XEROX - The Benchmarking Story

<< Previous

Inventory Management Contd...

By the late 1980s, benchmarking had become a day-to-day activity in every division of the company. According to company sources, Xerox's guiding principle was, 'anything anyone can do better, we should aim to do at least equally well." In 1991, Xerox developed Business Excellence Certification (BEC) to integrate benchmarking with the company's overall strategies. This was also done to ensure continuous self-appraisal of the overall quality performance of the company. The key performance factors measured by BEC were management leadership, human resource management, customer focus, quality support and tools, process management and business priorities/results. These factors, which were further divided into forty sub-factors, had their specific measuring targets. Each unit's self-appraisal was validated by representatives from sister divisions. BEC helped Xerox determine the causes for the success or failure of a specific quality process and identify the key success factors or obstacles for achieving a specific quality goal. It also helped the company establish key functions for removing obstacles that prevented it from reaching the set quality goals.

By the mid-1990s, benchmarking was extended to over 240 key areas of product, service and business performance at Xerox. The initiatives were also adopted, at varying levels, at Xerox units across the world. The benchmarking process encouraged Xerox's employees to learn from every situation. This new philosophy was dubbed 'steal shamelessly,' though the company used only those ideas that the best practice companies willingly gave away. The salient rule at Xerox for benchmarking was to 'ask no question of another firm that you would be unwilling to answer about your own.' This change in attitude was just the beginning of the payoffs of the benchmarking moves.

Reaping the Benefits

The first major payoff of Xerox's focus on benchmarking and customer satisfaction was the increase in the number of satisfied customers. Highly satisfied customers for its copier/duplicator and printing systems increased by 38% and 39% respectively. Customer complaints to the president's office declined by more than 60%. Customer satisfaction with Xerox's sales processes improved by 40%, service processes by 18% and administrative processes by 21%. The financial performance of the company also improved considerably through the mid and late 1980s (Refer Exhibit IV).

Next >>