High Cost Xerox Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

High Cost Xerox - Essay Example According to Slatter, there are six major sources of cost disadvantage which can lead to a firm having to charge higher prices than its competitors.Let us analyze and apply the six factors illustrated by Slatter, to the Xerox corporation to get a better picture of the negative consequences of high over head costs: Due to staggering assets and international ventures that this long standing company had accumulated over the past few decades, Xerox's cash position had become tenuous. Its liquidity had deteriorated to the point where capital markets froze Xerox out. Cash is king in an economy in recession. like in 2000,and Xerox was crippled with assets without cash flow. High overhead costs piled up due management's obsession with expensive quality control measures during a fairly weak financial position. A perfect quality index while being admirable ,costs a lot of money. The trade-offs associated with 100% quality proved to be too large ,leading Xerox to increase its pricing scheme ,thus creating a negative competitive position. Some international and even local markets were not willing to pay the price for quality especially when Japanese low cost ,high quality products began invading the market. Xerox's biggest weakness proved to be its financial situation, and specifically the heavy debt and the low profitability. The organization was too large leading to huge over head costs.Unlike its competitors who were concentrating on more advanced and diversified technology, Xerox employees were living in the past inspite of Xerox's attempts at diversification.They still were focused on being a copier company rather than a profitable documentation company or a modern information technology company. This resulted in loss of direction .Like all giant companies, it was difficult for talented innovators and entrepreneurs to survive, and instead the mediocrity had taken over and threatened the company from the inside. The once thriving copier division was still too influential and vetoed other innovative projects .(Johan Olsson,january 1996). This made Xerox have weak credibility on the IT-business side lending it a less sophisticated image than its competition. 2. Absolute cost disadvantages which result from competitors controlling strategic variable not available to the firm itself: Let us take the example of the Japanese company Canon,which proved to be Xerox's biggest and cleverest opponent. As a late entrant in the copier market, Canon was forced to concentrate on niches where Xerox was weak. One of these was the low end, which Canon attacked with a series of progressively smaller machines, culminating, in 1982, with the launch of the personal copier. Copiers were notorious for breaking down, a propensity Xerox exploited by charging for service calls. Canon realized that to be successful, a personal copier would not only have to be cheap, it would also have to be virtually service free. Canon's revolutionary solution was to include all the key components - drum, charger,

Social Networking Sites for Communication Term Paper

Social Networking Sites for Communication - Term Paper Example Organisation culture explicitly defines an organization from others. The uniqueness of a culture contributes to the success of the organisation. They influence the mode of interaction, communication and the pursuit of the organisation goals. It forms the framework of evaluating organisation communication and the avenue for embracing individual and collective actions in the organisation. Organisation culture has a direct link with organisation communication. The way an individual communicates with others in an organisation influence the organisation's culture. It becomes more important when employees and managers need to communicate on the organization's culture. A clear understanding of the role of communication in organisational culture helps one to maximize his skills and hence the attainment of the organization’s goals (Champoux, 2010). Social networking sites are an example of communications that can effectively relay information. Organisation cultures equally adapt genera l characteristics that aid in the running of an organisation. The organisation culture characteristics directly affect the performance of stakeholders and thus the productivity of an organisation (Towers, 2006). Productivity is the act of utilizing the available resources to generate significant outcomes. Productivity aims at maximum profits and depends on factors like motivation, participation, and training. Communication plays a very significant role in an organisation. This paper will address will analyze how social networking sites help employers to communicate organisation cultures to the employees. The paper will also discuss four organisational culture characteristics that may motivate or de-motivate an employee’s productivity. The organisation culture characteristics definition depends on many aspects. From a communicative point of view, this paper will define four distinct characteristics of organisation culture. They include dynamic, competing assumptions and values, inextricable link, and foreground and background for an organ ization’s communication. The social networking sites that may help in communicating these characteristics include Face book, twitter, yahoo, and blogs. There must be an inextricable link between an organisation culture and the organizations’ members. One individual does not create an organisations culture. Everybody who symbolically, physically or even socially participates in the activities of an organisation has a significant impact in the creation, development, reaction, and maintenance of its culture. Hence, every individual must be part of the culture. The coded languages and procedures used in a company is a culture that passes conveniently to new employees who have a chance of improving or altering it. Therefore, an organisations culture incorporates new and old employees. Hence, the culture cannot exist in isolation with the organisation members who created and maintains it. Therefore, all employees own the culture and will thus be motivated to perform as it di rects. This helps in attaining the organisations goals as well as improving productivity. According to Trice and Beyer, an organisation culture is dynamic and not static (Keyton, 2010). This is so because an organisational cu