XEROX - The Benchmarking Story

<< Previous

Reaping the Benefits Contd...

Overall customer satisfaction was rated at more than 90% in 1991. Some of the other benefits Xerox derived were: • Number of defects reduced by 78 per 100 machines. • Service response time reduced by 27%. • Inspection of incoming components reduced to below 5%. • Defects in incoming parts reduced to 150ppm. • Inventory costs reduced by two-thirds. • Marketing productivity increased by one-third. • Distribution productivity increased by 8-10 %. • Increased product reliability on account of 40% reduction in unscheduled maintenance. • Notable decrease in labour costs. • Errors in billing reduced from 8.3 % to 3.5% percent. • Became the leader in the high-volume copier-duplicator market segment. • Country units improved sales from 152% to 328%.

Xerox went on to become the only company worldwide to win all the three prestigious quality awards: the Deming Award (Japan) in 1980, the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award in 1989, and the European Quality Award in 1992. Xerox Business Services, the company's document outsourcing division, also won the Baldridge Award in the service category in 1997. In addition, over the years, Xerox won quality awards in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and Uruguay. Analysts attributed this success to the 'Leadership Through Quality' initiative, and, more significantly, to the adoption of benchmarking practices.

The success of benchmarking at Xerox motivated many companies to adopt benchmarking. By the mid-1990, hundreds of companies implemented benchmarking practices at their divisions across the world. These included leading companies like Ford, AT&T, IBM, GE, Motorola and Citicorp. During the 1990s, Xerox, along with companies such as Ford, AT&T, Motorola and IBM, created the International Benchmarking Clearinghouse (IBC) to promote benchmarking and guide companies across the world in benchmarking efforts.

Next >>