Xerox Corporation is an American global corporation that sells business services and document technology products. In the early 1980s, Xerox found itself increasingly vulnerable to intense competition from US and Japanese competitors. According to business analysts, Xerox's management failed to give strategic direction to the company. Xerox also suffered from its highly centralized decision-making processes. It ignored new entrants such as Canon, Ricoh, and Sevin who were consolidating their positions in niche market segments. The company's operating cost and prices of its products were high and quality was relatively poor in comparison to competitors. Between 1980 and 1984, Xerox's profits decreased from $1.15 billion to $290 million. In 1982, David T. Kearns took over as the CEO. He discovered that the average manufacturing cost of copiers in Japanese companies was 40-50% of that of Xerox. Kearns emphasized on the reduction of manufacturing costs and as part of quality programme, introduced a benchmarking programme, 'Leadership Through Quality', to revitalize the company. Xerox collected data on key processes of the best practice companies and analysed them to identify and improve opportunities. These initiatives played a major role in pulling Xerox out of trouble in a few years. The company became one of the best examples of successful implementation of benchmarking. Similarly, Xerox also benchmarked other processes with various best practice companies. These included DuPont (for manufacturing safety); Fuji Xerox (for manufacturing operations); Toyota (for quality management); Hewlett-Packard (for research and product development); American Express (for billing and collection); Cummins Engines, and Ford (for factory layout); Florida Power and Light (for quality improvement); and Honda (for supplier development).

Requirement 

1)Discuss what was the issue faced by the Xerox company with a brief introduction of the company.

2)Discuss what were the results of benchmarking after the company instituted the benchmarking process. 

3)How did the success of benchmarking at Xerox affect other companies?