XEROX - The Benchmarking Story

In the early 1980s, Xerox found itself increasingly vulnerable to intense competition from both the US and Japanese competitors. According to analysts, Xerox's management failed to give the company strategic direction. It ignored new entrants (Ricoh, Canon, and Sevin) who were consolidating their positions in the lower-end market and in niche segments. The company's operating cost (and therefore, the prices of its products) was high and its products were of relatively inferior quality in comparison to its competitors. Xerox also suffered from its highly centralized decision-making processes. As a result of this, return on assets fell to less than 8% and marketshare in copiers came down sharply from 86% in 1974 to just 17% in 1984. Between 1980 and 1984, Xerox's profits decreased from $ 1.15 billion to $ 290 million (Refer Exhibit I).

In 1982, David T. Kearns (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. As a result, Japanese companies were able to undercut Xerox's prices effortlessly. Kearns quickly began emphasizing reduction of manufacturing costs and gave new thrust to quality control by launching a program that was popularly referred to as 'Leadership Through Quality.' As part of this quality program, Xerox implemented the benchmarking program. These initiatives played a major role in pulling Xerox out of trouble in the years to come. The company even went on to become one of the best examples of the successful implementation of benchmarking.