons of paper checks in circulation that remain an institution among individuals and businesses. So why not set ourselves up at ACS to handle all types of payments for our customers?

While ACS already offers a plethora of solutions to our financial services customers – including document management systems and mortgage, credit card, and student loan services – the addition of Symcor US’ financial processing prowess allows us to provide an even wider-range of services to banks and other financial institutions while adding significant value to our offering.

It’s a well-trodden expression: “The whole is often greater than the sum of its parts.” By adding Symcor US’ proficiencies in transaction processing, we’re now even more well-equipped to keep banks and financial institutions focused on their core competencies in order to achieve their business goals. These sorts of acquisitions are high-priority for Xerox and ACS.

By: Andy Hill, Digital Marketing, Xerox Europe

When I first heard the name “Clipper*” I thought of the Los Angeles based basketball team, but actually it’s also the name of the world’s longest round the world yacht race.  The race offers the opportunity for non-professional sailors , like Xerox’s  Janet Webberley , the chance  to compete.  On July 31 2011, Janet’s yacht, Visit Finland, and nine other 68-foot yachts and 450 crew members, embarked on 40,000 miles of ocean racing.   Janet will compete in the Rio to Cape Town leg 2 in September.

On land Janet is a mother of two, working as the Creative Services & Technology Manager in our Creative Design & Language Services team in the UK.  At sea, she’ll log over 3,390 miles in the race from Brazil to South Africa as crew member and assistant Quarter Master for “Visit Finland”.

So, aside from Janet’s connection, when you think of ocean racing, do you think of documents, waterproof race charts or digital printing? Quite separate from Janet’s involvement, Xerox is a global partner of Clipper Ventures’ Clipper Round the World Yacht Race , working behind-the-scenes to produce the sponsorship and event packs, and day-to-day racing charts.

I spoke with Jonathan Levy at Clipper Ventures who tells me that before working with Xerox, Clipper Ventures used long, offset print runs, which meant stacks of documents that couldn’t be updated once printed.  Xerox is now delivering documents on demand, keeping race materials up-to-date – and even personalised for special events.

According to Levy, “Our collaboration with Xerox allows us to focus on organising and delivering a world-class, global event with the assurance that our print management is taken care of.”

So for me this makes it feel special, helping an organization concentrate on doing what they do best – running a global yacht race that changes people’s lives, and watching it change the life of one of our own.  As part of the training, Janet has already encountered freezing temperatures, high winds, power cuts and sleep deprivation! And she still wants to do this life changing challenge.

We’ll be adding Janet’s story next month and you can keep abreast of the Round the World Clipper Race,  on Twitter and on YouTube.  Read more on Xerox’s partnership with Clipper Ventures at: http://www.xerox.com/clipper.

What extraordinary challenge have you considered or done?   Tell us your stories we’d love to know what floats your boat!

* The name Clipper comes from the original Tea Clippers which ruled the waves 150 years ago, racing to deliver their precious cargo of Tea to London.

By Rick Dastin, president, Xerox Enterprise Business Group

We’ve all heard that good business is all about doing the right thing for your customers. With the pace of business today, helping customers stay focused on what matters means technology and services providers like us need to be thinking ahead – and in the increasingly connected world we live in that means partnering for success with leaders in the industry. Today, Xerox and Cisco announced that we are building a strategic alliance that will help customers in impactful ways by leveraging the market leading technology, services and channel assets of both our companies. We’ve created a strategy that creates new paradigms for channel partners and customers by integrating Cisco’s intelligent network with Xerox mobile print, managed print and cloud ITO services.

What does this mean and why is it good for businesses? It means we’re enabling the new workforce – one with a growing appetite to have their virtual office travel with them, to do it securely and most importantly to do it, as we say in Xerox, with “green button” simplicity. We’re also carrying the simplicity and enterprise security theme into our infrastructure as a service cloud offerings with an easy “click and pick” architecture to take the headache out of IT migration.

Here’s how:

• Managed Print Services (MPS) integrated within the Cisco Borderless Network: for most clients, it will combine network and print management for the first time – making it easier to manage costs, uptime and improve employee productivity. It also positions Xerox to continue our MPS market leadership by making print management an integrated part of IT infrastructure, opening up the more than 80 percent of the market that Cisco owns to penetrate with our customer valued MPS solutions.
• Mobile print: Cisco will help expand the opportunity Xerox provides for workers to print on-the-go, using any email-enabled device – including Cisco virtual desktop clients and the Cius business tablet – to securely print business documents to any enabled printer.
• Cloud IT Outsourcing Services: Leveraging our ITO capabilities recently acquired through ACS we are building out our cloud Infrastructure utilizing Cisco’s industry leading Vblock architecture. We are offering Enterprise ready Infrastructure as a Service for establishments large and small and enabled by our agile and responsive consulting services.

Finally, we’re broadening our customer reach by opening up each other’s channels to these new offerings. For more details on the offerings and how they’ll be sold directly and through channel partners, click here.

As one analyst observed after one of our recent briefings, we are working together with Cisco to “modernize print” and to enable borderless print services to be a native capability on the Cisco Borderless  Network… like peanut butter and jelly.

As has been said in a famous movie, this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Editor’s Note:

Marie Hattar  Cisco VP Marketing,  Borderless Networks writes about today’s announcement between Xerox and Cisco on Cisco’s Platform Blog

by: Joe Doherty Executive vice president and chief operating officer, ACS Government Solutions

Walking down the streets of Riverside, Calif., you might not know why it’s such an intelligent city, but ask someone who lives there and you’ll start to understand why.

You’ll learn that residents can report problems like broken streetlights, damaged trees, graffiti or forgotten trash pickup by downloading the city’s free iPhone application that lets people take a picture and email it to Riverside’s 311 center so the issue can quickly get to the appropriate city department.

The city also shares its intelligence at SmartRiverside’s award-winning Digital Inclusion Center.  The center provides information about technology and how to best using it, including free training, software, refurbished computers and free Wi-Fi Internet access for low-income families.

Riverside’s technology efforts have not gone unnoticed – the city has been named one of the world’s “Top 7 Intelligent Communities of the Year” by the Intelligent Communities Forum and could soon be named the most intelligent city when the forum announces a winner later this year.

ACS, A Xerox Company has long helped Riverside use intelligent technology solutions to stay focused on service to citizens.  As the city’s IT provider, ACS helped develop innovative technology like the iPhone app, and we’ve been part of the community by managing SmartRiverside’s Digital Inclusion Center. As a result of our work together over the past 10 years, Riverside today announced  it’s making another intelligent technology decision — using Xerox’s expertise in managed print services to reduce the city’s operational costs by nearly 20 percent.

Riverside CIO Steve Reneker signed on for a five-year Enterprise Print Services contract with Xerox to better manage the way documents are printed, shared and updated across city departments.

An intelligent city with intelligent solutions. Way to go, Riverside!

– By David Smith, vice president, DocuShare Business Unit, Xerox Corporation

This may be a biased opinion, but I believe Xerox’s recent acquisition of WaterWare Internet Services’ assets could be important to your business. Why? Well, if you’re looking for ways to control costs, improve productivity and keep your workforce connected – and want to reduce the amount of paper in your business operations – then it matters.

According to a recent study from AIIM, 53 percent of companies surveyed hope to decrease their paper consumption further with document scanning and capture operations.

Enterprise content management (ECM) –  a formal way of organizing and storing your company’s documents and other content that relates to your internal processes –  has played a big role in this revolution.

For Xerox, the increasing popularity of paperless business processes is exciting since our ECM platform, Xerox DocuShare, gives businesses a 24/7 way to reduce paper and manage, share and control documents – freeing employees to concentrate on the important business at hand.

WaterWare –  a software development and consulting services –  has solutions that matter in today’s business environment, including electronic health records capture and management, case management and pharmacy order automation.

And now, they are part of the DocuShare team – expanding our professional services offering in terms of deployment, system integration and customized tools that drive business results.

So, while this isn’t a mega-merger, for those on the front line looking for ways to cut down on paper while improving how information is shared throughout the organization – this is big news – and we’re proud of it!

– Bob Wagner, Director, Corporate Industry Analyst Relations, Xerox

The theme of this year’s Lyra Imaging Symposium here in Palm Springs is “Navigating the Road to Profitability.”  With the economy on the rebound, the feeling at this perennial industry happening is upbeat and optimistic.  And Xerox is here, as always, with a strong industry leadership presence.

David Bates, VP, office marketing programs, was yesterday morning’s office keynote. David shared his thoughts on how Xerox is creating differentiated value in the office environment, for customers and channel partners alike.

David Bates, VP of Xerox Office Marketing Programs, takes the stage today at the 14th Lyra Imaging Symposium in Palm Springs to discuss how Xerox creates value for customers and channel partners in the office environment

“I’m gratified to be among the keynote speakers at the 14th Lyra Imaging Symposium,” said David.  “This marquee annual event covers the current state and future direction for the digital imaging industry.  We learn a lot by being here, and we share a lot with our peers and Lyra’s top analysts.  This is a must-attend event for the leaders in our industry.”

The Xerox “Photo Guy,” Brian Segnit, was also on-hand — lending his wisdom and wit to the photo output panel yesterday afternoon.

Finally, Kurth Anderson, VP, enterprise print services, helped round-out the first day of the symposium by sharing his broad and deep industry knowledge during the managed print services portion of the program.

Xerox is Ready for Real Business in 2011, and we’re pleased and proud to again be a sponsor and major contributor to this terrific Lyra Research symposium.  Congratulations to the organizers.

Karen Arena, Xerox public relations consultant

Are you taking time off and  unplugging (forced by snow or otherwise) during this holiday?   Here are some things you can do that will minimize the overflow that will certainly pile up while you’re away:

Change your Voicemail Greeting. Set up an alternative greeting to be active while you are away.  Include the dates you are out, backup contacts, and whether you will be checking voicemail.

Block off your calendar. Schedule your time off as an appointment on your Calendar. Mark it as “Out of Office” not “Busy.”  When people try to schedule you for meetings or wonder why you haven’t been responding, they’ll see that you’re out of the office.

Set up your e-mail “Out of Office” assistant. Include the dates you are out, alternate people to contact, and whether you will be checking e-mail frequently, infrequently, or never.  This lets people know if you won’t be responding.

Check your mailbox size. See how full your mailbox is already.  If you are close to the limit, delete messages or move them to personal folders.   All companies set mailbox limits.  So check with your system administrator to learn the exact number.

• Keep only what you need. Look for common culprits that take up your e-mail storage space.  For example:  Sent Items, Deleted Items, Synch Issues, and your Calendar.  Be sure to review your company’s document retention policy to see what to keep, and for how long.
• Create personal folders. In most companies, personal folders are stored on your PC’s hard drive so they keep your server mailbox from getting too full.  Be sure to store it on your hard drive, not a network drive, to keep it safe.

It’s probably not a good idea to forward your corporate messages to your personal e-mail. Your personal e-mail account is not appropriate for business communications, and auto-forwarding e-mail to external parties is usually prohibited at most companies.   Check to see if your office has web-access to mail and use that instead.

If you have more tips on  how you’re managing your information while away, we’d love to hear from you!

At Xerox, we hope you take a pause and overload on good times with family and friends.  HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Xerox Managed Print Services,
Helps everybody’s business grow,
And if you ever used it,
You would know how much it shows.

Remember that wasted paper,
Employee time and money too?
That used to be what you dealt with,
Before MPS went to work for you.

Then one frugal fiscal year,
The chairman came to say,
“MPS with your sights so clear,
Won’t you guide my print this year?”

Now all the chairmen love it,
(though they rarely show their glee)
Xerox Managed Print Services,
You are making hist-ory!

Just hear those savings mounting; new business sprouting up too,
Come on it’s lovely weather for Xerox together with you.

Inside your costs are falling and colleagues are calling “Woo hoo!”
Come on it’s lovely weather for Xerox together with you.

MPS, MPS, MPS let’s go, come check out our show,
We’re driving towards sustainable status quo.

MPS, MPS, MPS it’s grand, we’ll be holding your hand,
Both gliding along with the song of a greener and better land.

Our goals are nice and simple and detailed and nimble are we,
You’ll save on prints and power and employee hours you’ll see.

We make your business greener and spending leaner it’s true,
Come on it’s lovely weather for Xerox together with you.

I’m Dreaming of a Green Business,
Xerox can help me this I know,
Cause their laptops glisten
As they come to listen
And sustain our green dreams as we go…

I’m Dreaming of a Green Business,
With every 10 page deck I type
Xerox helps us taper,
Landfill use and paper
To make us greener day and night…

Chorus:

I’m Dreaming of a Green Business
managed print services is that dream.
They save on output and machines
So that all our businesses are green.